Why the National Popular Vote is critical to Democrats winning the White House

Democrats should be very concerned about the power of Republican-controlled battleground states to determine who becomes president.

Having seen the loser of the popular vote win the White House in two of the last five elections, the inequity of the current winner-take-all system of assigning states’ electoral votes is obvious. But winner-take-all does a disservice even when it “works,” that is, when the Electoral College winner is also the candidate for whom the most ballots were cast.

Winner-takes-all concentrates voter power in battleground states.

Because of winner-take-all, Presidential candidates put all their attention on a dozen battleground states[i] where the national race is competitive. Whether you look at ad spending, the number of campaign events, or more importantly the topics candidates discuss, it’s pretty obvious that safe states—be they Democratic or Republican—are mere spectators in the general election.

According to National Popular Vote, of nearly 400 general election campaign events in last year’s election, 94 percent were held in the battleground states. Only one was held in Connecticut (where I live) and, not coincidentally, where the Democratic presidential candidate has won every election in the past quarter century.

It doesn’t make sense that in the world’s greatest democracy the power of our vote depends on where we live. It makes no sense that because of winner-take-all approximately 70 percent of the nation effectively has no say in selecting the leader of our country.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a simple solution to elect the President according to the will of the majority in a manner consistent with the Constitution. States that join the Compact pledge to vote all of their electors for the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. The Compact comes into force once it has been adopted by states that collectively have 270 electoral votes, the number needed to elect the President.

To date, 10 states and the District of Colombia have joined the Compact, representing 165, or 61 percent, of the 270 electoral votes needed for the Compact to take effect.

Electing the candidate who gets the most votes is the way our democracy should work. But the Compact is also a strategic imperative if Democrats hope to win back the White House in 2020.

Two of the three elections lost by Democrats since 2000 resulted from winner-take-all Electoral College outcomes that went against the popular vote. With Republican-led voter suppression efforts in a majority of battleground states that could have exceeded margins of victory but for court intervention, and a Department of Justice that will no longer challenge laws that disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters, the political viability of Democratic presidential candidates is threatened.

Since Shelby v. Holder, the GOP has relentlessly suppressed Democrats’ votes.

Freed of federal oversight after Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013, GOP-controlled state houses have engaged in a concerted effort to make voting more difficult. The impact disproportionately affects Democratic-leaning voters. As the Washington Post noted, “Unsurprisingly, these strict ID laws are passed almost exclusively by Republican legislatures.”

A recent study from researchers at the UC San Diego analyzed votes after the implementation of voter laws in multiple elections and found that unnecessarily strict vote ID laws significantly suppressed minority, Democratic and liberal voters.

Specifically, the study found “that strict photo identification laws have a differentially negative impact on the turnout of Hispanics, Blacks, and mixed-race Americans in primaries and general elections.”

“Democratic turnout drops by an estimated 7.7 percentage points in general elections when strict photo identification laws are in place. By comparison, the predicted drop for Republicans is only 4.6 points. The skew for political ideology is even more severe. For strong liberals the estimated drop in turnout in strict photo identification states is an alarming 10.7 percentage points. By contrast, the drop for strong conservatives is estimated to be only 2.8 points.”

Since 2014 there have been Republican-led voter suppression efforts in eight of the 12 battleground states—the very sames states that have outsized influence on determining who wins the presidency. In some of these states, estimates of the number of disenfranchised, Democratic-leaning, voters numbered in the hundreds of thousands—substantially more than Trump’s margin of victory.

In Pennsylvania a judge found their voter ID law disenfranchised “hundreds of thousands.”Trump won Pennsylvania by just 44,000 votes.

Wisconsin’s voter ID law was estimated to affect 300,000 voters. During the 2016 campaign U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI) told a local TV reporter the ID law would help Trump win Wisconsin, saying“now we have photo id and I think photo id will make a little bit of a difference as well.”Trump took the state by just 23,000 votes.

Florida is just one of three states that permanently disenfranchises anyone with a felony conviction. Roughly 1.5 million Florida residents are ineligible to vote because of the law that white lawmakers designed after the Civil War to dilute the voting power of freed slaves. Trump took Florida by 113,000 votes.

Republican-led voter suppression will continue, now without DOJ in the way.

In the past many of the disenfranchising tactics employed by the Republican party were blocked or overturned by state and federal courts. But even in states where courts intervened, their efforts sometimes succeeded. Wisconsin failed to adequately retrain DMV workers, preventing an untold number of people from securing a voter ID. In 2016 Wisconsin’s voter turnout was at its lowest level in two decades.

The U.S. Department of Justice under President Obama was an active defender of voting rights, but no longer. Led by Jeff Sessions, DOJ has already backed away from litigating Republican voter suppression laws. On April 10 a federal judge granted DOJ’s request to withdraw after years of arguing that a Texas voter ID law was enacted with unconstitutional discriminatory intent. The Brennan Center for Justice noted that DOJ began the process of abandoning minority voters on Inauguration Day. Sound like a coincidence?

During Senator Sessions confirmation hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) noted, “Senator Sessions’ record reflects a hostility and antipathy, downright opposition to civil rights and voting rights…” As for the power of the GOP to continue suppressing Democratic-leaning votes, it controls both chambers of the legislature and the governorship in seven of the 12 battleground states.

Where does the NPV Compact stand in Connecticut?

Progressive activists in Connecticut, led by National Popular Vote CT (NPVct), are mobilizing the grassroots across the state to join the Compact by passing H.B. 5434 in the CT General Assembly. The bill was voted out of the General Adminstration and Elections (GAE) committee on a straight party line vote with every Democrat voting “yes” and every Republican voting “no.” Because Democrats have lost Assembly seats in every election over the past decade, this session may be the last, best chance at having Connecticut join the Compact.

To get House leadership to bring the bill to the floor for a vote they must be certain that every single Democrat in the House and the Senate will vote for it. There is no margin for error because Republican votes cannot be counted on; only one Republican of 90 has announced support for the Compact.

NPVct is organizing local constituent meetings with legislators to ensure every Democrat is on board. To date 56 of the 97 Democratic lawmakers have co-sponsored the bill, a higher proportion than ever before.

Republicans have made NPV a partisan issue, not Democrats.

Historically, Republicans have supported the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. In past years, Republican members of the GAE Committee joined Democrats in voting NPV bills out of committee.

In 2014 Newt Gringrich wrote, “America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this.”

But as the extreme right has taken control of the Republican party, it has begun a partisan assault on the concept of making every vote matter. Without a shred of evidence, the 2016 Republican Party platform claimed the Compact “would be a grave threat to our federal system and a guarantee of corruption, as every ballot box in every state would offer a chance to steal the presidency.” 

Eyes are on Connecticut to advance the National Popular Vote.

During a Connecticut statewide planning call the president of National Popular Vote, Barry Fadem, told activists, “You are our best shot at enacting the Compact this year. In 2005 when we started the project our motto and rallying cry was 'the road to 270.' Today it’s the ‘road to 105’ and that road starts in CT.”

LegitAction, the organization just launched by former Senator Russ Feingold, a leading champion of campaign finance reform, issued a statement supporting Connecticut’s grassroots effort. Feingold wrote, “The stage is set for Connecticut to help lead the national effort to restore our democratic legitimacy.  Connecticut could be the first state to enact the Compact in response to the 2016 election and take a firm stand that never again will the American people be silenced by a President they did not choose.”

The battle to make every vote matter depends on grassroots advocacy. If you’re interested in helping Connecticut and other states join the NPV Compact, please contact me at npv.ct@icloud.com.