The Popular Vote vs. the Electoral College | 5 Minute Video

Right now, there's a well-organized, below-the-radar effort to render the Electoral College effectively useless. It's called the National Popular Vote, and it would turn our presidential elections into a majority-rule affair. Would this be good or bad? Author, lawyer, and Electoral College expert Tara Ross explains.

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Script:

In every presidential election, only one question matters: which candidate will get the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College?

Our Founders so deeply feared a tyranny of the majority that they rejected the idea of a direct vote for President. That's why they created the Electoral College. For more than two centuries it has encouraged coalition building, given a voice to both big and small states, and discouraged voter fraud.

Unfortunately, there is now a well-financed, below-the-radar effort to do away with the Electoral College. It is called National Popular Vote or NPV, and it wants to do exactly what the Founders rejected: award the job of President to the person who gets the most votes nationally.

Even if you agree with this goal, it's hard to agree with their method. Rather than amend the Constitution, which they have no chance of doing, NPV plans an end run around it.

Here's what NPV does: it asks states to sign a contract to give their presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the state's popular vote.

What does that mean in practice? It means that if NPV had been in place in 2004, for example, when George W. Bush won the national vote, California's electoral votes would have gone to Bush, even though John Kerry won that state by 1.2 million votes!

Can you imagine strongly Democratic California calmly awarding its electors to a Republican?

Another problem with NPV's plan is that it robs states of their sovereignty. A key benefit of the Electoral College system is that it decentralizes control over the election. Currently, a presidential election is really 51 separate elections: one in each state and one in D.C.

These 51 separate processes exist, side-by-side, in harmony. They do not -- and cannot -- interfere with each other.

California's election code applies only to California and determines that state's electors. So a vote cast in Texas can never change the identity of a California elector.

NPV would disrupt this careful balance. It would force all voters into one national election pool. Thus, a vote cast in Texas will always affect the outcome in California. And the existence of a different election code in Texas always has the potential to unfairly affect a voter in California.

Why?

Because state election codes can differ drastically. States have different rules about early voting, registering to vote, and qualifying for the ballot. They have different policies regarding felon voting. They have different triggers for recounts.

Each and every one of these differences is an opportunity for someone, somewhere to file a lawsuit claiming unfair treatment.

Why should a voter in New York get more or less time to early vote than a voter in Florida? Why should a hanging chad count in Florida, but not in Ohio? The list of possible complaints is endless.

[tristingaspard]

When she says that NPV would cause candidates to focus on certain city's and states they already do that it's called a swing state.

[tmanqz]

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

[leonecho]

Here's one reason why we still have the Electoral College: Any time someone speaks out against it, the response is always: *You're just mad cuz your candidate lost!*

[SelenaC_anime]

Notice that a lot of the states that have approved NPV so far are Democrat states.

[fakenamejones]

Get 50.1% of voters in a state, get 100% of the states electors. How is that fair?

[harrygw-lp]

The beauty of democracy is that no one has absolute power

[burasloungeroom]

PragU claims that if NPV is adopted, candidates will only focus on big states. But they they already do that, because of the number of electoral votes being different across states.

[Resist]

How does this discourage voter fraud? Isn't it easier to pay off a smaller number of people than a larger number?

[hillerm]

There's no problem with the electoral college. The only real issue is "winner takes all".

[HaranYakir]

I already like NPV! Where do I sign up? Thanks for letting me know about this excellent initiative to improve our democracy!

[ckng]

This video has some good facts but the tone and presentation is biased and mixed with emotional words.

[Timeward]

I'm Brazillian, and the memory of the Military Dictatorship is still fresh in our collective. Our parents and grandparents tell us how awful it was, and others tell us how privileged they were by being military police officers or their families. We had an electoral college and although the situations were very different, you must realize it's easier to corrupt a few than a mob. I read history, of how much my people had to fight and suffer to have their right for a direct election. I realize our backgrounds are different but an indirect election is one of the many reasons I don't want to live in the US. The power to have a direct say on who the president elect will be is a value DEEPLY held by my culture, and seeing how the elections work in the US is simply disgusting coming from a culture who has spent MOST of it's time as subjulgated. Just think, you have 45 presidents. we had 36. And how can an indirect election that is ultimately decided by scholars be called the power of the people? The power of a few to decide over many. It's not fair. And the fearmongering here was just out of control.

[justincredible]

That's why you don't just implement the popular vote, you also implement a single transferable vote.

[anthonyrymer]

That evil "muahahaha" laughing guy should be president!

[joshuamclean]

How about we keep the electoral college, but instead of npv we start an initiative for split votes like in Nebraska and Maine? That way you don’t have one large city deciding for an entire state like you get in certain states. Or big cities deciding for the whole state in general. They won’t be able to focus on big cities but will have to also focus more on areas outside of the cities, like what the college was intended to do.

[Asha]

Most of the time, the electoral college and NPV will give the same result. Where they don't give the same result, why is tyranny of the less popular candidate any better that tyranny of the more popular candidate?

[gregb]

I'd like to see electoral votes by congressional district, rather than by state.

[jasonbegg]

For the idiots commenting about the tyranny of majority who don't know, the tyranny of the majority is when people's vote doesn't matter at all because their vote is encompassed by the other ideology. A good example is Illinois. A large portion of Iliinois is rural but because a huge percentage of the state's population lives in Chicago, the democratic vote often overshadows the many other republicans in Illinois.

[Anonymoususer]

“tyranny of the majority” - that’s called democracy. You just proved that you want to undermine the will of the people

[HenryMcCraken]

So PragurU is okay when the election goes to someone who lost the popular vote, but under NPV when a state gives its votes to someone who lost the state's popular vote its wrong.