$100,000 in total cash prizes, plus a $5,000 grand prize. >> get a camera, get a microphone and start filming and produce the best video you could possibly produce. >> visit studentcam.org for more information today. next, a conversation using the popular vote in u.s. presidential elections rather than the current electoral college system. the hill newspaper in the make every vote count foundation hosted this event. >> it is my pleasure to introduce bob q sackett will

moderate a panel on havel candidates' messages and platforms change with the popular vote. bob. >> thanks, jim. i wanted to introduce our panel. viannaichael steele, carmen, and jesse wegman. statesooking back at the visited by donald trump and hillary clinton in the last election. ohio, north carolina, florida, pennsylvania. democrats wish hillary clinton had visited wisconsin more. if we did change the system, what would be the impact of campaigns and their strategies? they visited the large states.

i was amused when senator cramer of north dakota, defending the electoral college said this would make north dakota irrelevant. guess what. when it comes to president of politics, north dakota is totally irrelevant right now. let's say we had a presidential election that was looking close in terms of popular votes. then every vote would count and candidates would have an incentive to try to maximize the turnout in places like north dakota. things when we dissected hillary clinton's loss , one thing that kept coming up was not whether she visited pennsylvania or michigan, but the analytics said go your votes are. instead of going to places where 80-20, they ignored those areas. if you are looking at a reality

where the votes count as they do with the states, the smart thing to do is to go everywhere and make sure you can get votes even in places and counties and states you would lose. what we would see his television at an places like north dakota, which are very cheap. you would see a ground campaign. -- as're going to lose by richard nixon did in 1960, one vote per precinct and you know if you can shift two votes per precinct you could win, you will go everywhere. the paradox here is that the major defense of the electoral college that gives clout the small states is exactly wrong. small states would have much more clout in the world we live in if we had a national popular vote. >> you have been in the war room of campaigns.

in presidential elections, other than the primaries, do states like north dakota even discussed? >> no. [laughter] >> they aren't. no, they are not. only to the extent that you measure how much money you can get out of north dakota. it becomes a donor state, like maryland. if you're a republican eula come to maryland if you want to have a fundraiser. you will not go to the campaign provokes the -- that's important to understand. designedhe system is with the electoral college will we are notdoing is holding elections in united states of america. were holding elections in the battleground states. utah onl -- you were talking between eight and 12 states the

campaigns give a damn about because the rest is just sidelines. it is flyover or donor. you will not spend the money because you will concentrate on those winner take all states. is dictated to by the current political cycles or other things you look at the in the last cycle would have been a battleground state had hillary clinton played effectively. she took it for granted. donald trump didn't. that speaks to the nature of this particular effort. it does open up the prospect enforces candidates to have to pay attention to every state because every state becomes important. if i'm running for president as california is equally important to me as my

home state of maryland. or florida. or ohio. about turning my vote and getting my vote. i may lose the vote in california but that's added to a bigger number. that will help me in a national campaign. we talked about national races in the u.s. day they onlythe care about a handful of states. if you're not in one of the states you will not see the benefit of it. my friend -- michigan was a big player until the mccain campaign decided to pull out. right. they made this conclusion that it was no longer relevant. it was relevant to all of the races in michigan at the time. the impact of that premature

removal from the race resulted in losses not just of the state by the presidential candidate but down valid as well. ballot as well. there are connections beyond just the presidential and why making a platform available to every voter, everyone gets to play and everyone up and down the system benefits from it. >> if we went to a national popular vote, how would it affect voter turnout? i spoke to republicans in maryland who said my vote does not count in the presidential race. a lot of people feel that way. would it help it significantly? >> i absolutely believe it

would. one of the key reasons people don't turn out to vote is because they feel like their vote doesn't matter. it is a vicious cycle that continues. virginia is a good example. in 2000, virginia was solidly republican so nobody hosted any events there. flash forward to 2016. virginia is a contested state. you saw 23 presidential events there. that means individuals in virginia ended up turning out more. you had about 66% turnout in virginia up from 2000. states like texas that are traditionally considered state, -- considered safe, there was turnout around 50%. you know people when they feel like their votes don't matter would actually turn out. the national popular vote would contribute to that. >> just to follow up, critics say the candidates would just go to the big cities. >> right. i think it is definitely an increase from what we see now because candidates completely

ignore 40 or so states. they are just focusing on 10 battleground states like michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. if we switch to the national popular vote, you would have to reach out to individuals in more diverse areas. he would be reaching more of the mass because the current system foregoes about 80% of the electorate. >> you have a book coming out in the spring on this. what did you hear from people on this topic? >> it is interesting, the book looks at the history of the electoral college and attempts to change it over the years but i end with a chapter of talking to campaign managers and field directors from the last 20 or so years from both republican and democratic campaigns. what was fascinating to me is almost to a person, they all wanted a national popular vote. >> both sides? >> both sides. there were a couple exceptions,

which you can buy the book to find out about it. [laughter] >> the vast majority understood how this warps american democracy. one thing that is interesting to me is in a previous panel, a professor was talking about a risk of the one in three risk that a person who wins the popular vote nationally does not become president. his trust me. -- it struck me. i was like, why are we calling that a risk? if the electoral college defenders are right and this is a system that is there for a good reason and it was put there by the framers of the constitution and has been with us for more than two centuries, why is that a risk? what is the problem having a popular vote winner not be president? i think the answer is pretty obvious. nobody feels that that is a legitimate way to elect a president.

