The National Popular Vote Bill - a product of the national movement aiming to reform the presidential election process by modifying the Electoral College - has returned to the forefront of state politics. The legislation was introduced in the state House of Representatives in February, marking the fifth time the bill will be heard in the Rhode Island General Assembly. Representatives will vote May 1 on the measure, which currently has 45 sponsors in the House.
Under the bill's provisions, the candidate who receives the most votes nationally will be elected president. This system stands in contrast to the current method of the Electoral College, in which 48 of 50 states follow a "winner-take-all" method, meaning that the candidate who receives the highest percentage of votes in the state could be awarded all of the state's electors. Nebraska and Maine are the current outliers in this system - they appropriate their electoral votes in proportion to voter opinion. Currently, the candidate who receives the majority of electoral votes across the nation is named president.
If Rhode Island passes the legislation, it will enter into an agreement with nine other states that have already approved the measure. In order for the changes outlined in the agreement to go into effect, 270 electoral votes are needed nationwide. The nine states that have already ratified the agreement constitute 132 votes.
Under the current presidential election system, four candidates in the nation's history have won a presidential election without winning the popular vote, said Ryan O'Donnell, a lobbyist with National Popular Vote.
The "winner-take-all" rule is also a major problem with the current system, O'Donnell said.
"The country is carved into two kinds of states - states that matter and states that don't," he said. "Candidates are not going to campaign anywhere where they are comfortably ahead or behind."
This means "two-thirds of our states are ignored time and time again," he said.
As a "consistently blue state," Rhode Island is almost always passed over when presidential candidates are campaigning, said Christina Morra, a lobbyist for Fair Vote Rhode Island. Morra said the last time a presidential candidate visited the state after primary season was in 1960, when Richard Nixon was fulfilling his campaign promise to visit each and every one of the nation's states before the election.
On campus, both the Brown Democrats and Democracy Matters have previously voiced support for the national popular vote.
Alex Mechanick '15, a member of Democracy Matters, said voter turnout could increase as a result of this legislation.
"Greater public engagement is a healthy thing for elections," Mechanick said. "We like to think the president is elected by the people, and if that doesn't happen then you have issues."
He added that this phenomenon could also increase participation in local elections because national and local races are often listed on the same ballot. By getting more voters to come out on Election Day to choose a president, "you get a lot more involvement with the entire ballot," Mechanick said.
Opponents to the national reform have argued that states with large populations will be overly represented within the aggregate national vote, meaning that voters in California may have a greater say in choosing the president than voters in New Hampshire, for instance.
But so far, states of all sizes have passed the bill into law, O'Donnell said.
The Rhode Island Tea Party has come out in adamant opposition, suggesting that the Electoral College actually highlights "concerns within all states, rural, suburban and urban" through a system of checks and balances, Tea Party leaders wrote in a press release.
"Our Founding Fathers designed a political structure for the United States to protect the rights of the individual by preventing the central government from becoming tyrannical and oppressive," they wrote.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee '75 P'14 has promised to sign the legislation into law if it passes in both chambers this year. Chafee's predecessor, Donald Carcieri '65, vetoed the bill in 2008 despite overwhelming support in the General Assembly.
"This is a great year for it to go all the way but it's going to be a close vote," said Rob Richie, executive director of Fair Vote. Richie added that there is overwhelming support for this type of reform due to recent events, including the 2000 presidential election, in which George W. Bush won the election without winning the popular vote.
"The 2000 election hasn't left people's minds, and if we're unfortunate enough to have one of those close elections, I can see it gaining more steam," said Shawn Patterson '12, president of the Brown Democrats.
Both O'Donnell and Richie said they are optimistic that the legislation will go into effect before the 2016 presidential election. O'Donnell added that Rhode Island voters are more likely to support this legislation now because they are seeing firsthand how their state is being ignored by the major candidates.
"(The legislation) is getting people to realize that change is possible," Richie said. "When they realize that change is possible, they're pretty pleased."
