Legal Challege to Winner Take All Jeffrey and Deni Dickler May 9, 2017 Slide 1

Transcription

1 Slide 1 MOPAG Call to Action I m Jeffrey Dickler, part of a small group from MOPAG and MOmentum bringing together resources for a legal challenge to Missouri s method of selecting presidential electors for the Electoral College. The name of our little group is All-Votes-Count: Americans for Electoral College Reform. Before I get into details. Let s get a show of hands. Who thinks it s perfectly OK for Hillary Clinton to win the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but Donald Trump gets to live in the White House? Amazing isn t it? What would you think of another country s election if the winner loses and loser wins? This has happened 5 times in our history and each time the populace got angry but nothing has changed. Demographers predict it will now occur more often and eventually become the norm. Our group wants to change this undemocratic practice. I m here today to talk with you about how the loser became President and something we can do about it. (next slide)

2 Slide EIP Study US Elections rated worst of all western democracies Elections last longer Cost more Lower voter turn-out USA But 1 st, let s give this some global perspective. The Election Integrity Project was formed in 2012 to evaluate the quality and integrity of elections world-wide. In 2015 they gathered a bunch of data and had 40 experts evaluate elections in 139 countries. US elections came in worst among all Western democracies. We came in worse than Greece, Malta and Cyprus. It wasn t even close. We can t go into all the problems with US elections in one presentation, but we can take a look at the one that skews presidential elections and throws away the votes of the majority of people. After this short talk we hope you will know why and will help us put a stop to the inherent unfairness. We re talking about the Electoral College and how state procedures distort the presidential election. If you think back to your high school American history class, and you were listening, you might remember that the writers of our Constitution had to compromise a lot and ran out of energy about the time they had to decide how to elect a president. So we ended up with an Electoral College, which at the time our Founders thought would be a group of wise thoughtful men selected by each state legislature, and they would cast votes for the men they believed would best lead this nation. That didn t even last for two elections. Since the passage of the Constitution, the electoral college section has been amended twice, we ve added 37 states, Congress has passed reapportionment acts, political parties have formed, the Supreme Court anointed unlimited spending and PACs, and our population has grown from 3.9million to over 309million. So, here s the carcass of the Electoral College and unfair election process we are left with today: (next slide)

3 Slide 3 First, you and I do not vote for the President of the United States. Our state s presidential electors, part of the Electoral College, do it for us. There are 538 total electors in the Electoral College. To win a candidate needs to receive a vote of 50% plus 1, or 270 electoral votes. Easy so far So how many electors does a state get? The Constitution specifies that each state gets presidential electors equal to the total of its number of senators + representatives. For example, Missouri has 2 senators + 8 Congressional districts = 10 presidential electors. This changes over time, because Congressional districts are revised every after each 10 year census. Some states get more Reps, other lose them. But,. No state gets less than 3 presidential electors 2 for their senators and a minimum of 1 Representative. A problem started back in 1929 when a Republican Congress with a Republican President passed a Reapportionment Act that restricted House seats to 435 they were running out of floor space in the chambers. Since 1929 we added 2 states and a lot of people, but House seats are still 435. Why is this important? Because. (next slide)

4 Slide 4 Small states get an electoral advantage. Let s take the example of WY and CA. WY, the least populous state, has a population of 584k. It has 2 senators and 1 Rep so gets 3 presidential electors. With simple math we know that each WY elector represents 194,717 voters. Now look at CA, with a population of 38.8mil. They have many more Reps, so end up with 55 presidential electors. Again using our higher math skills, we find, each CA presidential elector represents 705,454 voters. Wow. Can that be right? You bet it is. A WY voter has 3.5 times the power in the election the CA voter has. Unfair, but that s not the worst of it. (next slide)