republicans don't feel that way for happened to them and democrats have not felt that way when it happened to them. what you find is campaigns understand this. they don't want to campaign in battleground states, but they do it because it is politically smart. they have limited time and money and they are not stupid. they know they have to spend it in ways that maximizes their chances of winning under the system we have right now. in contrast, if you have a popular vote, you would have a system in which -- as all the other panelists have been saying -- candidates would be free to go to the places where the votes were and that is not just mean big cities. one interesting piece of research i have seen comes from the national popular vote, these are people that have been running the compact that has been gaining steam. it uses what happens in battleground states now as a proxy for a national popular vote.

we are speculating on how the national popular vote election would run. there is a pretty good answer to that and that is we can see it happening in battleground states. battleground states are elections in which every vote counts the same and the person who gets the most votes wins. that is what a national popular vote is. how do campaigns render -- rhonda elections -- run their elections in battleground states? they go everywhere. every campaign manager i spoke to said this, this is -- rhonda campaigning 101, you don't just live in the cities, you go everywhere. if 30% of the population lives in urban areas, you spend 30% of your time there. if 25% live in rural areas, you spent 25% of your time there. it happens again and again and you see it in every battleground state. i think that is a pretty good illustration of what we would see with the popular vote election. >> there is another important area. it is not just where you would go and spend the dollars, it is it's not just where you would go

to spend the dollars, it's how you would campaign. in our tribe allies, polarized time, there is no incentive to reach out to people on the other side. but if you are trying to reach democrats would have an incentive to be more sensitive to the concerns of rural voters, changing the rhetoric and policies. michael talked about california. we now have a sort of national republican campaign led by the president in a war against california, trying to undermine everything california is doing. if you are out to get a sizable number of votes in california. california, you aren't going to do that. it's such as that you pay attention by campaigning and putting in money. you will change the way to you talk in the way that you put in your policies at a time when we

desperately need those changes. michael, you are on tv all the time, how would this change how the media covers campaigns? >> it's a good question. the media has various i guess stress tests that they go through to figure out where they want to send their people. and which states they want to concentrate their time on, very much the way that campaigns do. looking at the value added, am i going to spend the time in, in candidateta when the is just going there to do a flyover or a donor event? the answer is probably going to be no they are not. if the candidate is actually going to go there and campaign and spend time, i think what you would see is the media would have to adapt their strategies as well.

simply the goal is to follow the candidates, right? and report the news they are making or not making. i think that you would see some change in how the on ground reporters do their job, where they go, and the decisions that their editors are going to be making in terms of their assignments and where they send them. the idea that you now open up all 50 states as a voter is a fascinating and important one, i think, if we really believe that the system should allow for everyone to vote and for every vote to matter and to count. you either believe that or you don't. this notion that candidates under a national popular vote concentrate their time in urban centers is just silly. because clearly the person who said that or thinks that has never run a campaign or been a

candidate. you are not going to get votes if 50% of your population you're going after is in one place and you leave the other 50% to your competitors, what do you think is going to happen to you? you are not going to win. the 50% of the vote that you are concentrating on is still split up between the other candidates running. no candidate corners the market on every vote in the jurisdiction. that is why we open this trust has up and we say to the voters that you are now in play. candidates will take note of that. the media will have to follow. they are going to follow the script, following where the news takes them. they will follow where the candidates begin to make some noise. you get a republican candidate, sticking with the california example, suddenly seeing a bump in the numbers, yes they are behind but they are competitive in california, you don't think the press will cover that story? california, they will lose it

anyway? they will cover that story. it feeds the narrative downstream. it's very much the way the system is set up now. what do we anchor our elections on? friggin states. iowa and hampshire. if you don't win those states, it's over. tell that to the people running places like california and florida. the idea is to open the process up a lot more. to engage the voters for sure, but also to bring those other components of the process, the media and the political system in line with what the voters are doing. traveleda, you have the country to talk to young voters. which communities do you think are underrepresented the most? >> so traditionally it is communities of color and other

marginalized groups that have been underrepresented in the electoral process. the students of color feel it. they live in california, think that their vote doesn't matter. they live in texas, traditionally considered a safe state. having that in mind, you feel as ifyou definitely feel these candidates don't really represent your values. much to what my co-panelists were saying as far as cap battleground states, they focus on fringe voters that just allow them to capture a sliver of the margin so that they can win electoral votes in the state, whereas if you actually care about the millions of people living in california or texas as you would in a popular vote, you would have to change the narrative of your candidacy. you would not be able to win on a racist, xena phobic agenda. you would have to win based on the voters that would contribute to your overall victory.

>> we were talking about 2000, how there was no violence after that election. but everyone thought that it would flip. that al gore would become president but that bush would win the popular vote. we saw the flip of that. in 2004 it was important for the bush team to win the popular vote, which they did. , do you thinks that donald trump is going to focus on the national popular vote in 2020? jesse: well, it depends on which day you ask him. trump has said that he won the popular vote, he would have won the popular vote if millions of illegal voters had not cast their ballots, and that he would win it if he campaigned differently. i don't know what his position is on it today. i do think, you know, going back quoted at the beginning of the event, he

tweeted that the electoral college is a disaster for election night 2012. when he tweeted that it was 7:00 p.m. and the reason he said that is that it briefly like the early returns were coming in was goingarack obama to win electoral college and mitt romney could win the popular vote. all it takes is a hint that it might flip for people to get very upset about the system we have right now. i think that what you are referring to is the 2000, 2004 also very instructive. there is reporting from before that thation election, as bob just said, was looking like it might go the other way. there was a lot of reporting that the might be a split election before the vote, but that it was going to go the other way. people thought that george w. bush would lose the popular vote and win the electoral college. there is reporting that some people in his campaign were working on a strategy to

essentially do what the hamilton electors did in 2016, a public push, a pr blitz to get the electors to go to the popular vote winner and say that the electoral college is this an anachronism from the 18th need a president elected by the people. they obviously didn't have to take that route given how it turned out, but four years later because they had lost the popular vote, they became, the bush campaign team became perhaps the only campaign in american history that actively sought to win that vote. no other campaign probably has or should gone for that vote. the bush team understood the issue of legitimacy that we have and theying about understood how important it was for him to be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the country after 2000. he was the winner by 3 million votes, roughly the clinton margin in 2016. so they managed it.

