DETROIT – Saul Anuzis, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, and Mark Brewer, who chaired state Democrats for years, have usually agreed politically on just about … nothing.
Brewer is a lawyer, closely tied to the union movement. Anuzis is a very conservative businessman who nobody ever has called a liberal, let alone a ‘RINO’ — Republican In Name Only.
Yet to the amazement of many, they have come together to push a referendum to amend the state constitution to have Michigan pledge its electoral votes to whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, joining a nationwide movement that has already gotten states with well over half the electoral votes needed to pledge their support.
“Every person in Michigan who believes in the principle of one person, one vote, for presidential elections should join our effort,” Anuzis said. Brewer added that the idea “is enormously popular with Michigan voters,” and added that putting it on the ballot would “let voters, not politicians determine if Michigan moves our country toward a national popular vote for President.”
But will that happen? There are more than a few hurdles to overcome. First, organizers of the ballot drive have 180 days – roughly six months – to collect enough signatures to get their proposal on the November 8, 2022 ballot.
Officially, they need 340,047. However, since some are always invalid, they really need more than 400,000. Gathering signatures is usually expensive, and significant money will need to be raised.
Assuming they do get their proposal on the ballot, they are sure to face opposition – largely from Republicans.
Michigan Speaker of the House Jason Wentworth, (R-Clare) immediately announced that he was adamantly opposed to the idea. While the legislature could put it on the ballot, saving the organizers a lot of time and money, the speaker made it clear he wouldn’t even allow it to come up for a vote. “This is the wrong plan for Michigan.”
It isn’t hard to figure out why Wentworth feels that way. Twice in recent years, in 2000 and 2016, Republican candidates have been elected president while losing the national popular vote.
The second time that happened, Donald Trump won the electoral college, and Michigan’s electoral votes, despite losing the national popular vote by nearly three million votes.
Had the movement, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, been in force then, Michigan would have cast its electoral votes for Hillary Clinton, even though Trump won the state by a razor-thin 10,704 votes out of nearly five million.
There is a presumption that the Electoral College favors the GOP, and that seems to be the case – for now. Democrats traditionally pile up huge popular vote margins in states like New York, California and Massachusetts, while Republicans win a lot of small and middle-size states by closer counts.
But Republicans often forget that the reverse almost happened to them. George W. Bush beat Democrat John Kerry in 2004 by slightly more than three million popular votes. However, had fewer than 60,000 Ohioans changed their minds, Kerry would have become President, even though he lost the popular vote.
However, even if National Popular Vote gets on the ballot and becomes law, it won’t take effect unless and until two things happen:
First, National Popular Vote would have to be adopted by enough states to equal 270 electoral votes – the needed majority to become President. Right now, the states that have signed on have 195 electoral votes. If Michigan joined, it would move up to 210 – still 60 votes short of what it would need to become law.
Second, there would have to be another “wrong winner” election — and throughout our history, these have been scarce indeed.
The infamous “hanging chad” George Bush vs. Al Gore election of 2000 was the first since 1888 when the winner of the popular vote did not win the electoral vote as well.
Throughout most of our history, the electoral vote has served to magnify the popular vote result. Ronald Reagan won 59 percent of the two-party popular vote in 1984, but 97 percent of the electoral vote. Last year, Joe Biden won just over 51 percent of the popular vote, but a solid 56 percent of the electoral vote.
There are also some arguments in favor of keeping the Electoral College. Nevada is seen as a “swing” state, and gets a lot of attention in every election. If only the popular vote mattered, smaller states would never see a Presidential candidate after the primaries – though most never do anyway, since they are safe for one party or another.
Then, too, had the 1960 election been decided by popular vote, we might have had a constitutional crisis. Most accounts say that John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon by about 112,000 votes out of more than 68 million. But Alabama voters could pick and choose between two separate sets of electors that year.
If you count the lowest Kennedy elector total, not the highest, Nixon actually won the national popular vote that year. But Kennedy had a comfortable Electoral College margin of 303 to 219.
However, that was an odd anomaly, and in a democracy, it seems fitting, and polls show that the person most voters want to be President should be the winner.
That may indicate that the National Popular Vote compact may just be an idea whose time has come.
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