National Popular Vote Inc. is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation whose specific purpose is to study, analyze and educate the public regarding its proposal to implement a nationwide popular election of the President of the United States.
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Fadem is a board member and national spokesman for National Popular Vote, which wants states to commit their electoral votes to the national winner of the presidential popular vote.
Every American voter, no matter where they live, should be politically relevant in every presidential election. Every state – red, blue or purple; small, medium or large – should play an equally important role in electing the president. And all major presidential candidates should feel compelled to conduct truly national campaigns, seeking out and selling their ideas to every voter in every nook and cranny of the United States.
Those are the simple, powerful ideas behind the National Popular Vote movement to guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In brief, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will go into effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes necessary to elect a president – 270 out of 538. In December, when electors meet to cast their ballots for president and vice president following a presidential election, the electoral votes of all the compacting states would be awarded to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across the nation.
The national popular vote bill significantly amplifies the voice of each individual voter in choosing the president of the United States.
Solid majorities support many of the most prominent proposals for making democracy work better, but in almost all cases Democrats are bigger boosters than Republicans, Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling shows.
But the latest poll, out Friday, also adds to the roster of national opinion surveys laying bare how Americans have lost faith in their government's ability to address the nation's big challenges.
Almost two-thirds of respondents expressed that sentiment. And, in a rare bipartisan accord, those saying the nation's best years have passed outnumber those confident in a brighter future, 51 percent to 44 percent, with Democrats, Republicans and independents all statistically in sync in those views.
Of the 1,000 adults surveyed two weeks ago, just 44 percent professed belief in the nation's capacity to overcome political divisions to solve problems, while 53 percent said it could not.
Oregon is about to become the 15th state to pledge its electoral votes to the winner of the presidential popular vote.
Democratic Gov. Kate Brown says she will soon sign legislation committing Oregon to the National Popular Vote Compact. States that do so have made legally binding provisions to instruct their electors to vote for the national popular vote victor no matter the result in their states – but only once enough states to make up an Electoral College majority do likewise.
The state House approved the bill, 37-22, on Tuesday. The Senate had passed it, 17-12, two months ago.
With Oregon's seven, the compact now includes states (plus Washington, D.C.) that total 196 electoral votes. All of them, however, are currently considered part of the bedrock "blue wall" for the Democrats in presidential politics. Oregon, for example, last voted Republican in the Reagan re-election landslide of 1984.
Office of Gov. Steve Sisolak
Proponents of electing the president by popular vote had a setback when Gov. Steve Sisolak vetoed legislation committing Nevada's six electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.
Sisolak, a Democrat, said joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact "could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada's electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose."
That was the argument Republicans in the state legislature used against the bill. But the Democratic majorities pushed it through along party lines.