can i just make one other point? this goes to what the other panel was going to say. norm and michael were both referring to california, which is a great example. california, people know how many people voted for trump in california. 4.5 million people voted for aump in california and not single one of them mattered on the real election day, december 19, when the electors cast their ballots, right? because of the winner take all rule, which came up in the last session, which is really at the of the inequity created by our current electoral college system. 4.5 million people is more than hillary clinton's entire national margin. none of those people counted. it's really important to remember how many more people, and not from the perspective of campaigns, but from the perspective of turnout and involvement, how many more people would feel involved and feel like they mattered under a popular vote regime.

rep -- mentioning communities of color, which right now there are huge -- huge swathes of people that just don't count. african-american voters in the south, the vast majority have not seen their vote represented in generations. all of a sudden you have a popular vote and black voters in the south would matter just as much as white voters in wyoming, west virginia. it alters the calculus of a how a campaign happens. to that point, which is really the heart of it, looking at it from a candidates perspective, your entire engagement changes. 4.5 billion voters out of california are added to a bigger number, a goal that you are trying to reach. the voters on the ground have

will, someif you skin in the game. we all know the frustration of west coast voters. elections are called just as they are getting off from work. their incentive is to go home and have dinner. right question mark anything after 5:00 doesn't matter. there is still another three hours in polling going on. the candidate once those voters to turn out but the voters alike -- for what? you are not going to win my state, my vote doesn't count, it doesn't matter, i'm going to dinner. right? now all of a sudden it's a different ballgame. now you have a turnout machine from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in california if you are a candidate running. all of a sudden now you have gotten the early return. you know the candidates, we get the return at noon, at 5:00. we have a sense of what's going on on the east coast. the west coast is a second thought, it isn't considered at all in most cases.

i have talked to enough california legislators and candidates to know, particularly if they are republican, what their day is like on election day. the turnout model kind of stops after 5:00. toreally is a huge way incentivize the voters and reengage the system in a way that we haven't ever. now every vote is in play if i'm running and i'm going to add the vote to the vote that i'm getting on the east coast, in the south, the votes i'm getting in the midwest. and i'm going to cobble together, like george bush did, cobble together my majority vote by tapping into every precinct and voter in the country. >> which affects congressional elections. they say wait a minute, i'm -- i need that motor that might have voted for me but is going to dinner. >> just to follow-up up on your question to jesse, donald is the

first president probably ever who has only focused on a base, reinforcing a base, not caring about the nation as a whole, trying even to make a pretense to broaden that out. believing that the distortions of the electoral college give him leverage. in three or four days he is going to minneapolis to do a rally, going into ilhan omar's district and you know that it will be the rodent infested kind of rhetoric that we have seen before. there are two bangles here. one, put minnesota in play -- >> which he nearly one -- >> which he came close to winning by appealing to the iron range, the rural part of the state. this is my home state, in fact. if we were looking at a national popular vote, i think the whole premise of his rhetoric and his policy would have to adjust if we assume that he is focused not

just on making more money when he is president, but also winning reelection. so you are going to be careful about the kind of rhetoric that you use in minnesota because you may turnout even more of the voters who are appalled by that rhetoric. going back to california, we have these devastating forest fires and trump basically dismissed it and made sure that federal aid did not go to california. that ifnot going to do you are out to maximize your vote in california because you need it to compete for the national popular vote. so, it changes an awful lot of the calculus of not just candidates, but a president if you have to look at the world in a completely different way. brianna: that brings up an interesting perspective. talking about minnesota, we know in 2016 michigan and pennsylvania were the top states

that helped to solidify the candidacy for the president. with that perspective in mind, we know that those states are over 80% white. individual switching to a national popular vote would really have to change the narrative and how they go about courting diverse voters and in that way they are appealing to the middle and the moderates, not just the extreme individuals representative of one demographic. you mentioned something that is key to put into context. the behavior not only of candidates, but of incumbent president's when it comes to where they are going to put federal resources in a presidential campaign cycle. so during the obama years we had a hurricane that came into the gulf. the posture of the administration was one of we are going to watch it, we're going

to watch it, we are going to watch it. then it shifted to the western course of -- coast of florida and it was, damage, we have -- dammit, we have to make sure that there are resources available. why? you need to let the people on the ground know that we have got your back and we cover you more than the folks in the louisiana or elsewhere. how these resources get allocated is also a factor. , per not just of the vote se. it is also the federal dollars and how they are's rent and presidential cycles by incumbents and the promises that are made by candidates that are of let peoplet know that i have got your back and i am with you. whether it is federal aid on education, no child left behind was a program out of the bush years. medicare part d, who was that

