Members of the Maine Legislature are seeking to pass legislation that would award Maine’s electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the “National Popular Vote.”
House Paper 1023 (HP 1023), sponsored by Representative Arthur Bell (D-Yarmouth), would enter Maine into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). The NPVIC has a real risk of becoming law in Maine; It passed the Senate in 2008, and it passed both houses in 2019 but failed due to the two chambers being unable to agree on identical bill texts.
The NPVIC is an interstate agreement intended to subvert the Electoral College, which is established in Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution. Rather than awarding electors based on the winner of each individual state’s popular vote, the NPVIC seeks to award the electors of the states that belong to the compact to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote.
Under the agreement, the NPVIC would only go into effect when the total number of member states’ electoral votes reaches 270 — the minimum needed for an individual to be elected president. Currently, the NPVIC’s members account for 195 electoral votes, and Maine’s potential entry would add another four. This compact is dangerously close to becoming reality.
The NPVIC must be opposed as it is unconstitutional and an assault on the Electoral College and, more broadly, our federalist and republican form of government.
Implementation of the NPVIC would subvert both the Electoral College and our federalist system of government. Contrary to what many leftists and self-described “conservatives” claim, the United States is not a democracy, nor did the Founding Fathers want it to be so.
Counter-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College, in addition to the U.S. Senate and Bill of Rights, illustrate this fact. They exist both to protect limited government and individual rights from the “tyranny of the majority” and also to preserve the sovereignty of both small and large states.
Abolishing the Electoral College is part of the push to turn the United States into a democracy and a unitary state — and, by extension, purge it of its national sovereignty, identity, and constitutionally protected liberties. By causing presidential elections to be decided based on the national popular vote without any regard for individual state preferences, the NPVIC would effectively accomplish all of the purposes listed in the previous sentence without actually amending the Constitution. This is why it is such a dangerous idea at odds with the Constitution and the Founders’ vision and underscores the need to oppose HP 1023.
Urge your state representative and senator to reject the unconstitutional and subversive NPVIC by opposing HP 1023.
Although we provide a way to easily email legislators, we know from long experience that it takes a lot more interaction with your legislators to get your point across than that provided by emails alone.
That's why we provide an easy way not only to email them, but to contact them by phone, tweet, and even video message them.
