The Alaska Legislature is currently considering a bill that would join Alaska in an interstate compact changing the way the United States President is elected. I have serious concerns about its true, negative, effects. The bill's supporters promote the change as a way to ensure that "the person with the most votes wins." I have participated in two hearings on Senate Bill 39 in the Senate State Affairs committee, and have researched the issue extensively. Again, I have serious concerns about the negative effects of this legislation on Alaska.
The Founding Fathers recognized the imbalance of power between large urban areas and small, more rural areas. They saw the concentration of power and special interests that occurs in large cities, which ignored the concerns of citizens living in smaller towns and communities. The Founders envisioned the Electoral College System which distributes power and influence, with fairness, to all Americans, regardless of where they live.
In the National Popular Vote, states would choose to join a compact agreement with other states. Under this plan, presidential votes from these compacted states would be pooled together. Alaska's 350,000 votes for President could be pooled with California's 13.7 million votes and the votes from Hawaii (456,000), Illinois (5.6 million), Maryland (2.6 million), New Jersey (4 million), Washington (3 million), Vermont (327,000) and Massachusetts (3.1 million). The top vote-getter from this "pool" would be given all the Electoral votes from all the compacted states.
So, that means ... Alaskans' majority vote for president, out of our 350,000 votes, might be for Candidate A but California and the other compacted states might give a majority of their combined 32.8 million votes for Candidate B ... and Alaska will be required to give its 3 electoral votes to Candidate B. Alaska's citizens' voices would be completely drowned out by the other 32.8 million voters in the other eight states ... and those are just the ones that have signed on to the compact contract so far!
This just doesn't make sense to me. With only about 350,000 registered voters, why would a candidate choose to come to Alaska, over spending time and money in California, New York, Ohio, Florida, Illinois or other high population states, where the media markets are huge and a dollar can get a lot more votes.
The Electoral College has functioned as the Founders intended by preserving our Republic of independent, unique states, compelling presidents to form inclusive and diverse coalitions of voter support, and offering stability and certainty when election results occur. However, National Popular Vote creates factionalism, marginalization of minorities, and centralized power of the government.
As President John F. Kennedy said, in support of the Electoral College, "It is not only the unit vote for the Presidency we are talking about, but a whole solar system of governmental power. If it is proposed to change the balance of power of one of the elements of the solar system, it is necessary to consider all the others."
This popular vote compact will happen when enough states agree to join the compact totaling more than 270 Electoral College votes. At this point, eight states have joined equaling 131 Electoral College votes.
SB 39 is in the Senate finance committee now. I expect SB 39 to come to the Senate floor for a vote. When that happens, I will be defending Alaska's sovereignty. I will be defending the voice of Alaskans to be heard in Presidential elections through our three Electoral College votes. I will have to be a "no" vote on SB 39.
Sen. Cathy Giessel, a Republican, represents District P in the state Senate.
Comments (14)
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I also urge that this bill goes into the shredder as soon as possible. McClain won over 80% of the area in the country but Obama got the majority of the slums in big cities and won the election! It would only make it easier for someone to purchase the Presidency and then hold onto your pockets since someone will be in their grabbing your wallets!
Current System Clearly is Not Fair - Alaska IS Ignored
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The National Popular Vote bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded by states in the Electoral College, instead of the current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states). It assures that every vote is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ Electoral College votes from the enacting states. That majority of Electoral College votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate.
And votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning candidates in a state are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.
Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, Including Alaska, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country, and candidates would have to care about issues of concern beyond the voters in the handful of current battleground states.
In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives already agree that, at most, only 12 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-take-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. Alaska will be ignored. At most, 12 states will determine the election. Candidates will not care about at least 76% of the voters-- voters in 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and in 16 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning could be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. In 2008, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). Candidates have no reason to poll, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states, like Alaska, where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. More than 85 million voters have been just spectators to the general election, like Alaska.
Now, policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states - that include 9 of the original 13 states - are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing, too.