for? you can begin to contextualize and understand exactly how all of this fits together and thereby undoing that system, this current system in a way that makes it more competitive exposes the entire country to the very same resources and the very same level of scrutiny candidates give of florida or ohio, iowa or whatever. forink you do a big service the people of the country as a whole. i think that is an excellent point and we could go down the list of -- disaster declarations are particularly upsetting. as someone said on the previous panel, this is a time when americans are actually in need and may be their lives are in danger so playing politics with that is particularly dangerous. even in the normal course of

business, federal grants, presidentially controlled funding and even in some cases legislation, which is harder to pin down, there are a lot of factors as to why any bill passes congress and moves through. let's say george w. bush takes it up and gets it passed. last i checked, republicans were not fans of massive government entitlement programs, but who does medicare part e help? -- part d help? older folks who need access to medicine. we're to those folks live question mark florida. both parties do this. president's -- president obama's first major act was the bailout the auto industry. where is the auto industry? the steel tariffs, go down the line and you find a fascinating correlation, let's say, we will immediately say causation but a correlation between the kinds of decisions that presidents make

with their money, the money that they control, and where the battleground states are. this isn't to say that those are not legitimate needs or that none of that matters. it's to say that the overbearing focus on those parts of the country is a distortion of american democracy and that if the president, if presidents look at the nation as a whole and a place where they needed to win support everywhere, the decisions about where money went to be more in line with what the nation needed as a whole. >> michael, you are a republican, you're not a fan of the president. to youblicans say privately, why do you support this? we won't win the national popular vote. stop talking about it. interesting.t's not really. it's something that in particular, when you look at recently, certainly working with and being involved with the folks at national popular vote,

being in the room with republican legislators who are really, you know, conscientiously looking at this it,considering it, weighing taking up legislation in their not just from minority positions, but you know, from being in the majority, it is because they, the smart one knows, demographically, and otherwise, how the country is changing. we want to be competitive. we want to be able to win in places that we once were winners, like california, states in the west. as you look at just, you know, areas close to me, virginia, which was a solidly red state, now is not. you have got to look at these realities and say, well, how do we compete on this new battleground, if you will, that is being formed?

a lot of republicans, you know, you do have some who do the but for. if we had this, bill clinton would have been president or whatever. you know? hillary clinton would have been president. but that argument really doesn't stand up. folks are not necessarily such a at it through narrow prism. it's surprising, because i thought they would at first, but that has not been my experience. they see it as a way to address the coming changes in the you know, looking at the idea that yeah, they would like everyone in their community to vote as well because it ultimately benefits them. the one thing i have always said to republicans, when i was county chairman, state chairman, national chairman, never be afraid of the voter and never be afraid to put out the policies and the values and the positions that you agree in. that is ultimately what they will gravitate towards.

so, all the machinations want to change the underlying requirement that you still have to talk to voters, you still have to make a case. you can do what you want with gerrymandering and voter suppression, do all these things, but at the end of the day you still have to confront that voter and i think a lot more republican legislators at the state level see that and, you know, are coming around to this idea of, you know, elevating the idea of a national popular vote. >> in 2012 after the republican loss, reince priebus, chair of the republican party at the time , commissioned his famous autopsy. quite a word to use for your party. arns out in some ways to be more accurate word. remember, that was basically, oh my god, we are losing the demographic battle, we have got to change. we need to do something on immigration. i think it was an inadequate

response. it was to pass a comprehensive immigration bill and we are fine. what it was writes reavis as chief of staff to donald trump ripped up the autopsy, threw it in the wastebasket and they moved in a different direction. imagine if you have to compete as a party for the national popular vote. with a different set of circumstances where you are going to have to compete much more widely. you are not only going to push for a comprehensive immigration bill, but you will change the rhetoric that you use about immigrants. you will have to look at a broader range of policies that you can change so that you can compete for minority votes. it alters the landscape in far more ways than i think we have been thinking about. if you are going to compete as a national party, you are going to have to actually focus on solving problems for people in the country instead of citing

discord and division. if i think we're looking at a panacea, and there is no panacea for what is an and or miss cultural divide and, now, something much worse, but if we are looking for something to alter the landscape of our politics and our governance, this is where you start. and to really build off of my co-pay list's mentioned, we would see a policy agenda more reflective of our communities so that you are not just focusing on extreme voters that would put you across the edge in michigan and pennsylvania. it's about seeing real policy reform that focuses on the everyday citizen. you would see more people caring about gun violence prevention, immigration, on border security or a way to stop separating our families. that is what your base is made out of.

he would have a larger base that you would have to cater to instead of just a few voters in a few states not representative of the u.s. as a whole. points to two things. one, the answer to those republicans who say that we would lose the popular vote, yes, if you continue down the path of this sort of racist, xena phobic, revanchist party, you will. the country is changing and you are aiming for a smaller and smaller slice of it. but that's not deal me direction you can go in and in fact a popular vote forces parties to approach a broader constituency. i think that that is really the key here. the way that we select our presidents, the way that we design our electoral system shapes the kind of candidates that we get. it's not just policy, its candidates. you wouldn't end up with certain types of candidates who were not able to speak to a broader coalition of people on both the

left and the right. it looks, we look very divided right now, but there are candidates in both parties who told speak more effectively a much broader swath of americans if they had to, if that's what the rules required. an importanthat's part. if you look at the conversation right now, you have a great pressure within the primary system right now between the more progressive candidates, bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, and the more "traditional democrats," even folks like kamala harris or pete buttigieg. you have this sort of tension. think,the effects, i which i would be very curious itut in terms of how

