Q & A
As is the case with any election reform or any change to the election system, people have questions about how NPV fits into the current legal framework for elections, about the mechanics of NPV for both voters and election administrators, and about the political implications of NPV. How could such a significant change to the American election system mesh with the law and with the country’s voting traditions?
Q: Is National Popular Vote Constitutional?
A: Yes. National Popular Vote will change the way states award their electoral votes, and the Constitution explicitly grants states that right. Article II, Section I states: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…”
Q: Do small states win with NPV?
A: The 13 states with only three or four electoral votes are the most disadvantaged and ignored group of states under the current state-based winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes. (7) Ohio has about the same population as 12 of these states combined but fewer than half as many electoral votes. Despite that, Ohio received 73 of 253 post-convention campaign events in 2012, while the 12 small non-battleground states received none. (8)
Q: Does NPV put rural voters at parity with urban voters?
A: The current state-based winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes diminishes the influence of rural states because none of the ten most rural states are closely divided battleground states, and the battleground states that receive attention in presidential campaigns are generally not rural. (9)
Q: Will NPV force candidates to campaign in all 50 states?
A: In the 2012 general election campaign for President, four out of five states were completely ignored. Barack Obama campaigned in only eight states after his nomination, and Mitt Romney campaigned in only ten. (10) There is simply no benefit for a presidential candidate to spend limited campaign time and money visiting, advertising in, and building a grassroots organization in a state in order to win that state with 58% of its popular vote as compared to 55%. Similarly, it does not help a presidential candidate to lose a state with 45% of a state’s popular vote as compared to, say, 42%. National Popular Vote would make each of those percentages, and the voters they represent, relevant to all candidates’ campaigns. (11)