FW: California is irrelevant

[Ande Spencer]

 

---

Subject: California is irrelevant
From: in...@demandprogress.org
To: ande...@hotmail.com
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2012 18:00:59 +0000

Ande,

 

A quick break from Internet issues as we enter the presidential election season:

 

Under the National Popular Vote bill, the Electoral College would be reformed so that the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC will become President.

Please take a moment to e-mail your California state legislators to indicate your support for the National Popular Vote bill.

Also, if you're on Facebook, please consider "liking" the National Popular Vote bill:

 

 

Presidential campaigns routinely ignore California because electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most popular votes within each separate state.

 

The result is that candidates ignore states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In 2008, two-thirds of the campaign events and money went into six closely divided "battleground" states.  98% went to just 15 states, not including California. Thus, California voters are mere spectators to the presidential election.  The same is true for 35 other reliably red or reliably blue states.

Under a national popular vote, every voter in every state would matter in every presidential election. A vote in California would matter as much as a vote in a closely divided battleground state such as Ohio, Florida, or Colorado.

The states have the constitutional authority to change the method of awarding electoral votes and thereby establish a national popular vote for President.

The National Popular Vote bill would mean that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC) would become President.  The current system has elected a second-place candidate in 4 of 56 presidential elections.

If you believe that a vote cast in California should count as much as a vote cast in a battleground state, and that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC should become President, please take a moment to e-mail your California state legislatorsto indicate your support for the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill is endorsed by the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, FairVote, Sierra Club, the Brennan Center for Justice, NAACP, National Black Caucus of State Legislators, ACLU, the National Latino Congreso, Asian American Action Fund, DEMOS, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Public Citizen, U.S. PIRG, and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

The bill has been endorsed by newspapers such as the Hartford Courant, New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, Sacramento Bee, and many more.  

As the Sarasota Florida Herald Tribune said: "The most compelling and practical alternative is promoted by a bipartisan group called National Popular Vote. The NPV proposal calls for legislatures to pass bills committing their state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide; the bill would take effect only when enacted by states that together have enough electoral votes to elect a president."

The National Popular Vote bill has already been enacted into law by New Jersey, Maryland, Vermont, Illinois, Washington state, California, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii.  The bill has also been approved by at least one legislative house in an additional 12 states.

 

As the presidential election heats up, please let your lawmakers know that you support the National Popular Vote.

Learn more at www.NationalPopularVote.com.

Thank you.

Demand Progress and California National Popular Vote

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