ultimately plays out, i think it will play out this way, our primary system will change, to. the primaries right now are geared towards the lowest common denominator because the parties know that only this much of our entire voter pool is going to show up and vote. so you are driven by that energy, by those positions, right? that are maybe anti-immigrant or wanting to take away private health care. so, you have this system in which everything is forced into a very narrow tunnel in a primary. you open up and you see these candidates trying to pivot and backstroke and swing and move to sort of deal with a broader electorate that is now looking at and focusing at a camp, looking at an election and saying -- you are going to do what with my health care and what did you say about immigrants? it becomes something where i think a candidate now running

for national office, i think it will be true for statewide offices as well, governors and other officials, they will pay more attention to how they make that case. right now the candidates make the case for iowa, new hampshire, nevada, south carolina. under this system they would have to make the case for all and let people know, yeah, i'm coming out to california next week. i hear you, i'm going to be in missouri after that, in tennessee. they become well-rounded, better versed. of bubble upa lot from the state level on issues. not just california being the leading edge on policy and change at the state level. i think that overall it will refashion the way that candidates not only behave in terms of getting votes, but how they behave in terms of addressing issues.

>> we are going to open it up to questions in about five minutes, so get ready. along those lines, i remember john mccain telling him -- ,aying that ethanol was a joke finishing fourth in iowa, it didn't help him there. that was the beginning of his comeback, but it shows how it can affect the policies of candidates. you mentioned backstage that there was a vote in congress many years ago on this. where to you see this movement question mark give us a little history on it. >> one thing that is remarkable is that we do think about this right now is a very partisan issue, just like everything else in america. but it hasn't been. for most of american history there has been no partisan valence. there was actually a remarkable level of support going back to convention.tional the most influential members of the convention in philadelphia wanted a popular vote for president. james madison, james wilson.

the people we generally identify framing the essence of the constitution. they wanted a popular vote and couldn't get it. there are a lot of reasons for that but i won't go into here, including slavery, including the fight at the time between smaller states and bigger states, which wasn't as big a fight as you might think, but there was one. plus a few other concerns about what people could understand or going up into what bob was referring to, was this effort in the 1960's at the height of the civil rights movement, and most people don't remember this happen, but there was a concerted effort to abolish the electoral college and replace it with a popular vote in the mid-1960's. in 1969, the house of representatives passed a bill to abolish the electoral college by

something like 82%, easily clearing the threshold for an amendment. hey got to the senate. it looked like they might have the votes. the states were on board. 80% of the public wanted a popular vote for president. it gets bottled up in the senate. you know who bottled up in the senate? strom thurmond, sam ervin, the same people who were , you know, filibustering the civil rights act a future years earlier. their bread and butter. they blocked it until it died in the senate and it never went anywhere. at the time, it had the support of richard nixon after he became elected president. it had the support of george w. bush, congressman. later had supportive bob dole. this was not a partisan issue because people fundamentally understood that majority rule was the essential foundation of a democracy.

i think it is unfortunate that all of the splits have gone in one direction, as i think the professor pointed out in the last session, that it does not necessarily have to go that way, and we have seen republican presidents as recently as a george w. bush winning by of substantial -- by a substantial margin in the popular vote. something like since 2002, which is only 17 years ago, 47 states have elected republican governors. republicans do not have trouble .inning popular votes i think it is a misunderstanding of how the incentive structures of our current system have worked, the way campaigning happens, and leading to the kind of candidates we have, making people think that somehow republicans cannot win a popular vote. i think that is a misunderstanding. >> we will open it up for questions. if you can raise your hand, the mic will come to you.

keep your questions short and identify yourself. >> this is somewhat hypothetical, but given the current president's limited popularity in our country, if all the sudden a popular vote went into effect for the 2020 election, do you think there would be more interest from the republican party in considering alternative candidates? >> presumably by that point, the cutoff date under the compact would be july. so if it happened right around that time, than pretty much your primary season is done. right? but if it happens before that, the remaining states coming into say it happened in february or march during the just session, i don't know, you

have three candidates in there already. it certainly would change the dynamic of how they would run. a little bit given the window that they would have. i think, again, the question of how it would play out in a primary situation is a little bit gray, grayer, i think. you do not know how many candidates would get in, get out, how donald trump himself would articulate his campaign at that point. he has said that if there were a national popular vote in 2016, yes, i would have been in california, and i would have campaigned differently. he recognizes that he would have to change out of the more traditional electoral college model into a national popular vote model in terms of a general election, what it would do in a aimary, i think that would be matter of timing of when the compact is fulfilled and the states are in. later in the process, it would

have an impact on the primary early in the process, and it probably could. either way, i think donald trump would campaign differently regardless. hello. my name is carol baum. i wonder if you could say something about the strategies for achieving enough states, and also, what do you see as the biggest obstacles to achieving the 270 electoral votes? >> i have spent a good deal of time with people involved in the compact effort, and they are a broad mix of democrats and republicans who have been doing this for over a decade. and they have spent a huge amount of time going state to state and working with legislators. if not convincing all of them, at least trying to redo some of the knee-jerk opposition to the compact.

