"Playing Russian Roulette" Maine Sen. Angus King

Independent Senator Angus King of Maine described our current system of electing the President:

"As we learned on January 6, we have created this structure which never worked as Hamilton and as the Framers envisioned it, that has turned into a kind of Russian roulette with our democracy."

"The people of the United States should elect their President, and the votes of the citizens of each State should count equally, instead of getting into this game situation where you go to particular States [and] ignore other States." full speech at page 9598

In the last 6 elections, our current system has demonstrated its fragility by giving us

2 elections in which the candidate who lost the nationwide vote became President (2016 and 2000)
2 near-misses in the Electoral College (2020 and 2004) details
doubt, recounts, audits, hair-splitting legal disputes, and civil disorder.

The reason that the current system of electing the President produces so many disputable results is that it divides America’s 158,000,000 voters into 50 separate state-level elections.

The first effect of this dividing up of the country is that candidates only campaign in the dozen or so states that are closely divided.

Then, several of these close states often end up being extremely close on Election Day. The result is that the presidency gets decided by a handful of votes in a few states -- even when the nationwide vote is a blowout.

Real or imagined irregularities in these closely divided states invite controversy, recounts, and legal disputes.

There is an alternative to the current system.

The National Popular Vote compact will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The National Popular Vote compact would

apply the one-person-one-vote principle to presidential elections,
guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide,
give candidates a reason to campaign in all 50 states so that every voter, in every state, will be politically relevant in every presidential election, and
increase voter turnout.

Please ask your state legislators and officials to support the National Popular Vote bill in your state.

LEARN MORE

· One-page description of National Popular Vote

· Introductory video (8 minutes)

· Watch Michael Steele, former Chair of the Republican National Committee

· Watch Prof. George Edwards III, author of Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America

· Watch Jesse Wegman, author of Let the People Pick the President

· Podcast with Jason Harrow, Executive Director of Equal Citizens and National Popular Vote Chair Dr. John Koza

· Watch our myth-busting webinar hosted by National Popular Vote's grassroots director Eileen Reavey

· Watch Rick Tyler, author of Still Right, and Saul Anuzis present the conservative case for electing the President by National Popular Vote

· Watch debate at "R Street" between National Popular Vote's Eileen Reavey and Patrick Rosenstiel and NPV's opponents Tara Ross and Trent England

· Listen to Open Mind podcast in which Alexander Heffner interviews National Popular Vote Chair Dr. John Koza (also on Spotify)

· Answers to 131 myths about National Popular Vote.