Rather than the Current Electoral College system. The hill newspaper in the making every Vote Count Foundation hosted this event. Good morning, everyone. We are on cspan and also Live Streaming on the making every vote count facebook page. I want you all to behave. The Electoral College is a disaster for democracy. Thats not me speaking. Thats donald trump or it was donald trump before he changed his mind a few times. He also said this i would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know you get 100 million votes and someone else gets 90 million and you win. I quote him not for irony but because he is right and his affinity for the popular vote may reflect his instinct that a president who was elected without winning a majority is perhaps not so legitimate. Think of all the factors that have contributed to voter cynicism and alienation. Of all the measures that we could institute to help restore confidence in democracy. This is the one that can be easily and quickly remedied. And have it enormous impact. Suddenly, everyones vote would count the same. Truly one person one vote, voters all over the country not just in florida, michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania would determine the outcome of the election. Americans are very close right now to changing the system. To having a popular vote for president. But how would such a system change american political campaigns . Thats why we are here. So, welcome to a conference called when every vote counts, im jim glassman, im a member of the board of directors of making every vote counts a Nonprofit Organization whose aim is to educate americans about their electoral system. This is a non partisan effort. Im a registered republican, i served as undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy in the george w. Bush administration and i headed president bush is policy institute thats part of the president ial library in dallas. We have republicans and democrats and independents on our board, all concerned about the future of democracy under our current electoral system. In five elections, two of them since 2000, we have elected president s who were defeated in the popular vote. And if donald trump once again, its highly likely that his election will be the sixth in the third in six elections. Americans by an overwhelming majority reject the Current System. We know that from polling that stretches back for decades. The latest survey in july by andrew classed are found that 71 of voters nationally say the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide should beat the president. And only 21 oppose the idea. Among republicans theres a majority of 61 to 32, thats a two two one majority nearly. And whether we should change those rules of that phrase, change the rules which a lot of people dont like so the candidate who wins the most votes becomes the president , u. S. Voters believe by and large of 65 to 26 and with the majority of republicans agreeing. Andrew claster has pulled many states, including bright red ones, and on many results. For example, north dakota, there arent too many rather states than north dakota and they are 64 of likely voters including 55 of republicans agree that the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide should become the president. We also found that a majority of north dakota voters polled would vote yes in a Ballot Initiative that said that their electoral votes would go to the National Popular vote winner immediately in the 2020 election as long as a blue state for the same number of electoral votes also approved such a monster. Think about that for a second. We know that the Current System is not how we should approve our leaders, should choose our leaders. Millions dont understand that and it deprives millions of eight meaningful vote. In fact, 100 million americans dont vote for president at all, but can you blame them one just a dozen or maybe just four or five will determine who that person will be . We choose all of our other elected officials the same way, whoever gets the most votes wins and every person has an equal vote. Why dont we choose president that way . Mainly because the framers could not agree so they punted. They left the choice to the states. Article two section one of the constitution says each state shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature Thereof May direct a number of electors, etc. The constitution does not specify the criteria for that appointment. And in the early years of the republic, many state legislators themselves can be appointed, not the voters. Now, every state but to chooses electors the same way with the winner of a vote within the state taking all the electors. Over the past several decades, red voters and blue voters have become more and more concentrated by state. Few states are purple, in contention. And candidates focus only on those states. One president s get elected, they shower those states with attention and in many cases, money. You see this over and over. In 2016, there were 399 Public Campaign events. Some 94 of them were in just 12 states. The other states have three or fewer events. The majority of states had zero events. There are several ways to reform the method of electing president , number of Democratic Candidates for president have said they prefer a constitutional amendment, maine has enacted ranked Choice Voting for the 2020 general election. Under a recent tenth Circuit Court decision, electors cant decide without regard to the wishes of the voters who they want to be president , and 15 states plus the district of columbia half past the National Popular vote interstate compact which goes into effect when it is law in states that account for 270 electoral votes. So far, the total is 196. This change in the way we vote backed by a solid majority of americans in surveys is close to becoming reality. It is