There is a national movement to have the results of presidential elections better reflect who actually got more votes; it’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Several states have passed laws to instruct their presidential Electors to vote for the person who gets the most votes across the entire country.
So far, states representing more than half of the electoral votes needed to activate the national popular vote have joined the compact.
WMNF interviewed Deb Mazzaferro with the League of Women of Florida and St. Pete area.
“Currently, eleven or twelve states are ‘swing states.’ So 90% of all candidate forums and advertising happens in those thirteen states. In fact, I think it was Ohio had something like 70% of all campaign events and dollars spent there. Trying to influence their elections.
“So, the argument that x-number of states would control the election is already an argument for going in the opposite direction. Because right now California with 55 Electors basically saw one candidate visit in the last election.”
There are some other arguments, too, though. What are they?
“Those smaller states have an outweighed value to their Electors. So, Wyoming has a small population and they have four Electors. So they basically have one Elector for 150,000 people. Whereas in Florida, with our 20 million people and 29 Electors, we have basically one Elector for 725,000 [people].
“So you could add up nine states with ten million people population and they have the same 29 Electors that Florida has with twice that population. …”
“This is a legislative issue, it’s not something that we can go out and have people sign a petition and put it on as a constitutional amendment. There will be bills [in the Florida Legislature].”
She will speak about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County in Ybor City at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
She’s also speaking on March 7 in St. Petersburg, and April 24 in Pasco County.
Listen to the full interview here:
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