MY support for passage of the National Popular Vote legislation is not a result of the election of (NOT MY) pres drumpf / trump, I have supported this legislation as soon as I heard about it about 10 years ago. The American people should be able to directly elect our president based on the total popular vote, the person with the most votes wins. This call to action to e mail our members of the Virginia Commonwealth Assembly to pass this legislation is from Demand Progress, please click the links to find your Delegate and Senator and send them an e mail. Voters nationwide can click the links on the National Popular Vote website to contact your state / commonwealth legislators. Feel free to share this e mail with family and friends.....
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Prospects for enacting National Popular Vote in Virginia are especially good now that the Democrats have won both houses of the legislature.
The shortcomings of the current system of electing the President stem from state "winner-take-all" laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each state.
State winner-take-all laws have enabled 5 of our 45 Presidents to come into office without winning the most popular votes nationwide. The same thing could happen again in 2020.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Your Senator, Delegate, and legislative leaders are currently in the process of deciding which bills to pass in the coming session of the legislature.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. It was not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was used by only three states in the first presidential election in 1789 (and all three repealed it by 1800).
Winner-take-all was enacted by the states under their authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which says, "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...."
State winner-take-all laws may be changed in the same way as they were originally enacted -- namely by action of the state legislature. It does not take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to change a state law. Indeed, the winner-take-all method was not enacted by means of a federal constitutional amendment.
Near-misses have also been common. The national popular vote winner would have been defeated by a shift of 59,393 popular votes in Ohio in 2004 (despite President Bush’s nationwide lead of 3 million votes); 9,246 votes in 1976; 77,726 in 1968; 9,212 in 1960; 20,360 in 1948; and 1,711 votes in 1916.
The National Popular Vote interstate compact will go into effect when enacted by states with a majority of the presidential electors—that is, 270 of 538. After the compact goes into effect, each individual voter in all 50 states and DC will acquire a direct vote in the choice of all of the presidential electors from all of the states that enacted the compact. The presidential candidate supported by the most voters in all 50 states and DC will therefore win a majority of the presidential electors in the Electoral College, and therefore become President.
The National Popular Vote bill is an achievable political goal. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have already used their constitutional powers to replace current winner-take-all laws with the National Popular Vote interstate compact. These 16 jurisdictions have 196 electoral votes. This is only 74 short of the 270 needed to activate the bill.
The bill has been enacted into law by 5 small jurisdictions (Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia), 8 medium-sized states (Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington state), and 3 big states (California, Illinois, and New York). It has also passed one house in 8 additional states with 75 electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, MN, NC, NV, OK). A total of 3,408 state legislators among all 50 states have endorsed it.
Your Senator, Delegate, and legislative leaders are currently in the process of deciding which bills to pass in the coming session of the legislature.
-The team at Demand Progress
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