By Mimi Stewart and Howie Morales
This legislative session, we will be introducing the national popular vote bill, which would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. Although more than 76 percent of New Mexicans support this legislation, there are several misperceptions about what the bill would do and what it means for the state of New Mexico.
First, recent elections have brought the shortcomings of the current system to light. The current winner-take-all rule, which is in effect in most states, awards all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes. Because of the winner-take-all rule, a candidate can win the presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in four of the nation’s 55 presidential elections (and one in seven of the non-landslide elections). A shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in five of the last 12 elections. A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated Bush despite his nationwide lead of 3.5 million votes.
Our current system hardly seems fair, regardless of which political party you support. Commonsense dictates that the candidate with the most votes should win the election, and that’s why we are pushing this reform. While New Mexico currently benefits from its status as a targeted battleground state, with campaign resources and candidate visits, this hasn’t always been the case and there are no guarantees that it will continue. Under the national popular vote proposal, there would be incentive for each candidate to directly campaign in every state because every vote in every state would count.
Second, New Mexico has the ability to adopt the national popular vote because the U.S. Constitution exclusively gives the states 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 and was used by only three states in the nation’s first presidential election. Maine and Nebraska cu
The national popular vote bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states po
Finally, every four years on Election Day we take pride in electing a president — not the president of New Mexico or of California but the president of the United States. Our electoral system should reflect our collective national will and our engrained sense of fairness. Changing the current system won’t come easily, but it’s the right thing to do. Our state and country deserve a better and fair system, and the national popular vote ensures that every vote will be valued equally.
Stewart is a Democratic state representative from Albuquerque. Morales is a Democratic state senator from Silver City.