By Ashley Eubanks and Lana Loukota

Everyone who is old enough to vote and pays even a little attention to politics will remember the 2000 presidential election. The election was a close one and in the end came down to the results of a recount in Florida. George W. Bush won Florida by only a few hundred votes, but that majority gave him the state’s 25 electoral votes, enough to elect him as president. Bush won the presidency by a narrow margin - 271 electoral votes to Al Gore’s 266. Gore actually won the nationwide popular vote, but he had fewer electoral votes.

In our country, the presidential election is not a direct election by U.S. citizens. Originally, citizens chose electors to represent them, and the electors would then cast votes for the man they believed should be president. States sometimes held popular elections to tell their electors who to vote for. Nowadays we just cast a vote for the president and have no clue who our electors are.

From the results of our statewide votes, electors cast their electoral votes accordingly; most states have laws requiring electors to vote for the candidate who received the most popular votes in their state. Furthermore, all but two states have a “winner takes all” rule, where the electoral votes of the whole state are awarded to whichever candidate wins the majority in the state.

The electoral method was originally a way to compromise between having presidents chosen by the public and giving the public no say at all. The electors were supposed to choose for the people, the logic being that a small group of men would be less susceptible to manipulation than the masses. Of course, this point does not matter much anymore, as most electors are legally constrained to vote according to the popular vote in their states.

Each state gets a specified number of votes in the Electoral College based on the population of that state. The number of electors for each state is equal to the number of U.S. senators and representatives that it has. Every state has two senators and at least one representative, with the latter number based on population. Arkansas, for example, has four representatives to go with our two senators, so we are allowed six electoral votes. There are 538 electors in the nation; California has the most with 55, and several sparsely populated states tie for last with three.

The problem many people have with the Electoral College is that an individual’s vote doesn’t seem to count for very much. In Arkansas, for example, the presidential vote typically goes to the more conservative candidate by a wide margin. The individual, whether conservative or liberal, is left wondering why she bothered going to the polls, if her votes have no real bearing on the future of the country.

In the past several years, some states have begun passing legislation that could circumvent the electoral system and make our presidential elections be decided by popular vote instead.  The National Popular Vote (NPV) bill is designed to be passed on a state level, and stipulates that the electoral votes of the states that have joined the NPV would go to whichever candidate wins the popular vote in the nation. The bill will only go into effect when it is passed by states holding a majority (270) of the electoral votes.

Massachusetts recently passed the NPV bill, becoming the 6th state to do so, after Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, and Washington. These states have a total of 73 electoral votes, still nearly 200 shy of the 27o needed to make the elections be based on the popular vote. It is not clear whether the constitutionality of this initiative would be challenged when it gained enough states to make a difference, or if it would be upheld if it were challenged.

(Below is a graphic showing the inroads the NPV movement has made in state governments.
States in red have enacted NPV bills into law.
States in orange have passed the NPV in both houses of their legislatures.
States in green have passed the NPV in one house of their legislatures.
States in yellow have passed the NPV in one committee of their legislatures.)

The ramifications of a nationwide popular vote are interesting to consider. On the one hand, a popular vote would encourage candidates to reach out to states all over the country, rather than focusing the prime part of their energies on large swing states. They would try to appeal to voters to get out and vote, even in states like California and Arkansas, where the state is almost never a close battle. California always goes Democratic in presidential elections, so it’s usually not worth it for either major candidate to spend much time campaigning there. but in an NPV system, both parties’ candidates would need to campaign in the state.

Critics of the NPV point out that a popular vote would encourage candidates to cater to large cities, and that smaller places like Arkansas would be ignored. but it’s worth pointing out that politicians already ignore large chunks of the country, and that Arkansas is probably going to be mostly ignored either way.

Such a radical change in our electoral system could bring many problems, and while the idea of a popular vote appeals to many Americans, there are many others who are hesitant. The electoral system is sometimes viewed as protective of smaller states. Because the number of representatives that each state gets is determined by population, and each state has two senators on top of that number despite population, citizens in smaller states actually have a larger part in the electoral college (in a manner of speaking) than do those in the more vastly populated states, because every state, large or small, gets two electors to match their two senators.

Another effect of a popular vote would be the possible necessity of a presidential runoff election. A third party rarely gets any electoral votes, but it’s not uncommon for third parties to get enough votes that although there is a clear presidential winner, the winner didn’t get a majority of the total popular vote. If this did happen under a national popular vote system, then as the law stands now, it would require a runoff election.

A national popular vote would encourage more people to actually vote. As mentioned above, there is little incentive to vote when you’re living in a non-battleground state; an individual’s vote has little weight. Of course, there’s another side to increasing the significance of a single vote: There would also be more incentive to cheat, and a nationwide recount, if necessary, would be more costly. Currently, recounts are conducted and voter fraud is investigated on the state level, because election results are only reported at the state level. But without the electoral system, fraudulent votes could break out all over the country. States like Arkansas, where there has never been much incentive to cheat in a presidential election, might not be prepared to combat it.

Arkansas hasn’t passed the NPV bill, but it has come close in the past two regular legislative sessions. The bill made it through the state House in both 2007 and 2009. In 2007, Governor Mike Beebe indicated he would support the initiative if it made it to his office, but it never did. The bill died in Senate committee in both years.

The nonprofit corporation responsible for pushing for the bill in various states, National Popular Vote Inc., may have given up on Arkansas, at least for now. And you can’t blame them -- it’s more expedient to work in states that have more electoral votes or will easily accept the bill. Incoming House Speaker Robert Moore (D-Arkansas City) recently told the Arkansas News Bureau that he has talked to the NPV organizers. “I kind of was left with the feeling that probably this was going to be a state they were not going to put a lot of interest into,” said Moore.

With grassroots movements growing nationwide and a political and cultural climate of citizens wanting a voice, perhaps the popular vote initiative will come back to Arkansas at some point. On the other hand, maybe the whole initiative will fizzle before it gets back around, and maybe it will pass entirely without us. In a country where the 11 largest states comprise a majority of electoral votes, presidential elections often happen above our heads. Arkansans band together, or fight against each other, to support the candidate of our choice, but as it stands now, our nearly 2,900,000 voices command a mere 1.1 percent of the electoral votes choosing our next president. No wonder presidential candidates don’t come begging for our votes. No wonder even NPV Inc. doesn’t think we’re worth the fight to pass their bill.

The outcome of NPV Inc.’s struggle is far from certain. With a few more years of work, they might achieve their goal of a national popular vote. Or they might get 270 electoral votes behind them, only to be stopped by an argument that it is unconstitutional because the bill comprises a contract between the states that enter it (the Constitution is unclear on that point and an argument could be made either way).  Or the whole initiative might fizzle in a few more years, before it gets that far.

Due to all the pros and cons of a popular vote, especially the fact that Arkansas and other smaller states would lose their electoral advantage, a national popular vote might not be good news for Arkansas - or the south in genernal. But if the National Popular Vote initiative  is put into effect, for better or worse all voting Arkansans will be given a voice in the presidential elections, and each Arkansan voice will be worth just as much as a voting Ohioan’s or Floridan’s voice. And that, at least, is an exciting thought.