National Popular Vote Committee Moving Forward

Lynn Gerlach, Member

For more than 15 years the League of Women Voters has actively supported passage of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). Both the LWVWI NPV Task Force and our local LWVGGB NPV committee will get back to work this fall following a summer hiatus. Our goal is to get the state of Wisconsin to sign onto this interstate compact, adding our ten electoral votes to the national effort to make the electoral college acknowledge the will of the nation’s voters. We’d love to have you join our committee.

Here’s a quick reminder of what NPVIC is all about: The Constitution, via the electoral college, allows each state to decide how to assign its electors for a presidential race. Currently 48 states (including Wisconsin) and D.C. follow the state-winner-take-all method, meaning they consider only which candidate got the most popular votes in their state – even if that doesn’t match the national popular vote! Five times, including 2000 and 2016, the electoral college chose for president the candidate that lost the national election. This interstate compact would ensure that will no longer happen.

It would be virtually impossible to secure an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to change this ridiculous situation, but NPVIC offers a fair and legal workaround. This year Virginia became the nineteenth jurisdiction to sign the compact, joining 17 other states and Washington, D.C. Together they cast 222 of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect a president. Wisconsin could add ten more! Our goal is to get enough states to agree to this compact so that the presidential candidate who gets the most popular votes nationally will always get the 270 electoral votes needed to become president. We know some of our own state legislators support this; maybe soon we can get it passed in Wisconsin.

Our local committee is a small group that meets independently to support the state League effort at passing NPVIC. We have yet to set our fall meeting schedule, but if you are interested in joining our group, please contact Jill Fermanich at jfermanich@sbcglobal.net or Lynn Gerlach at Lynn@TamarackCommunication.com. We’d love to include you in our efforts; we usually meet monthly. Our committee is already scheduled to present on NPVIC this year for Indivisible Brown County and for the Lifelong Learning Institute at UWGB.