they actually have, and several houses, i can be corrected on this as some of the members are here today, but it has passed in at least one houses in several republican states, i think including oklahoma. i am trying to think of the others right now. georgia. and one or two others. of know, there was a sense before the split election in 2016, they were actually on the cusp of possibly hitting it enacted in georgia, in utah, and arizona, and states sort of trending purple. and the republican leadership were singing, uh -- seeing, uh-oh, if we don't do this now, we will be on the wrong side of winner take all rules. convincing people in republican, red states -- i am trying to avoid using red and blue because it is a harmful way of looking

at our country, like a state only has republicans or democrats in it. all states are purple states. in states that have a majority of republicans or republican leadership, how do you convince them this is a good thing? part of that gets back to your question, which is the sense of, oh, we're going to lose the popular vote. that is what everyone cares about in the end. people want the system that will help the candidate win. if you have a popular vote that is really up to -- up for grabs, i think you can start to win over the republican-controlled states. those last 74 electoral votes are going to be a heavier lift than the first 196. but i don't know if any of you have any other thoughts on how right now, in this moment, how you convince republican lawmakers to adopt a compact that, on the surface, looks like something that would hurt them.

some of mythat in conversations with folks, one of the things that folks are cognizant of are the demographic changes that are occurring. you know, states that were, for red, to usefortably that term, certainly comfortably with i guess republican-controlled, texas is demographically changing. republicans cannot afford to lose texas. just cannot. not under this current system. you lose texas, there is no roadmap to 270. there just is not. the math does not work. all of the sudden, you have to have a way to look at, ok, what is the alternative in terms of being competitive in a demographically changing environment?

i have got to get my vote from some place else. if my home is no longer the most reliable place to anchor my vote and it is now more competitive and i have to start building on these numbers, i have to get outside the box. that is what this forces you to do. you cannot just stay in one place. have to now look at how michigan and a missouri and washington ,tate and oregon, other places where your numbers may not be that strong, but the numbers are enough there to add to what you are doing in texas and what you're doing in michigan and , to you are doing in ohio come together in a presidential race with the kind of success you need. i think the more republicans are recognizing -- before the election turnout, the outcome of 2016, a lot of republicans are like you, yeah, we need to get ahead of this curve, right?

well, the curve is still there. 2016 did was install the inevitable. changes are still happening. he states that were once reliably one party or the other are less so today. >> i also think it is important to realize that in two of the past five presidential elections were we have seen this, there has been one party that has been successful. , popular vote. 2016, trump won and lost the popular vote. so i personally do not see the system changing until it really comes back and is harmful. you definitely see it becoming a politicized issue where democrats have lost this twice now and are a little bit bitter and realize it needs to change. you might need a loss like that on the other side to push people to the national popular vote. >> a couple more questions.

hello. from a grassroots group. thank you. i am wondering if we consider the national popular vote as a beta test before an amendment, would it be needed to pass a constitutional amendment? >> no. no. [laughter] quick, the constitutional eminent process is messy. and i think, given the political climate that we are in today, it would open up a lot of doors that we do not need to open and create a lot of distraction. what i love about this process is it is direct. it is going to the state legislators to use what our founding fathers intended us to do, because they empowered those states individually to set the stage for how they want to elect a president.

in thisate decided upcoming session that in order to get the electoral votes for maryland, you need to stand in the middle of, you know, the annapolis harbor and reset the constitution, that is what you have to do, right? that is what you have to do, because that is what the state wants you to do. that is perfectly ok. so to be able to go in and negotiate and have the conversation directly with the state is cleaner. it is more direct. and it is no different than the states deciding we want to hold a lottery, powerball, and we all go into the compact together and abide by the rules that we set in place. so someone who plays in maryland intributes to the winner oregon and vice versa. that is an arrangement among the states that is a lot cleaner.

it is consistent with what the founders intended. >> i will give you one caveat though. we are dangerously close to a call for a constitutional convention. i am scared to death, because we're not going to have a james madison or a ben franklin. we will have a sean hannity or michael moore, and god knows what violence they will do to fundamentals of the constitution. but if there were a constitutional convention, obviously that would be easier. you would have to still get three quarters of the states to go along with it, but you could put it out there in a way that would not be achievable otherwise. but pray that we do not have that venue. >> and i want to add to that question. you know, this came up in a previous panel, but it is important that i want to reiterate it. the national popular vote compact is using the constitution as it was designed to be used. people might have heard the last

panel say let's do it the right way. i am not sure what that means, the right way. nobody is complaining that winner take all rules is not the right way, but states adopted those the same way they would adopt the compact, which is weird deciding for ourselves how -- we are deciding for ourselves how we are going to allocate our electors. the other point that was made in the previous session is this is how every major advance in the franchise or american history, virtually every advance that happens, it happens at the state level first. giving women the right to vote. the senate. voting directly for senators now. all of these things bubbled up from the states and then became entrenched in the constitution , but that is out happens. that seems like a fairly natural way for that to go. >> it is important to note that not every state is a winner take all state. -- so that is

consistent with our constitution, and that is the right way for those two states to do it differently in how they allocate their electoral votes for anyone who happens to win them. so this idea that there is a right way or wrong way is inconsistent with what the founders had intended. the right way is the best way for states to decide individually how they want to do this. >> the one thing i would add is if we get close and are finally at that point, we are going to have to focus on making sure there are not faceless electors. you know, it has been a minor problem up until now. every once in a while you will have somebody who has pledged to vote for a presidential candidate who won the state who does not do that. many states have misdemeanor fines and the like, but you can see some mischief done.

and we would hope that when we reach that point, states would pass implementing legislation, as well, that would ensure that when the state orders the electors to vote for the winner of the national popular vote, they actually do it. >> a few minutes left. we can get one more question in. >> thank you very much. thank you very much. i am with the league of women voters. differentat it from a angle, seeing if this is an option for the people who are perhaps emotionally attached to the electoral college. what happens if we just get rid theinner take all and states adopt -- hey, if it is 60% republican, 40% democratic, that is your electoral thing. and if you cannot reach the ofeshold -- is the threshold 200 70 in law? can we not change it?