now a matter of only a few years until the in every race the person who gets the most votes will become president. We decided it was time to take a look not at the merits of the popular vote but at how president ial campaigns would actually be run if the person who gets the most votes nationwide is the one who becomes president. There is a lot of mythology around this question, let me tell you. So, what are the political implications, what are the Campaign Mechanics and we have just the right people to do it, so todays agenda very briefly, we have a first panel, coming up here in just a few minutes, a few seconds that will examine how will candidates try to win under a National Popular vote, moderated by my good friend, longtime friend steve clemons, editor at large at the hill, the second panel, how will candidates messages and platforms change because of the popular vote . That will be monitored by bob cusack, the editorinchief of the hill. That will be followed by a keynote address by natalie gore beta, the secretary of state of rhode island. We will start, my good friend, steve clemons. applause good morning, folks. I ams chief clemons, im editorinchief at the hill, its a pleasure to follow jim. We have a lineup coming up to talk about how the National Popular vote would work. What behaviors it would change. We have a wonderful panel joining us this morning. I will start in the middle, senior client strategist with wta intelligence, mark pena, just to my left is president of the stag wealth group, ceo of and pc partners and author of. Into my far left is doctor samuel long, founder of the princeton election course. Thank you very much for being with us. We have a task this morning to have fun with this. We will engage in conversation and create some hypotheticals that in our system work to change, what sorts of behaviors would bc. Mark, you and i have done this a couple times together and i was excited because when we were at the republican convention, we began talking about the different flavors of ice cream and you wind up with two flavors of ice cream, one maybe rocky rhodes, and others hes moved to fish and check, and i said maybe we can talk about varieties of fish and chicken, or maybe we can talk about how people are going to fish differently . Will they fish in one place or three places, are they going to fish in a broader part of the Chesapeake Bay or something. I said now you understand we have moved to potatoes. So we are very excited to hear about the potato analogy. Can you help us set the stage on this topic of if we were to deploy a National Popular vote, how would you see candidates and behaviors change . I thought it would be most useful just to give you an overview of the number of the Current System and how it works, and how its been working in recent years. And that is kind of to help move the discussion along and look, i was always told by president clinton, he liked to have stories to relate to. I have two stories you havent heard. Did you talk about the big max strategy with him . laughs an issue sandwich is not the same as a policy with him in the middle. I want to give you another concept, you can see it and im going to start out with the couch potato voter, what is the couch potato voter . Those are the 94 million americans who are eligible to vote but dont vote, and if you look at the biggest problem in the system, the biggest problem in the system is, as that size have groomed to be so big, campaigns have changed so that rather than focusing as i did back in the day when i ran a lot of campaigns as a swing voter, people instead trying to go for the extremes and get just they are slice of the couch out. If everybody voted, the entire couch would vote. What would actually happen if the entire couch did vote . Right . So, to do that, based on a New York Times analysis of democrats that you wont really be able to see the slide in this real. What difference would it make if everybody really voted in america, and who is left behind . Primarily now there are of the 94 million, tremendous numbers of latinos, obviously, who are not in the political system and probably percentage wise rank as the Number One Group not voting. You would be surprised at the huge numbers of downscale voters, particularly downscale whites who dont vote. Approximately 60 million. I always caution people who say that they want everyone in america to vote, if everyone in america did vote, we would have not just a change in the Electoral College but like a more australian system where everyone voted, you would be surprised at the change of the composition of the electorate and quite possibly the outcome. Most of the people who are on the couch dont really like any of the politicians. They are, right now, making an affirmative choice not all, many of them as i said, a lot of the latino communities not quite organized as fully as they could be. I think there are a lot of people who simply dont like any of the politicians and they are highly volatile voters when they come in. So, if you take a look at this system, again, you see this enormous gap that continues between approximately 130 million who vote and the swing voters in the country who are typically middle aged suburban, middle class, and recorded as about 20 of the country. You also have to look at our primary systems. Theres a lot of focus on, well, okay, what about the outcome of the election . It turns out that typically, not huge numbers of people have voted in primaries in the past. That an average of about 35 million voters, right . If you take that 130 million general election voters and the 226 million actually eligible to vote, the primary system then is being driven on the basis of about 35 million or 17. 