Rhode Island House and California Assembly Pass National Popular Vote Bill

The Rhode Island House has become the 19th state legislative chamber in the U.S. to approve the National Popular Vote bill. The bill now goes to Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri.

Also, the California Assembly approved the National Popular Vote bill on June 30. The bill now returns to the State Senate (which passed the bill in 2007) for a technical amendment. The legislative session in California ends in August.

The 19 state legislative chambers that have approved the bill include one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Vermont. A map on our web site shows the progress of the bill in each state.

The National Popular Vote bill has been signed into law in Maryland (with 10 electoral votes), New Jersey (15 electoral votes), and Illinois (21 electoral votes). This total of 46 electoral votes is 19% of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring the legislation into effect.

Background Information

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia).

The shortcomings of the current system stem from the winner-take-all rule that awards all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state.

Under the winner-take-all rule, candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to the concerns of states where they are safely ahead or hopeless behind. Candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of closely divided "battleground" states. This means that voters in two thirds of the states are ignored in presidential elections. In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in just five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in just 16 states.

The Cook Political Report recently released its list of 13 battleground states for 2008, including 7 closely divided states (New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida) and 6 "Republican leaning" states (Missouri and Colorado), and 4 Democratically-leaning states (Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania).

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 votes would have elected Kerry in 2004, even though President Bush was ahead by 3,500,000 votes nationwide.

The U.S. Constitution gives the states exclusive and plenary control over the manner of awarding of their electoral votes. The winner-take-all rule is not in the Constitution. It was not the Founder’s choice (having been used by only three states in the nation’s first presidential election). Maine and Nebraska currently award electoral votes by district—a reminder that a federal constitutional amendment is not required to change the way the President is elected.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill is enacted in a group of states possessing 270 or more electoral votes, all of the electoral votes from those states would be awarded, as a bloc, to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The bill has been endorsed by the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and Sacramento Bee, Common Cause and Fair Vote.

70% of the public has long supported nationwide election of the president.

The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former congressmen John Anderson (R–Illinois and later independent presidential candidate), John Buchanan (R–Alabama—the first Republican elected to represent Birmingham), Tom Campbell (R–California), and Tom Downey (D–New York), and former Senators Birch Bayh (D–Indiana), David Durenberger (R–Minnesota), and Jake Garn (R–Utah).

Additional information is available in the book Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote (which may be read or downloaded for free at our web site, or purchased at Amazon).