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The Daily Signal
Maine and Nevada Show Why the Electoral College Helps Small States, Not Red States
By Hans von Spakovsky and Laura Williamson
July 19, 2019
Last month, both Maine and Nevada did what was in the best interests of
their states: They rejected bills that would have enrolled their states
in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an unwise effort to
override the Electoral College.
In Maine, it was killed by legislators in the state House after it
passed Maine’s Senate. In Nevada, Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak vetoed
the bill that had been passed by members of his own party in the
Legislature.
The National Popular Vote compact, which is an agreement between
states, requires a participating state to award all of its electoral
votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes across
the nation, not to the candidate who actually won the vote in that
state.
In other words, states are agreeing to ignore what the majority of
voters in their state decides when it comes to who they believe should
be president.
This interstate compact has been sold to state governments as a means
to abolish what supporters wrongly claim is the “outmoded, undemocratic
Electoral College.”
What is “undemocratic” is an agreement that means that even if every
single voter in a state voted against a presidential candidate who won
the national popular vote, the state would still have to give all its
electoral votes to that candidate.
The National Popular Vote effort was started by a frustrated Al Gore
elector after the 2000 election, and the progressive left has poured
huge amounts of money and resources into lobbying states to adopt the
plan. After Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, the compact gathered even
more steam.
Sixteen states have now passed laws to enter this compact, representing
196 of the 270 electoral votes the compact would need to constitute a
majority in the Electoral College and trigger its
implementation.
Nonetheless, Maine and Nevada are among at least seven states to have
rejected the compact. When Nevada’s governor vetoed the compact, he
correctly warned that it would “diminish the role of smaller states
like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada’s electors
to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the
candidate Nevadans choose.”
Those fears are right on target, and are in fact one of the main
reasons the Framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College.
They feared that under a national popular vote system, presidential
candidates would just campaign in the big cities and urban areas,
ignoring the less populated, more rural parts of the country.
Thus, they implemented a system where the president is not elected by a
direct vote but by electoral votes made on behalf of the states. Each
state, no matter how small its population, has at least three electoral
votes, since the number of votes the state has is based on how many
senators and representatives that state has in Congress.
States with larger populations still have an advantage because they
have more representatives in the House. However, under the new compact,
the votes of the smaller states would be completely dwarfed by cities
and states with larger populations.
Under the Electoral College system, although smaller states do not have
as much influence as places like California, New York, or Texas, their
votes still matter because their (at minimum) three electoral votes
guarantee at least some representation of their state’s collective will
out of the 538 total votes.
The nine most populous states contain 51% of America’s population.
Under the National Popular Vote compact, a candidate could spend her
entire campaign in big cities in California, Texas, Florida, and New
York in order to win the election. States like Maine and Nevada
wouldn’t even make the list of campaign stops.
Something that so clearly disenfranchises the interests of the other 41
states ought to inspire concern across the political spectrum.
In Maine, after the compact was voted down by a bipartisan legislative
coalition, the Free Maine Campaign, founded by former state Sen. Eric
Brakey, stated, “This isn’t about Republican versus Democrat. This
about whether we #SaveMainesVoice or give our voting power to big
cities like NYC and Chicago.”
They’re right.
The Framers wanted a presidential candidate to win a series of regional
elections so they would represent the diverse interests of different
parts of the country.
In 2017, Yahoo Finance did an analysis of each state based on their largest industries.
Maine’s primary industries are hospitals as well as nursing and
residential care facilities. Nevada’s primary industry is accommodation
(tourism). California’s largest industries are computers and
electronics manufacturing.
It is plainly obvious that, even from a purely economic perspective, these states have vastly different interests.
Under the National Popular Vote compact, the voices of states with
smaller populations (like Maine and Nevada) would be quickly drowned
out by states with larger populations (like California and New York).
This would create what Alexis de Tocqueville warned against when he
spoke of the potential for democracy to lead to a “tyranny of the
majority.” It was for this reason that the Founding Fathers did not
establish a pure democracy.
The National Popular Vote compact is unfair and is, in fact,
antithetical to representative democracy. For a small state like Maine
or Nevada to pass this compact is self-destructive—and it also
potentially thwarts the votes of residents of larger states as well.
Article II of the Constitution prescribes the Electoral College as the
method by which the president is chosen. The National Popular Vote
compact is an underhanded attempt to get rid of the Electoral College
without going through the formal process of amending the Constitution.
The compact’s backers even claim they can ignore the compact clause of
the Constitution that, under Supreme Court precedent, requires this
type of interstate compact to be approved by Congress.
Under the compact, smaller states like Maine and Nevada would suffer
the most under the inevitable tyranny of the most populous states.
The lawmakers who blocked the compact from passing in Maine and Nevada
should be applauded for standing up for true representative government.
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