Backing the popular voteBy Scott Mackay
Published May 14th 2008 in The Providence Journal
Rhode Island would join a national compact to require that the presidential candidate with the most popular votes would win the White House, under legislation approved last night by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Under the bill, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Connors, D-Cumberland, Rhode Island would enter a compact to require that the electoral college system used to choose American presidents switch to electing presidents by popular vote. The measure was approved on an 8-to-1 committee vote.
“If you get the most votes, you should win an election,” said Christopher Pearson, a Vermont state representative who has lobbied around New England for the legislation and was at the State House yesterday.
The compact idea seeks to bypass the electoral college by getting legislatures, one by one, to enter their states into an interstate compact under which states would agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
The compact would take effect only when enough states had joined to elect a president — that is, when states equaling at least 270 electoral votes, the amount needed to claim the presidency, agreed.
The lone vote in committee against the idea came from Sen. Leo Blais, R-Coventry. “In a popular vote, Rhode Island loses its strength because we are a small state,” said Blais. “The electoral college system was set up by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to protect small states, just as the Constitution protects the small states by giving each state two senators.”
The measure now goes to the full Senate. Identical legislation has been introduced in the House, where it is in the House Finance Committee.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.