{"id":11894,"date":"2019-05-15T10:50:04","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=11894"},"modified":"2019-05-15T10:50:06","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:50:06","slug":"maine-senate-and-minnesota-house-pass-national-popular-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/05\/15\/maine-senate-and-minnesota-house-pass-national-popular-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine Senate and Minnesota House pass National Popular Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
May 14, 2019 (johnkoza.com)

The Maine Senate today passed the National Popular Vote bill 19-16, thus becoming the 39th state legislative chamber to do so.\u00a0 The bill now goes to the Maine House.\u00a0 Maine has 4 electoral votes.

The House-passed bill in Minnesota is now in a conference committee. Minnesota has 10 electoral votes.\u00a0

The National Popular Vote bill\u00a0would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.\u00a0\u00a0

Please take a moment and use our convenient email system to\u00a0\u00a0send emails asking your state legislators<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in your state to support the National Popular Vote bill.\u00a0

The non-profit National Popular Vote organization employs\u00a0traveling and local representatives on a year-round basis to conduct one-on-one meetings with state legislators, executive-branch officials, citizen’s groups, and others who\u00a0influence state legislators.\u00a0 Please\u00a0donate<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to National Popular Vote.\u00a0

Under the current system of electing the President, an individual voter in Maine has a direct vote in selecting only 4 presidential electors (out of 270 needed to elect a President).\u00a0 Similarly, a voter in Minnesota has a direct vote in selecting only 10 presidential electors.\u00a0\u00a0

In contrast, the National Popular Vote bill would give each individual voter in Maine and Minnesota (and every other state) a\u00a0direct and unfiltered\u00a0<\/strong>vote toward the election of 270 presidential electors supporting their choice for President.\u00a0 Every voter, in every state, would have their individual vote counted directly toward their choice for president.\u00a0\u00a0The presidential candidate getting the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would become President, because that candidate will have the support of at least 270 presidential electors in the Electoral College.\u00a0\u00a0

As of today, 15 states have enacted the bill into law.\u00a0 The 15 states possess 189 electoral votes\u00a0— 81 short of the 270 electoral votes that the bill needs to take effect.\u00a0\u00a0

Meanwhile, the National Popular Vote bill is also making progress in other states. A Nevada Senate committee is expected to vote Wednesday on the bill (which has already passed the Assembly).\u00a0 The Oregon House Rules Committee is expected to hold a hearing shortly on the bill (which has already passed the Senate).\u00a0 There will be a hearing in New Hampshire in the fall.\u00a0 The bill has been introduced in 20 states so far during 2019.\u00a0

Learn more:Watch CNN interview with New Mexico Senator Mimi Stewart<\/a>Watch C-SPAN interview<\/a>\u00a0with Chair of National Popular VoteRadio interview on FOX<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0Chair of National Popular VoteFollow us on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>Follow us on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>Learn more at\u00a0National Popular Vote web site<\/a>\u00a0which has 14 explanatory videos and\u00a0answers to 131 myths<\/a>\u00a0about the bill\u00a0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n
BACKGROUND\u00a0<\/strong>The National Popular Vote bill\u00a0would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. \u00a0It\u00a0would make\u00a0every\u00a0vote for President equal throughout the United States.\u00a0 It would guarantee that\u00a0every<\/strong>\u00a0voter in\u00a0every<\/strong>\u00a0state matters in\u00a0every<\/strong>\u00a0presidential election.\u00a0

The shortcomings of the current system of electing the President stem from “winner-take-all” laws that have been enacted at the state level. These laws award 100% of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each state.\u00a0

Because of these state winner-take-all laws, five of our 45 Presidents (including two of the last three) have come into office without having won the most popular votes nationwide.\u00a0\u00a0

Another problem occurs in\u00a0every<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0presidential election, namely that presidential candidates have no reason to campaign in, or pay attention to, voters in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.\u00a0\u00a0

In 2012, 100% of the general-election campaign events (and virtually all campaign expenditures) were concentrated in the 12 closely divided “battleground” states where Romney’s support was 45%-51%.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The map shows the distribution of general-election campaign events. Thirty-eight states were totally ignored, including almost all small states, medium-sized states, rural states, western states, southern states, and northeastern states.\u00a0Two-thirds of the events (176 of 253) were concentrated in just 4 states (OH, FL, VA, IA).\u00a0

Similarly, in 2016, almost all\u00a0(94%)\u00a0general-election\u00a0campaign events were in the 12 “battleground” states\u00a0where Trump’s support was in the narrow range of 43%-51%.\u00a0 Two-thirds of the\u00a0campaign\u00a0events (273 of 399) were in just 6 states (OH, FL, VA, NC, PA, MI).\u00a0

It does not take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to change existing state\u00a0winner-take-all laws. \u00a0State winner-take-all laws were enacted by state legislatures under their authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution:\u00a0“Each State shall appoint,\u00a0in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct<\/strong><\/em>, a Number of Electors….”

These state laws may be changed in the same way as they were originally enacted — namely by action of the state legislature.

The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes was not the Founding Fathers’ choice.\u00a0 It was used by only three states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (and repealed by all three by 1800).\u00a0 Winner-take-all was never debated at the Constitutional Convention or mentioned in the\u00a0Federalist Papers<\/em>.\u00a0

Under the\u00a0National Popular Vote bill,\u00a0the national popular vote winner will receive all the electoral votes from the enacting states. The bill will take effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes — enough to elect a President (270 of 538).\u00a0\u00a0When the Electoral College meets in mid-December, the national popular vote winner will become President because\u00a0the enacting states will provide him or her with at least 270 electoral votes.\u00a0\u00a0

A national popular vote for President is an achievable political goal.\u00a0 In addition to the 15 states mentioned above, it has passed one house in 8 additional states with 72 electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, NC, NV, OK, OR), including a 40-16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House and a 28-18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate, and been approved unanimously by committee votes in two additional Republican-controlled states with 26 electoral votes (GA, MO).\u00a0 A total of 3,265 state legislators among all 50 states have endorsed it.

For additional information, see our book Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote<\/em>\u00a0(downloadable for free at\u00a0www.NationalPopularVote.com<\/a><\/strong>).\u00a0 Chapter 9 provides short and long answers to 131 myths about the National Popular Vote bill.\u00a0 We will be happy to send a copy of our book to any state legislator or staff member.\u00a0 \u00a0

The non-profit National Popular Vote organization employs\u00a0traveling and local representatives on a year-round basis to conduct one-on-one meetings with state legislators, executive-branch officials, citizen’s groups, and others who\u00a0influence state legislators.\u00a0 Please\u00a0donate<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 14, 2019 (johnkoza.com) The Maine Senate today passed the National Popular Vote bill 19-16, thus becoming the 39th state legislative chamber to do so.\u00a0 The bill now goes to the Maine House.\u00a0 Maine has 4 electoral votes. The House-passed bill in Minnesota is now in a conference committee. Minnesota… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11894"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11895,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11894\/revisions\/11895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}