Empowering Voters - Defending Democracy
PopularVote
National Popular Vote
Taking Action: National Popular Vote
Direct Election of the President and Vice-President
Americans elect all officials, from mayors to governors and state legislators to U.S. senators, via popular vote, except two—the President and Vice President of the United States.
The LWVCO believes it is time electors are awarded based on the majority of Americans who agree on the person who should lead the nation. Acting in concert with the electoral system, we are working to educate the public and legislators about the benefits of legislation that would instruct our electors to vote for the Presidential candidate who captures the most votes in all 50 states. The League of Women Voters has supported direct election of the president since 1970, believing that popular vote is essential to representative government.
[See also LWVUS position on National Popular Vote; LWVUS Impact on Issues, 2018 – 2020, pp 28. Selection of the President.]
“Winner-Take-All” Practice
The main issue with Presidential elections today is the “winner-take-all” practice, in which the person who wins the most votes in a state gains all of the electoral votes for that state. This system does not appear in the Constitution.
“Winner-take-all” has created so-called “battleground states” or “swing states” that are neither reliably Republican nor Democrat. The voters in these 12 or so states, representing a small percentage of Americans, determine the selection of President. Voters in the remaining states are ignored by candidates who realize their state’s winner- take-all electors are not going to be swayed by presidential campaigns.
The Constitution and the Electoral College
Fortunately, the Constitution contains the means by which the winner-take-all system can be replaced to ensure the votes of ALL Americans count. States are granted exclusive control by the Constitution over national elections and can chose ANY method of instructing their electors how to vote.
• Maine and Nebraska currently award electoral votes by congressional district—a reminder that the method of awarding electoral votes is a state decision.
• Winner-take-all statutes may be repealed in the same way they were enacted—namely, through each state’s process for enacting and repealing state laws.
• No Constitutional amendment is required for a state to change their method of instructing electors—just state legislation.
State action is the right way to change the method of awarding electoral votes because this is the mechanism that is built into the U.S. Constitution (section 1 of Article II). The wording “as the Legislature … may direct” permits the states to exercise their power to choose the manner of appointing their presidential electors in any way they see fit.
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among states to award their electors based on whoever gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC. It will take effect only when enough states have signed on to the compact to represent more than half of the electoral votes.
A growing number of states are now passing state legislation to instruct their electors to vote for the person who wins the national popular vote. National popular vote state laws provide the only system that:
• Works within the Constitutional framework established by the Founders.
• Does NOT require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
• Makes every vote, in every state, count equally
• Guarantees the candidate with the majority of popular votes nationwide wins the presidency, thus reducing cynicism
• Ensures that candidates campaign to every voter no matter where they live
• Honors the will of the American People as a whole
The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by 16 jurisdictions possessing 196 electoral votes. That is, over two thirds of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the national popular vote have been secured. More information can be found on the National Popular Vote website.
Colorado joined the interstate compact in 2019 by passage of SB19-042, which the Governor has signed into law. http://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb19-042
The law will pool Colorado’s voters with all of America, so that all Colorado votes will be in the total count to determine the electors for President and Vice-President, not just in electing only the small number of presidential electors (9) to which Colorado is entitled.
Information specific to Colorado can be found on the following link;
Every Vote Equal
