The bill Jerry Brown signed last week is a step toward a national popular vote, the author writes. California moves popular vote closer

California Gov. Jerry Brown last week signed a bill designed to fix our broken presidential election system and guarantee the White House to the winner of the national popular vote.

Grounded in state powers, the National Popular Vote plan for president commits participating states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It can be activated only after its adoption in states that together have enough electoral votes to guarantee the outcome – meaning states representing at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes.


Victory in California marks a major advance toward holding a national popular vote election in 2016. Only five years after the plan’s unveiling, supporters are nearly halfway to their goal of 270 electoral votes — after earlier wins in Hawaii, Maryland, Washington, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Illinois and the District of Columbia.

Every other state has already debated the bill. More than 2,100 state legislators have sponsored or voted for it, and several states are now close to passing it.

Past generations of national popular vote advocates proposed constitutional amendments to abolish the Electoral College. But just as states did not need a constitutional amendment to provide a right to vote for president, they can act immediately — because the Constitution gives each state exclusive power over how to allocate its electoral votes.

Today, few states debate different ways of allocating electoral votes. But that has not always been the case. Though 48 of 50 states have passed laws to allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, this so-called “winner-take-all” rule was not the norm in early presidential elections and was typically adopted for narrow partisan, parochial reasons.

The breakdown of fairness in our presidential election demands that states revisit the winner-take-all rule. This allows candidates to win despite losing the national popular vote — which happens in one in seven of our close presidential elections.

Popular vote reversal happened in 2000, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore; and almost occurred in 2004, when a shift of fewer than 60,000 votes in Ohio would have elected Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), despite Bush’s national popular vote advantage of more than three million votes.

Of even greater concern, however, is how the winner-take-all rule leads major party candidates to devote nearly all their general election resources to a handful of swing states, where neither candidate is hopelessly behind. The trend has become increasingly pronounced in recent elections, with fewer swing states and fewer changes in which states matter.

In the final weeks of the 2008 election, for example, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) devoted more than 98 percent of their resources and political activity to 15 states — representing barely a third of all voters. Looking to 2012, it’s unlikely any new state will join that elite group of potential battlegrounds.

Among reform options available to states for allocating electors, however, the National Popular Vote plan is the only proposal that makes every vote equal and guarantees victory to the winner of the national popular vote.

Its progress should stop consideration of a misguided plan that has also been proposed in states like California — following the model of Nebraska and Maine, where a candidate earns one electoral vote by carrying a congressional district and two votes for winning statewide. The congressional district allocation proposal leaves winner-take-all dynamics intact and also has an unacceptable partisan bias, increasing incentives for gerrymandering.

Given that most congressional districts favor one party, for example, a majority of Americans would still be spectators in general elections. In 2004-2008, the gap between the major party candidates was more than 4 percent in almost nine in 10 congressional districts.

Moving to congressional district allocation is also a political non-starter because of its partisan bias. If done nationally, Republicans would win every narrowly contested election since their vote is more evenly dispersed across districts. Trying to implement this approach state-by-state would tilt the national balance based on which states adopted it.

In contrast, the parties have split the national popular vote over the past two, eight, 12 and 28 presidential elections. For every popular vote landslide by a Franklin D. Roosevelt or Lyndon B. Johnson, there has been a similar landslide by Ronald Reagan or Richard M. Nixon.

A national popular vote also avoids the partisan swamp of redistricting inherent in the district allocation proposal. In Nebraska, GOP-aligned state legislators this year drew districts designed to make it harder for Obama to repeat his 2008 district win. With a lawsuit triggering early redistricting in Maine, Republicans seem to be seeking a better chance at an electoral vote through gerrymandering. Imagine the partisan rancor if gerrymandering in big states could swing which party won the presidency.

The national popular vote plan is clearly the fairest way for states to reform winner-take-all rules. It’s now up to state lawmakers to act and guarantee every American an equal vote in electing their president.

Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote. Joe Sroka and Neal Suidan worked as summer associates at FairVote.