is that an alternative option? >> that is a really good question. again, my fellow panelists have constitution, article one, giving the states the power to decide how the electoral college is given for each state. 48 states have the winner take all system. awardates have decided to it some other way. so it will be going back to the states, whether it is a national compact, determining what is the best way and the most democratic process of awarding electoral colleges, so that way citizens living in the state will have their voices heard. just a majority number. >> there actually are several lawsuits underway right now for essentially what you're asking for, which is basically to get the courts to rule that winner

take all is in in violation of the 14th amendment equal protection law, the first amendment, and a few other constitutional provisions. delaware brought this lawsuit in the 1966 against new york saying this is not fair as you give all of your electors to one candidate or the other and completely wipe us out. we do not count when new york has 20-some the, 29 electors and delaware has three, delaware does not matter. it is something there's -- something else where the small states do not matter with winner take all. so that idea that you are bringing up, it has been in the makes for a long time, for decades. the lawsuits right now, the include two republican-led states and two democratic-led states, we do not actually know what the justices

,hought about it at the time but this is an effort that is underway. >> there is an important caveat here. after obama won pennsylvania, which at that point was quite democratic, had a republican governor or republican legislature, legislature in part because of partisan gerrymandering, and they were making a move to change to an allocation by congressional district, which was a deeply gerrymandered congressional district model. and it was all to ensure that a republican could win even if the voters moved in a different direction. a fewthis happened in states, it could be a deeply distorted model. and i would be very, very cautious about moving in that direction. >> and your question about proportional voting is interesting and more complicated

than it sounds. because if you cannot divide electors into fractions, it could be a very skewed result itself. it requires a constitutional amendment also, dividing electors into factions. >> i would go back to the in place is a system , howhe question today is do we work within that framework short of what you were saying about a constitutional convention? in the states seemingly have worked out a way to do that/ we will enter into bilateral, trilateral, you know, multilateral relationships and agree this is how we intend to in an and to perform electoral process for the presidency.

i am and more willing to trust to athan to throw it open national convention and get into proportionality and all these other things. i think the states themselves would have a hard time saying yes to that. the same does not work way as a 17th amendment did, which is it bubbles up from the states and then you get a constitutional amendment. you can imagine if we had the popular vote compact and acted, you might see politicians -- enacted, you might see politicians say this is too complicated and a cleaner way would be to have a constitutional amendment to create the vote. >> the electoral college was brought about because the founding fathers did not trust everyday people, everyday citizens like you and me, to vote for president. so considering the next step in our democracy, it is claiming our voice and our right to vote

and directly elect our president. please thank our panelists for joining us. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> thanks, everyone. next on our next on our progra gorbea -- yes, you guys have to leave. [laughter] secretary of state of rhode island. she was first elected in 2014 and then reelected in 2018. she is the first, maybe the only , but certainly the first hispanic ever elected to statewide office in new england. nellie gorbea. [applause] >> good morning, everyone.

i am going to wrap this all up. well, thank you, james, steve, the making every vote count team, "the hill" team, everybody putting this conversation together today. i a real big believer that our best policy solutions come when we get together and have a variety of perspectives, backgrounds around the policymaking table. and this is a particularly important conversation on a key evolutionary moment for our democracy. might seem quaint to some, but i believe that government should be accountable to the people that it serves and that all voters should feel that their voices are being heard. elected as rhode island's secretary of state in 2014, and iran because i wanted

to make government work for everyone -- and i ran because i wanted to make government work for everyone. as theyina, latinex, call it now, as a puerto rican, as a woman, i am personally aware that the u.s. is wonderful in many ways but is definitely work in progress and has always been so. sadly, despite the work done over the past few centuries, that feeling that government can work for everyone is missing in many parts of our country right now. a handful of states, the battleground states, right, most people think that their vote does not really matter for the presidential race. that is why i think we are seeing this groundswell of support growing for the national popular vote interstate compact. show two thirds of americans want the president to be elected by popular vote. that desire has sparked several

efforts over the years. the national popular vote, common cause, and making every vote count. while these groups may have different versions of how a vote system would work, and i know the current panel talked a lot about the differences and approaches and how we might get there, i think we can agree on why this reform is needed. i will venture out on that one. for me, the most striking argument for the popular vote comes from our young people. now i have made engaging young voters a really key part to being secretary of state. in the 2018 election, in fact, rhode islanders saw a 54% increase in 18 to 20 year old voters, which is something that was happening already in our country. one way i have been able to engage young people in voting has been through high school class elections.

how ourlly demonstrates democracy is supposed to work. that is where rhode island's small size is actually a real big asset, because i could to literally travel all over the state. and in those travels, as i visited dozens of high schools, you know, i am able to do things 'namesut their classmates on real ballads and have them vote in real voting machines, so they get a personal experience on what it means to vote. you can tell there is a certain joy in saying their names are the names of their friends on the ballot and being able to do this thing. and they know that their vote will have consequences. psyched in be really the morning or that afternoon, and somebody will be really depressed. so we try to introduce this concept that voting matters. i i go through this and when

have a conversation about thisions in the u.s., question about the electoral college will come up more times than i care to say when talking to young people. they want me to explain how it can be that after so much encouragement to vote, when it comes to president of the united states, their vote does not matter. it is not like what we were showing them in the classroom. plain and simple, the electoral college makes it so much harder to help people feel that voting and civic engagement is really important to democracy. theseunately, a lot of kids' parents feel like their votes also do not matter. deeply blue, small state like rhode island, people do feel ignored by presidential candidates, which is why rhode island passed the national popular vote interstate compact. support for the compact is growing. there are many other states that

are joining this. in fact, when rhode island joined, the compact accounted for 132 electoral votes. now it is up to 196 and another 90 or so depending, so we're approaching that critical moment where we might have a 270 electoral votes needed for it to take effect. at aneans that we are important point right now where we need to come up front and discuss matters. one, we need to, first and foremost, get across the finish line and make the popular vote a reality. two, we need to figure out how we are going to count the votes when that happens. and i say that because as a secretary of state, how we're are going to count the votes is a particular concern to me. so i think one of the most important messages when it comes to getting this compact past is that the popular vote is not about partisan politics.

