For those who are unaware of the dangers of NPV, essentially it will require pooling of the popular votes for U.S. Presidential candidates, among the states that have enacted the bill, requiring that all of these states collectively cast their electoral votes for the singular popular vote winner of the pool. In other words, the popular vote winner in each individual state will be entirely IGNORED, if the pooled votes' result is not the same.
An early proponent behind the NPV movement was well-known Presidential election "spoiler" John B. Anderson. Anderson is also an outspoken supporter of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), another tabulation method that disregards the "first choices" of voters in favor of an aggregated result.
Touted as a way to "level the playing field" between the states, NPV supporters use fuzzy math claims in order to reject other more plausible and fair schemes (such as dividing the electors within each state as to their proportion of the different candidate votes) that do not require "winner-take-all" or interstate pooling methodologies. One need only recall the fuzzy math that Hillary Clinton's camp used in attempting to exclude caucus states from the national popular vote in the 2008 Democratic primary, in order to gauge the level of shenanigans that are likely to occur once an enormous block of electoral votes comes into play.
As I (and others) had earlier informed Governor Schwarzenegger "Already, the westernmost states have less of a say in the Presidential elections due to early disclosures of vote totals and polling data from the states in earlier time zones. This bill further reduces the impact or even necessity of Californians in the decision process. Even more dangerously, states that have inadequate or inferior election equipment or auditing processes may adversely influence the vote totals, such that an incorrect popular vote could be used to determine California's electors." All of this is still true with the current version of the bill.
Your help is URGENTLY needed now in informing Governor Brown why AB 459 must NOT become law. The contact information is: Governor Jerry Brown, c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814; Phone: (916) 445-2841; Fax: (916) 558-3160.
Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.
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