Action Alert: the electoral college isn't working

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Wednesday, February 14, 2024
LWVME
 

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will guarantee that the candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia becomes the President. 

Please push legislators to support NPV. Use this convenient form to email your Maine legislators and ask them to pass the National Popular Vote bill (LD 1578).
 
NPV recently had a work session where it received a divided vote. It should be reported out of committee soon and head to the chamber floors. 

Write your legislators
What National Popular Vote will do:
  •  Apply the one-person-one-vote principle to presidential elections
  • Guarantee the presidency to the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and D.C.
  • Give candidates a reason to campaign in all parts of all 50 states, thereby making every voter, in every state, politically relevant in every presidential election
  • Increase voter turnout
  • Help ensure the peaceful transfer of power in presidential elections
True or false: The electoral system is the way the founders wanted it to be. 
 
This is false! The founders envisioned the legislature picking candidates without input from the people. But by 1836, all states were using a “winner take all” system to choose their electors, a system never advocated for by the Founders. 
True or false: California and New York will dominate the election.
 
This is false! In fact, the winner-take-all method distorts the weight of voters in all states. That includes the big states like New York and California. It silences the votes of the minority while magnifying the votes of the majority winner. NPV makes every vote cast for each candidate equal.
Write your legislators
Check out the latest letter to the editor in defense of NPV:
"When the Constitution was written including the Electoral College, most Americans could not read or write. Slaves were counted in the allocation of electoral votes. Thankfully, we are in a much better place today. It is time to abandon the indirect election of the president."