The number and population of battleground states is shrinking as the U.S. population grows.
The Electoral College system clearly does NOT distribute power and influence, with fairness, to all Americans, regardless of where they live, now.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling 18 battleground states.”
Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that more than 2/3rds of Americans are ignored in presidential campaigns, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
National Popular Vote Empowers States to Be Relevant
With the Electoral College, and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interest within the confines of the Constitution. The National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change by the states, precipitated by the emergence of political parties and the enactment by most states of winner-take-all statutes.
The Electoral College has NOT functioned as the Founders intended. There is unanimous agreement among historians that the Founding Fathers intended and expected that the Electoral College would operate as a deliberative body. Now the Electoral College is dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps. The systems does NOT distribute power and influence, with fairness, to all Americans, regardless of where they live. Presidential candidates don't care about more than 2/3rds of the states and voters, including Alaska, BECAUSE of where they live. We end up viewing America and Americans as a distorted and divisive red and blue state map. Minority voters within states are worthless.
A candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation's 56 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008). A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. That's stability and certainty?
In terms of electing the President, state control is precisely what the Founding Fathers intended, and it is precisely what the U.S. Constitution specifies. The Founding Fathers created an open-ended system with built-in flexibility concerning the manner of electing the President.
States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote). Power is not centralized.
With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a representative democracy, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
70% of Alaska Voters Support a National Popular Vote
A survey of Alaska voters conducted in 2010 showed 70% overall support for the idea that the President of the United States should be the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. Voters were asked "How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current electoral college system?"
By political affiliation, support for a national popular vote was 66% among Republicans, 78% among Democrats, 70% among Nonpartisan voters, 82% among Alaska Independent Party voters, and 69% among others.
By gender, support was 78% among women and 60% among men.
In state polls with a second question that specifically emphasized that their state's electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states, not necessarily their state's winner, there was only a 4-8% decrease of support.
"Do you think it more important that a state's electoral votes be cast for the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state, or is it more important to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states becomes president?"
Support for a National Popular Vote
South Dakota -- 75% for Question 1, 67% for Question 2.
see http://tinyurl.com/3jdkx7x
Utah -- 70% for Question 1, 66% for Question 2.
see http://tinyurl.com/3vrfxyh
Most Americans don't care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state. . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it's wrong for the candidate with the most popular votes to lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
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Compromise
I agree every election should at least reflect the popular vote, but I also agree states need to be balanced.
A good compromise I propose is to also reduce the supermajority of 3/5ths required for the senate to call for cloture. Drop 5 from 60 and go to 55. Right now, states' senators in both parties are frustrated because the filibuster ending supermajority is so elusive. A number of 55 would make overcoming time-wasting filibusters a bit easier, which might be dangerous, but it would also encourage more useful debate because of how easy it would be for opinion to sway back the other way.
I understand how people in minority senate parties would be worried by a smaller cloture number, but if the legislation looks like a sure thing anyways, why waste hours worth taxpayer money and time to fight the inevitable? If anything, getting through the vote fast means being able to start on modifying it that much faster.
The supermajority of 60 should stay in place for non-cloture actions of course.
Senator Giessel does NOT understand the bill
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The "pool" is every vote in all 50 states and DC, NOT just the votes of states that join the compact.
More to the story
I always thought the Electoral College was founded because instituting the popular vote would take forever since communication was so slow. Seems stupid really, but this opinion article had me reading further and although that was a concern there were many options to choose from before this method was used... this is a good, quick read...http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf
I never went to college, but,
I never went to college, but, it does appear that this Chosen One will accomplish exactly what i said he would on Day 1 when he failed his swearing in oath with his hand on Thomas Jefferson's Quran, then he had a redo the next day with out his hand even on the Quran.
From Day 1 i said that OUR President would bring America into a Civil War, or Revolution of some sort for the purpose of declaring Martial Law.