5 Slide 5 Winner Take All Distorts Vote Sample States % Electors awarded to state popular vote winner - regardless of margin All states except ME and NE, use a system called Winner Take All to select presidential electors (which by the way are party loyalists chosen at party conventions). WTA gives 100% of a state s presidential electors to the winner of that state s popular vote. 100%, end of story! So, if one candidate gets 48% of the vote and another %, with the leftover % being 3rd party votes, that slim majority still gets 100% of the electors. Even though this is a nation-wide election, the losing votes within each state are effectively cancelled, and get no representation in the Electoral College. So in 2016 Trump got 10 Missouri electors, rather than 6 based on his proportion of the vote, and Hillary got nothing, even though she got almost 40% of the vote. Here s the bottom-line: in the 2016 election a total of approximately 94mil voters had absolutely no say in the election of the president because their votes were discarded at the state line. Conversely, only about 40mil Trump voters in Red states (30% of total national vote) gave Trump 306 electoral votes and the victory OK, the system is rigged, it favors Republicans, they re in charge, there s no hope.. Actually, we believe there is a way to partially unrig the system. (next slide)

6 Slide 6 All-Votes-Count: Americans for Electoral College Reform Legal challenge to Missouri s Winner Take All in Federal courts Breach of Equal protection under law (14 th amendment) Freedom of speech and right of assembly (1 st amendment) Require proportional allocation of electors Likely Supreme Court decision All-Votes-Count: Americans for Electoral College Reform, is working to legally challenge the constitutionality of Winner Take All in the Federal courts and install proportional allocation of electors in its place. We contend, as do others, that WTA is a breach of the equal protection clause of the 14 th Amendment. We also contend that voting is speech and that WTA incorrectly silences us at the state line. After all, Presidential elections are Federal, nation-wide elections, not state elections. If Winner Take All is found unconstitutional in Missouri, then WTA is unconstitutional in all states. The decision on this case would have to be finalized by the Supreme Court. (next slide)

7 Slide 7 Result of Proportional Allocation Sample States Electors awarded based on state popular vote Let s take a look at the same example you saw earlier, but use Proportional Allocation of electors, instead of WTA. The winner of the election using proportional allocation more closely matches the national popular vote. And, it switched the winner from Red to Blue (next slide)

8 Slide 8 Legislative solution All state presidential electors given to national popular vote winner Only effective if approved by states totaling at least 270 electoral votes Current total: 165 all the blue states Will need the red states to reach 270 You are likely asking yourself, Isn t there something called National Popular Vote Compact (NPVC) going on? Yes, this is a legislative movement. NPVC calls for the electors of each state to be allocated to the candidate winning the National Popular Vote. This would truly be a national referendum. However, each state s legislature and governor has to approve it and it won t become law until enough states approve it to guarantee 270 electoral votes. So far only enough states have approved it to account for 165 electoral votes. Most of these are blue states. Few red states have begun to consider it. And why would they? They are controlling elections under the current system. We support the NPVC initiative, but let s not put all our eggs in one basket, especially a legislative basket that can be overturned with new legislation. That s why we are pushing a different solution, a legal challenge that politicians cannot overturn (next slide)

9 Slide 9 All-Votes-Count: Americans for Electoral College Reform Change the future of US elections Attorney search Corporate non-profit filings Board members Social media Fundraising Communicators So, now you see how rigged our system is, and our idea to change the system, so let s look at how we make it happen. It won t be easy. We need your involvement. Each of you is being given an opportunity to be part of history and to truly make a difference for future generations. Bringing a lawsuit in Federal courts isn t sexy nor is it a quick fix. It takes a lot of hard work and even more money. Likely $1mil by the time we get a Supreme Court decision. Today we are asking you to volunteer for the hard work. We need 5 or more passionate people who can assist with - Finding an attorney to take the case - filing for tax-exempt non-profit status, - are willing to serve on the organization s Board, -building our online presence (web-site, FB, Twitter, fundraising backend, and more), - fundraising or have $1mil to spare, -good writers and communicators to develop content, press releases, give presentations This is not make a sign and show up at a protest or call your senator activism. It will likely be three years of ongoing effort, with set-backs and progress. But, if we win, rather when we win, we will change history. To be part of this effort, contact either my wife, Deni, or me. Our addresses are on the hand-out. (next slide)

10 Slide 10 For once, we agree with Together we can end the rigged system I ll end by saying, this is one area where I tend to agree with Donald Trump. The electoral college is a disaster for our nation. Please help us end the rigged system.