Support SB 870

ACTION ALERT! Support SB 870, National Popular Vote

Date: April 2, 2019
To: All League Members and Oregonians
From: Norman Turrill, LWVOR President
Marge Easley, NPV Portfolio Chair

CONTACT YOUR SENATOR TO URGE SUPPORT FOR NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE (NPV)

Success is within reach to make Oregon the next state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. SB 870 will be heard in the Senate Rules Committee on April 3 at 1pm. This is the same bill that has passed the House four times in recent sessions, only to be blocked in the Senate each time. Fourteen jurisdictions with 184 electoral votes have already passed the bill. Eighty-six votes are needed before the Compact goes into effect.

Please email your state senator as soon as possible to urge support for SB 870. Here are a few helpful talking points:

The League’s national position states that “the direct-popular-vote method for electing the President and Vice President is essential to representative democracy.” The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact provides an excellent pathway to achieve this goal.
The Electoral College in its current form creates an unfair system and damages public trust in U.S. elections. If left in place, our country will continue to have a system in which votes in some states are worth more than votes in others.
Winner-take-all laws were passed by most states during the 1800s and were never envisioned by the founding fathers. The result of winner-take-all laws is that presidential campaigns only pay attention to the 11 swing states. Voters in non-swing states tend to feel that their votes don’t matter, so some decide not to vote at all.
NPV allows all votes to be counted equally, no matter where they are in the country. Under NPV, urban areas would not hold more sway than rural areas, since the combined population of the 100 biggest cities is about one-sixth of the population, roughly the same as the population of rural America.
The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country. The U.S. is the ONLY practicing democracy where the candidate with the most votes is not assured of being chosen the national leader. Polls have shown for decades that more than 70% of voters, in both major parties, have felt that the candidate with the most popular votes should be the winner.

We appreciate your immediate action on this issue. You can find your senator’s contact information here. Also, please consider attending this historic hearing to demonstrate a strong show of League support.

For more information, contact Marge Easley, NPV Portfolio Chair.