Martial Law so he could do away with the Constitution of America in order to INSLAVE us in the OWO. Remember the OWO which he was proclaimed as the ONE that would finally usher us into this New OWO.
Ya don't have to be real smart to see the writting on the wall some times, which helped me declare that America would never see a 2012 Prez. Free election, all due to this ONES Dreams. Any Day now the American Spring will erupt all over OUR Nation for that exact purpose of stealing OUR Soverign Rights.
Look at the bright side of this, we won't have to worry about some college votes as they won't matter any more or be allowed or needed by the OWO Ruler.
Revelation 13; anyone?
bigger problem
A pre-voting test should be given to see if that person is even smart enough to vote. If you can even name the current vice president in my opinion your to stupid to vote. It always comes down to the candidate who has the most money and spends the most on TV... Moving to a popular vote will only target large voting groups who are promised the most. Citizenship for a vote, example... just my opinion....
Liberty lost
A famous quote... "and this is how liberty dies; with thunderous applause".
Written by George Lucas for the Star Wars Episode III movie, which depicts the downfall of a republic government into a dictatorship.
Your film as literature assignment for the week... go watch Episodes I, II, & III and see the likeness to our current national government system and those who are trying to use war and social division to push out a representative government in favor of a dictatorship.
Voting & the Electoral College;
I remember a few years back that Hillary Clinton wanted to do away with the Electorial college so that it would only take the popular count in as few as 5 states to win the election;
The Electoral College is not perfect, but without it, Alaska would have no vote at all. I still think that the old timers were a whole lot smarter than the Politicians of today; Paul
I agree we need the current system in place!
Folks, If we went to a simply majority of the votes cast to be elected President than Alaska wouldn't see anyone care about them at all! Why spend any effort here for less than a 159,000 votes when you can put all of your efforts into the states with the big populations and make a bunch of even wilder assed promises to get the votes of minorities, union members and those way too stupid to know how the system works. Obama won the last time when he only got the votes of 20% of the area of this country since he carried the ghetto's in the big cities due to them thinking he was going to at least double their welfare checks. What is really needed is a ranked choice system!
One person + one vote = democracy
The state of Alaska has NEVER decided who the President will be with its three electorial votes. Neither system gives Alaskans the power and authority to exercise significant influence over our presidential choice. As much as we want to control our destiny, we must face the facts and recognize that Alaskans are a tiny minority in a large nation.
We exercise huge influence in the US Senate, where we have two votes just like California and all the rest of the large states. We have no right to expect more and should focus on the best way to achieve our goals with the true advantages that we have.
There is no compelling reason to keep the existing Electorial College system. Alaskans would lose nothing by going to a system of a direct democratic election. However, that decision will not be made by exclusively by Alaskans in either case.
I also don't believe that system that Sen. Giessel described is accurate. I hope that she makes an informed decision based on the true facts. That's why we elect people to represent us, although as most of you know, that's not always the case.
"One person equals one vote"
"One person equals one vote" is a simplistic concept that hinges on the premise that we are all subservient to one centralized government. Under such a system, then yes, each vote should be equal. But we're a republic, consisting of sovereign states that only unite politically for certain issues (such as national defense). So we come together as states to be represented in Congress, not individuals.
It is correct, that a small population such as Alaska should not have greater relative influence than a large population like California in matters that affect the whole nation. But neither should a large population like California be dictating politics for every small population as far-flung as Alaska just because there are a lot of them. Each state should be deciding for itself how to manage health care, resources, and immigration. It makes no sense to paint the whole country with one sweeping brush of uniform legislation and ignore the diversity of needs. Alaskans needs to cling to whatever system best preserves their interests, if those issues are going to go up for the whole nation to decide.
A better question to ask than "Should we switch from the electoral college to a national popular vote?" would be, "Why are we centralizing legislation that shouldn't occur at the national level anyway?" I say let Californians have 100% of the votes - on things that affect California. And let Alaskans vote on their own issues.
All this said...
What we DO need to do is all come together and vote idiot obama OUT of office.
nuff said...