5 million on either side. We have had some really contested primaries and you can see bumps up so the total can get into the 50s. That would still give you 25 million on each side. When you think about that, when you look at politics by the numbers, we have about 321 Million People in the country last time i did this slide it might be 330 by now. We have about 226 Million People eligible to vote. Meaning they meet all of the qualifications. We have about 94 million who actually dont vote and therefore are eligible, the couch potato voters. We have 130 million approximately, about 35 million who book in a primary. 17. 5 million who vote on each side. That means that in the primary system, it takes about 10 million voters to get the nominee. About 20 million voters actually are the ones who determine the future for the other 321 million voters when you look at the entire system. I dont lay this out for a partisan reason other than i think you should always start out with how is the system working . Who is voting . Where does it count . Where is the biggest cap between who votes and the decisions that are made . Mark, thanks so much. I shouldve mention, i want to say hello not only to all of you in the audience, but we have cspan here and its terrific to have them watching. Im sure that you are going to get lots of mail on whether they think you are right or wrong. Thank you, mark. Amanda, you pointed out that doctor wong is going to share a presentation, i thought i would come to this point for a minute and you and i have discussed at a previous meeting, if you had a shift at the National Popular for you begin to imagine that the playbook for running an election would be different. I am interested in what behaviors you would see. And i want to mention another donald trump quote. You know, the president , he said President Trump said, if you go by the College Electoral faux, thats a very different race, much different than running the popular vote. Its like 100 yard dash versus the mile. I actually stole this from an article in salon, so its a great piece, i think all of you should take a look at it. In this city is sort of looking at the different muscles, essentially the different training you would use. Im interested, given what mark said about a couch potato voter and others who might be brought in, what would you see in some of the Campaign Strategy differences that you employ . I think because you are talking about a much greater geography, much greater audience signs of people in the campaign would need to talk to, it would cost a lot more for a campaign. And we know it costs more from a polling standpoint, and you would have to be pulling in california new york regularly. It would cost more from a staff standpoint and advertising above everything else. Given the hard dollar fundraising elements, i dont think campaigns should focus at all on broadcast ants. Even the super pacs that takeover that aspect of the campaign, and campaigns would look more and more to modeling. At wta we are seeing more candidates on all levels. Is that a good thing . I think so. Because you can get more individualized, actually using issue modeling to figure out what individuals really care about and the candidates can talk to those individuals on the issues that they care about and mobilize them, either to get out to vote or to persuade them on those issues. So, right now in north dakota which was the case that jim glassman raised in terms of was 64 , jump . Is that the number of people who support this . How would you suspect at a campaign right now there is not much play in that state, its a battleground state. Give me a story that you might see unfold as to how a voter there would weigh more in a next election with National Popular vote then we have today . I think candidates would actually be looking to pull them to model what they care about. They know a voter in north dakota cares about health care, the same way of voter in ohio or florida does. They can direct those ants to those individuals and those voters will hear from the candidates about the issues that they really care about. Doctor juan, let me jump to you. I know you have a few graphs to show us as well. Looking at this time of close elections and looking at different dissimulated scenarios of how they can result in the future. Im interested in how you see the impact of a natural popular vote coming on board . First, i should say in addition to founding the princeton election consortium, i am a Laboratory Scientist and i should say that a scientist should not be involved in this but democracy has gotten complicated. And we have a broke mechanism like the Electoral College that starts to matter. And it basically shows, i would say bugs in the electoral system, unanticipated weaknesses and i want to show, that if thats okay. Its cspan so we have to ship show slides. Its very exciting for an academic to be able to show visuals. I teach at princeton university, ive run a laboratory and i just want to show some real and mythical flaws in the Electoral College, i want to partially debunk inaudible thats right, i have a cicada, its a bug in democracy. They come to princeton every 15 years. I want to show some actual flaws and the Electoral College and hopefully replace some false belief that people have. I would say the reason we care so much about the Electoral College, this is a graft of popular margin of whoever became president going to john quincy adams, we have a time of close elections, the reason we care about this, you go below the black horizontal line, theres a time we have in the 19th century during the first gilded age, we had racial divisions, technological disruptions, increasing inequality and de partisanship, and we had to popular vote losers become president of the United States. We have now i time today where we have racial divisions, technological disruption, increasing inequality in the partisanship in two out of the last five elections, the person who got more votes did not become president of the United States,