i know, ok to left or that was sort of a joke. but it really should not be. this is not about the 2016 elections, not a response to that. it has been in the works for much longer. support goes back years. post"0, the "washington did a poll and found that there was support for the popular vote among all voters. favor, 60% of republicans, 73% of independents all in favorite. even gallup polling goes back to the 1940's that shows a majority of the public support the popular vote. so i think we have heard a little bit about that, but mainly what it comes down to, and i say this as a mom, change can be really scary for people. i get it. here is something to keep in mind when somebody tells you,

how can we change the structures of government? our democracy was actually designed to change for the times. just look at the constitution. it was meant to be a living document. over theen amended last two centuries. there have been 27 times and counting when it has been amended. the constitutional design and our form of government is designed to evolve as our country grew and changed. say that this is the not a constitutional amendment and i hear that. but the winner take always in which we allocate electors is not so -- is also not in the constitution and it was adopted later by 48 states. states are free to do that. they can enter into arrangements, like the compact. why?

because they have the freedom to change and evolve with the times. there was a reference to the 17th amendment. changedtly as 1913, we the way that we had u.s. senator's elected instead of appointed. so reminding people of that our democracy is always evolving is a really important part of this conversation. and actually, that is a real positive. those changes have led us to a time of universal suffrage, where everybody's voices are supposed to be heard equally. whenve moved from a time all men, all landowning men of a certain race, were created equal to all citizens created equal. unfortunately, that equality is not reflected in our current system using an electoral college. in national popular vote is the next logical step in the evolution of our american democracy.

that brings us to the question at the heart of this conference, what would be different if america used the popular vote to elect our president, and how would we count those votes? well, we may not have all the answers yet. and i know that there are different proposals on how the mechanics would work. i am not here to go one way or the other, but really to point out, in the case of rhode island, some of the questions this would raise. throughout my life, i have found that by having these conversations where we do not necessarily agree on everything, we can find a way through. those conversations are important. so as a secretary of state i am at the crossroads of this national vote conversation. i'm called on to support elections that count of votes in a fair way. the national popular vote interstate compact raises interesting questions about the duties of my office. right now, under law, i click

vote totals from all over the cities and towns and add them up. then i certify the votes for the presidential candidates and a certify the electors from the winter's party. and send the information to the archivist in washington, d.c. under federal law. if the compact becomes effective, i will still be responsible for certifying the votes in my state, but each secretary of state will also have to include the national count of all votes. that means i will have to send rhode island's results to the other member states, and they will have to do the same. it sounds simple, but what about nonmember states? if they are not bound by the compact and do not share results with member states, how do we states, how do we make the process work? it has been proposed we create decentralized place for nonmembers to deliver their votes in a timely manner. that means after i send my tally

to the archivist, i could then look at whatever the other secretaries have sent. i would add up the votes in every state and of the one with the biggest number would be a national vote winner. i would name the electors from rhode island, the party's whose nominee won the national vote. and even if that person did not win the plurality of rhode island. so under the compact, i am required to "treat as conclusive an official statement containing the number of popular votes in a state for each presidential slate made by the day established by federal law for making a state's final determination conclusive." compact statesot and make an official statement of a public vote total, i am required to accept that total is correct. i then have to count it when determining the national popular vote. for the compact is not binding,

as i mentioned, on nonmember states. so to make the process work without an approved federal mandate, we will need a two-step process. every secretary of state will have to provide me, and others with their official statement of vote totals in time to take a look at all the votes, add them before we appoint the electors. everybody is with me, right? the second problem is, what we do about wright chase avoiding -- voting? in other words, what about main? how do i determine what counts for a vote where the voters ranked preferences for president in order? maybe maine should design that. that is where the interstate saysct requires when it that i.s. secretary must treat as conclusive and official statement containing the number of popular votes in a state. so i would not be getting into their business, i would accept

their statement to the greater country. those are some of the issues that came up at the annual meeting in new mexico this past summer. it was a very spirited debate. there are conversations that will continue to bring up this topic, because we need to be ready if and when the compact becomes effective. that is also why events like this are so important, to draw more voices into the conversation, more perspectives, and more backgrounds, so we can figure this out. in rhode island, we have a long history of thinking carefully about important issues. we were the first colony to declare independence, and the last of the 13 states to ratify the constitution. we thought carefully about the national popular vote interstate compact. we think it is best for all americans, even if it means a

republican -- in my case, i am a democrat -- winning the national vote could win the electorate from a deeply loose ,- blue state like rhode island under compact. rhode islanders feel ignored by the system, and many other states feel the same. equally,tes counted candidates would have to campaign for every vote everywhere. there would be advertisement in local papers far and beyond what , there is right now. andocal tv, radio throughout local media. and open get out the vote offices everywhere, run by candidates. that would be a welcome change from the current system.