The Alaska Legislature is currently considering a bill that would join Alaska in an interstate compact changing the way the United States president is elected. I have serious concerns about its true, negative, effects. The bill’s supporters promote the change as a way to ensure that “the person with the most votes wins.” I have participated in two hearings on Senate Bill 39 in the Senate State Affairs committee, and have researched the issue extensively. Again, I have serious concerns about the negative effects of this legislation on Alaska.
The Founding Fathers recognized the imbalance of power between large urban areas and small, more rural areas. They saw the concentration of power and special interests that occurs in large cities, which ignored the concerns of citizens living in smaller towns and communities. The Founders envisioned the Electoral College system which distributes power and influence, with fairness, to all Americans, regardless of where they live.
In the National Popular Vote, states would choose to join a compact agreement with other states. Under this plan, presidential votes from these compacted states would be pooled together. Alaska’s 350,000 votes for president could be pooled with California’s 13.7 million votes and the votes from Hawaii (456,000), Illinois (5.6 million), Maryland (2.6 million), New Jersey (4 million), Washington (3 million), Vermont (327,000) and Massachusetts (3.1 million). The top vote-getter from this “pool” would be given all the Electoral votes from all the compacted states.
So, that means…Alaskans’ majority vote for president, out of our 350,000 votes, might be for Candidate A but California and the other compacted states might give a majority of their combined 32.8 million votes for Candidate B…and Alaska will be required to give its three electoral votes to Candidate B. Alaska’s citizens’ voices would be completely drowned out by the other 32.8 million voters in the other eight states … and those are just the ones that have signed on to the compact contract so far!
This just doesn’t make sense to me. With only about 350,000 registered voters, why would a candidate choose to come to Alaska, over spending time and money in California, New York, Ohio, Florida, Illinois or other high population states, where the media markets are huge and a dollar can get a lot more votes.
The Electoral College has functioned as the Founders intended by preserving our Republic of independent, unique states, compelling presidents to form inclusive and diverse coalitions of voter support, and offering stability and certainty when election results occur. However, National Popular Vote creates factionalism, marginalization of minorities, and centralized power of the government.
As President John F. Kennedy said, in support of the Electoral College, “It is not only the unit vote for the Presidency we are talking about, but a whole solar system of governmental power. If it is proposed to change the balance of power of one of the elements of the solar system, it is necessary to consider all the others.”
This popular vote compact will happen when enough states agree to join the compact totaling more than 270 Electoral College votes. At this point, eight states have joined equaling 131 Electoral College votes.
SB 39 is in the Senate finance committee now. I expect SB 39 to come to the Senate floor for a vote. When that happens, I will be defending Alaska’s sovereignty. I will be defending the voice of Alaskans to be heard in Presidential elections through our three Electoral College votes. I will have to be a “no” vote on SB 39.
• Giessel reprsents State Senate District P.
Comments (15)
Add commentDump the Electoral Colledge
Joining compacts with other states only makes the individual vote more worhless than it already is. Dump the system or leave it as is. The only way for the popular vote to be truly represented is to implement it across the board. That is the only way that it can be accurately stated, "The people have spoken." (or, at least the people that voted). I don't see the any democracy in joining Electoral Fraternities within the College.
Current System Clearly is Not Fair - Alaska IS Ignored
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The National Popular Vote bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded by states in the Electoral College, instead of the current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states). It assures that every vote is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ Electoral College votes from the enacting states. That majority of Electoral College votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate.
And votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning candidates in a state are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.
Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, Including Alaska, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country, and candidates would have to care about issues of concern beyond the voters in the handful of current battleground states.
In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives already agree that, at most, only 12 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-take-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. Alaska will be ignored. At most, 12 states will determine the election. Candidates will not care about at least 76% of the voters-- voters in 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and in 16 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning could be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. In 2008, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). Candidates have no reason to poll, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states, like Alaska, where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. More than 85 million voters have been just spectators to the general election, like Alaska.
Now, policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states - that include 9 of the original 13 states - are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing, too.
The number and population of battleground states is shrinking as the U.S. population grows.
The Electoral College system clearly does NOT distribute power and influence, with fairness, to all Americans, regardless of where they live, now.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling 18 battleground states.”
Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that more than 2/3rds of Americans are ignored in presidential campaigns, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
Irony
"They saw the concentration of power and special interests that occurs in large cities, which ignored the concerns of citizens living in smaller towns and communities."
