Video: Maine Moves One Step Closer to Abolishing Electoral College
Video: Maine moves one step closer to abolishing the Electoral College. Here’s why that’s a bad idea.
Maine Senate Approves Anti-Electoral College Legislation
News outlets report Maine’s Senate has approved legislation that would award the state’s four electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote.
In the 2016 election, Maine split its electoral votes. Three went to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and one went to now-President Donald Trump. Maine is just one of two states to split its electoral votes, and 2016 marked the first time the split happened.
Maine’s Senate voted 19-16 Tuesday to join a pact of 14 other states that would allocate their electoral votes based on the candidate who wins the popular vote.
Abolishing the Electoral College is a terrible idea that hurts rural areas and smaller states like Arkansas.
Currently, presidential candidates must win majority votes in many different states in order to become president. This system forces candidates to campaign nationwide.
If the President of the United States were chosen by a nationwide popular vote, candidates could win the presidency by focusing on the seaboards — without campaigning in or considering the issues facing middle America.
Family Council has successfully opposed multiple efforts to award Arkansas’ Electoral Votes to the presidential candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote.
The last serious proposal abolishing the Electoral College in Arkansas was defeated in 2009.
Our friends at PragerU have published an excellent video explaining why the Electoral College is good for America. You can watch it below.
Photo Credit: Carol Boldt [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
Connecticut Passes Bill Undermining Electoral College
Yesterday the Connecticut Legislature passed a bill awarding the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote.
The bill makes Connecticut the newest member of the National Popular Vote Compact. The compact becomes binding once states representing at least 270 electoral votes join the agreement.
Under the compact, a state gives its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide. That means Connecticut’s electoral votes would go to the winner of the national popular vote rather than to the presidential candidate that most voters in Connecticut supported.
Family Council helped defeat a similar proposal in the Arkansas Legislature in 2009.
Under that proposal, Arkansas’ six electoral votes would have gone to the candidate who received the most votes from the rest of the nation instead of the candidate that most Arkansans voted for.
The measure effectively would have disenfranchised Arkansas voters and made Arkansas’ presidential votes irrelevant.
If you’re curious why the Electoral College is important and why we should not elect the president via a nationwide popular vote, here’s a short video explaining some of the strengths of the Electoral College: