Washington Legislature Sends National Popular Vote Bill to Governor

The Washington House of Representatives has passed the National Popular Vote bill, thereby sending the bill to Governor Chris Gregoire's desk. As of today, a total of 26 state legislative chambers in 16 states have passed the bill.

If the Governor signs the bill, Washington would become the fifth state to enact the National Popular Vote bill. Washington's 11 electoral votes would then be added to those of Hawaii (4 electoral votes), Illinois (21), New Jersey (15), and Maryland (10), giving the bill 23% of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring it into effect (61 of 270).

The Governor has 5 days to sign the bill, after she receives the official copy from the Legislature.

Please Write Your State Legislators Asking Them to Support the National Popular Vote Bill

One of the most important things you can do to support the National Popular Vote bill is to write your state legislators and state officials asking them to support the bill. You can quickly and easily send a e-mail to your state legislators by going to www.NationalPopularVote.com/write. Our system will provide a suggested letter, which you can edit. Thank you very much for considering this important action step to support the National Popular Vote bill.

Background

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 National Popular Vote bill has now passed 26 state legislative chambers in 16 states, including Arkansas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. A map on our web site shows the progress of the bill in each state.

Under the National Popular Vote bill, all the electoral votes from all the states that have enacted the bill would be awarded, as a bloc, to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by states possessing 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect. The four states are Hawaii (4 electoral votes), Illinois (21), Maryland (10), and New Jersey (15).

The shortcomings of the current system are caused by the winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each separate state).

Under the current system of electing the President, two thirds of the states are ignored by the presidential campaign; a second-place candidate can win the Presidency; turnout is depressed in the spectator states; and every vote is not equal.

Because of the winner-take-all rule, presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to voter concerns in states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of closely divided "battleground" states. According to data just released by FairVote (the electoral research group), 98% of the campaign events between the 2008 Republican National Convention and election day involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided "battleground" states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in the same 15 "battleground" states. This means that two thirds of the states were ignored by the presidential campaigns in 2008. The same was true in 2004 when candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.

Another shortcoming of the current system caused by the winner-take-all rule is that a candidate can win the Presidency without receiving the most popular votes nationwide. There have been four "wrong winner" elections out of the nation's 56 presidential elections. This is a failure rate of 1 in 14. But because half of American presidential elections are landslides (i.e., a margin of greater than 10% between the first- and second-place candidates), the failure rate is actually 1 in 7 among the non-landslide elections. Given that we are currently in an era of non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008), it is not surprising that we have already had one "wrong winner" election in this recent string of six close elections. Moreover, a shift of a handful of votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in five of the last 12 presidential elections. A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have elected Kerry, even though President Bush was ahead by 3,500,000 votes nationwide.

Voter turnout in the "battleground" states was 67%, while turnout in the "spectator" states was 61%.

The U.S. Constitution gives the states exclusive and plenary control over the manner of awarding 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 congressional district — a reminder that a federal constitutional amendment is not required to change the way the President is elected.

The bill has been introduced in 48 states legislatures. The bill is currently endorsed by 1,246 state legislators — 460 sponsors and an additional 786 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

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

The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former congressmen John Anderson (R–Illinois and later independent presidential candidate), John Buchanan (R–Alabama), 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 (available for reading or downloading for free at our web site).