Senator Giessel represents Anchorage, where the concentration of power and special interests ignore the concerns of Alaskan citizens living in smaller towns and communities.
Keep the electoral college - but dole out the electoral votes in proportion to the votes of Alaskans. If a third of Alaskans vote for one candidate, why should all three electoral votes go towards the other? Giessel is playing partisan politics here every bit as much as the NPV people are. She just wants to protect the republican franchise in the state.
Worthless
Alaska is considering this? Really? Alaska's 3 electoral votes are already practically worthless. As the article states, adding in Alaska's votes to any other states, except perhaps Wyoming, would make the individual vote worth even less. Almost 40 years ago I wrote a "Letter to the Editor" to the ADN advocating for the complete removal of the Electoral College. It does make some sort of common sense to have individual votes count. But a bit more life experience now tells me the only way less populous states, such as Alaska and Wyoming, can make any sort of change, is through the EC system. We must remember there are no national elections, merely a bunch of states voting locally all on the same day. Regardless, Alaska's 3 electoral votes will count for very little, but 3 out of 535 (0.00561)is far better than 350,000 out of 90,682,968 (0.00386). At least on a national scale, Alaska's vote would be worth almost half of what it is now.
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National Popular Vote Empowers States to Be Relevant
With the Electoral College, and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interest within the confines of the Constitution. The National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change by the states, precipitated by the emergence of political parties and the enactment by most states of winner-take-all statutes.
The Electoral College has NOT functioned as the Founders intended. There is unanimous agreement among historians that the Founding Fathers intended and expected that the Electoral College would operate as a deliberative body. Now the Electoral College is dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps. The systems does NOT distribute power and influence, with fairness, to all Americans, regardless of where they live. Presidential candidates don't care about more than 2/3rds of the states and voters, including Alaska, BECAUSE of where they live. We end up viewing America and Americans as a distorted and divisive red and blue state map. Minority voters within states are worthless.
A candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation's 56 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008). A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. That's stability and certainty?
In terms of electing the President, state control is precisely what the Founding Fathers intended, and it is precisely what the U.S. Constitution specifies. The Founding Fathers created an open-ended system with built-in flexibility concerning the manner of electing the President.
States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote). Power is not centralized.
With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a representative democracy, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
70% of Alaska Voters Support a National Popular Vote
A survey of Alaska voters conducted in 2010 showed 70% overall support for the idea that the President of the United States should be the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. Voters were asked "How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current electoral college system?"
By political affiliation, support for a national popular vote was 66% among Republicans, 78% among Democrats, 70% among Nonpartisan voters, 82% among Alaska Independent Party voters, and 69% among others.
By gender, support was 78% among women and 60% among men.
In state polls with a second question that specifically emphasized that their state's electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states, not necessarily their state's winner, there was only a 4-8% decrease of support.
"Do you think it more important that a state's electoral votes be cast for the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state, or is it more important to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states becomes president?"
Support for a National Popular Vote
South Dakota -- 75% for Question 1, 67% for Question 2.
see http://tinyurl.com/3jdkx7x
Utah -- 70% for Question 1, 66% for Question 2.
see http://tinyurl.com/3vrfxyh
Most Americans don't care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state. . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it's wrong for the candidate with the most popular votes to lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
NationalPopularVote
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National Popular Vote Initiative
In 1960, just one year after being approved for statehood, Alaska was a battleground state. Richard M. Nixon made the excursion to the “last frontier” for a campaign appearance the last weekend of the campaign. He eked out a victory in the state by less than 30,000 votes. That was the last time a Presidential candidate made a serious effort to contest the state. In 1964, Alaska joined the rest of the nation in awarding Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson an unprecedented landslide. Since then, it has been a GOP stronghold. This, coupled with its geographical location (about 500 miles from the continental U.S.), makes the state irrelevant in Presidential elections.
Presidential candidates ignore the needs of Alaska voters. They see no reason to cultivate support in that state. When was the last time one heard a candidate address the needs of the seafood industry which employs almost 60,000 Alaskans, the prevailing poverty among native Alaskans, or the fact that 69% of the state is owned by the Federal Government? Instead, candidates dwell seriously on the concerns of steel manufacturers in Pennsylvania, dairy farmers in Wisconsin, and textile workers in North Carolina.
