Ensuring Nevadans their presidential vote will count

Wouldn't you assume that the candidate who receives the most votes wins the election? Well, that is the case except when it comes to the highest office in the land -- the presidency of the United States of America.

A candidate can become president without winning the most popular votes nationwide because of the winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state). The National Popular Vote bill (AB 413), was passed by the Nevada Assembly in April and aims to correct this inequity. This legislation is now pending in the Nevada Senate.

Current polls show strong public support for this effort in Nevada and nationwide. A December 2008 National Popular Vote Poll found that 72 percent of those polled in Nevada supported a national popular vote for president; nationwide support was 70 percent in favor. Support in Nevada was strongly bipartisan, with 80 percent approval among Democrats and 66 percent approval among Republicans.

There have been four "wrong winner" elections out of the nation's 56 presidential elections -- a failure rate of 1 in 14. But because half of American presidential elections are landslides of 10 percent or more, the failure rate is actually 1 in 7 among non-landslide elections. Given that we are currently in an era of close presidential elections, it is not surprising that a second-place candidate has won the White House one time during the six elections since 1988. Moreover, a shift of a handful of votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in five of the last 12 presidential elections. For example, a shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have elected U.S. Sen. John Kerry as president, even though President George W. Bush was ahead by 3,500,000 votes nationwide.

Another consequence of the winner-take-all rule is candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of closely divided "battleground" states.

In 2008, candidates concentrated more than two-thirds of their campaign visits and ad money in just six states and 98 percent in just 15 states. This means that voters in two thirds of the states are ignored. Although Nevada fleetingly enjoyed attention as a closely divided battleground state in this recent general election, Obama's 12 percent win in 2008 effectively has removed Nevada from this category for future elections.

The notoriety Nevada experienced came as a result of being one of the early caucus states. That will not change under the National Popular Vote bill. It will only apply to the general election. Nevada will still hold the nation's attention as parties decide who they will nominate for President.

The shortcomings of the current system of electing the president can be corrected by changing to a system in which the winner is the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Under a national popular vote, every vote would be equal, and every vote would be politically relevant in every presidential election. The bill would assure that presidential candidates will pay attention to Nevada in 2012, and that Nevada will not become a spectator state in presidential elections, as it was for most of its history.

Under the National Popular Vote bill, all the electoral votes from all the states that have enacted the bill would be awarded, as a bloc, to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes -- that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). The bill has already been enacted by five states (Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington) possessing 61 electoral votes -- 23 percent of the 270 necessary to bring it into effect.

The U.S. Constitution gives the states exclusive and plenary control over the manner of awarding their electoral votes. The winner-take-all rule is not in the Constitution. It was not the Founders' choice (having been used by only three states in the nation's first presidential election). The fact that Nebraska and Maine currently award some of their electoral votes by congressional district is a reminder of this power.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 27 state legislative chambers in 17 states, including Arkansas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Ask your state senators to vote "yes" on the National Popular Vote bill (AB 413), and ask Gov. Jim Gibbons to support this legislation. Make your vote count when electing our United States president.

Barry Fadem is president of National Popular Vote.