Under the National Popular Vote Initiative or NPVI (an interstate compact, where participating states agree to allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the National Popular Vote), Alaska voters will finally leave the electoral wilderness. Every vote will be equal, and in a close election, Presidential nominees will forage for every possible vote. A vote in Georgetown, Alaska would be commensurate with a vote in Georgetown, Ohio. Candidates would be focused not on the geopolitical location of the voter but on the numerical Talley.
Some may think that the candidates would still ignore Alaska because of its geographical location. Yet if there are potential voters, Presidential campaigns will go full-throttle to find them and will assiduously listen to their concerns and seek their votes. In the 2004 Presidential election, when polls showed that far away Hawaii might be in play, Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Honolulu two days before the election to speak to Hawaii voters. Former Vice President Al Gore had campaigned for his party’s nominee John Kerry in Hawaii the day before.
An Alaskan who defends the current winner-take-all system must concede that their concerns will remain subservient to the needs of voter in 15 showdown states. A proponent of the status quo must accept the reality that Alaska issues will get almost no attention from the national media, and they must acknowledge that once a President gets elected, he/she will have no causes belie to address the concerns of the state. As former Governor Jim Edgar (R-IL) asserts: “People who are in elected office remember what they learned when they were campaigning. Its important that the candidates campaign in all states, not just the swing states.”
Worthless 2
I'm still not buying the argument that Alaska's vote, on a one-to-one basis would mean anything. Why would any presidential candidate care about a few hundred thousand votes in Alaska when there are that many in a dozen different cities alone? Halving the importance of an Alaskan voter does not provide any benefit to the state. Our senators and representative will have even less power than they have now, regardless of what party they may belong to. Our founders decided long ago that small population states would be disabused by the larger population states when it comes to the national electoral process. This is no less true today. We have little power on the national stage as it is, by giving up our vote, which is the ultimate end here, we will have little to nothing remaining.
@akjim: but right now a good
@akjim: but right now a good portion of individual Alaskans are disenfranchised. Sure, Alaska itself has a little more say in things, but a good third or so of the state has absolutely no say. I didn't vote for McCain and Palin in 2008, yet because most voters in Alaska did, my vote disappeared into the abyss and had no effect on the outcome of the election.
sad reality
3 electoral votes from Alaska split up would result in a very minute number being allocated between candidates. There are more than two candidates on the ballot. Many forget that part of the process. So how small a number of votes would be required to allocate any part of the three electoral votes.
At this point no-one considers the actual procedure and the allocation for any candidate but the big two (Republican and Democrat.) Some how in this mix the decision would need to be established by law as to small an individual electoral vote can be.
I believe the popular vote is the best modification over the electoral college. For no longer is the common man unable to easily cast their ballot and need to rely on someone else doing it for him.
Some wise comments here...
Nice to see such well thought-out comments. One little thing nobody has commented on, is that if a vote just happened to be very close, any election could swing on just a few votes. If every vote could count, I would like mine to count. For decades, Democratic votes have been washed away because of dominant republicans in Alaska. Those votes or opinions have never been expressed. My opinion: Let my vote count, no matter how small. At least I could dream going into that voter's booth that MY vote could be THE vote that kills the evil empire. Ya Baby. Woo-hoo!
Electoral College discriminates...
... any other candidate that runs on a ticket other than Republican or Democrat. It's conceivable for a third party candidate to garner the majority of the popular vote and have the election go to one of the Big Deucelo. How many times have you seen a color other than red or blue on the election day news map?
NO to NPV
I am not in the 70%, if that is a true number, and am proud of it. The majority is not always right. If this were a utopia where every person, union, or special interest group was trustworthy then perhaps I would have a different opinion. But, that is not the case. Mob mentality, peer pressure, and coercion would prevail. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.
Senator Giessel does NOT understand the bill
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC), without needing to amend the Constitution.
The "national popular vote" "pool" is every vote in all 50 states and DC, NOT just the votes of states that join the compact.
SB 39 is a disaster for Alaska
Why would Alaska (and any of the other states with few electoral votes) promise to throw away 58% of our power to elect the president?
If 70% of Alaskans vote for candidate A, but candidate B wins the national popular vote our 3 electoral votes would be cast for B in spite of the fact that 2/3 of Alaskans voted against that candidate.
We have fairly honest election laws, but many other states are notorious for their "graveyard vote" and other scams. Such scams will rise in importance if more votes in one state can determine the electoral vote of another state.
If this stupid bill passes, I suggest changing our election laws so it is easy to vote multiple times for a president. If each of us was registered under 3 names and voted all 3 that would compensate to some extent for the moxie we would lose under SB 39.