Search
Close this search box.

National Popular Vote Initiative Launches Electoral College Ads in PA

By Brittany Foster, Contributing Writer

National Popular Vote is endeavoring to take back the spotlight back from PA Sen. Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi’s Electoral College plan. They announced this week a 10-day advertising push in the Harrisburg media market consisting of full-page newspaper ads and a 60-second radio spot.

It’s a playful ad that starts out like a play-by-play at a baseball game. You can listen to it here (h/t Capitol Ideas).

“It’s going, it’s going, it’s gone! A home run! But stand by folks, the baseball Electoral College is chewing this one over. Philly loses; they lose! Sorry folks, under electoral college rules, the team with the most runs doesn’t always win.”

NPV proposes a different way to allocate electoral votes. They seek to join states in a compact to distribute all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote to ensure that that winner becomes president instead of a state by state winner take all system or Pileggi’s plan to give away votes by congressional districts.

Although Tom Golisano, spokesman of NPV and Pileggi agree that changes need to be made, they harshly disagree on the method. “The congressional district idea takes a bad system and makes it worse. It does not guarantee the presidency to the candidate who earns the most popular votes in all fifty states and replaces battleground states with battleground districts. We urge legislators to consider the National Popular Vote initiative as a commonsense, non-partisan reform.”

Committed to the ideal that the person with the most votes should win, the NPV plan would make all votes equivalent, “When more than 200 million Americans live in flyover states and are virtually ignored by candidates who seek the presidency, the right reform is required,” said Golisano.

Creighton introduced this bill over the summer and it has already passed in enough other states to represent 132 electoral votes, 59 percent of those needed to win the presidency.

Here’s the full transcript of the ad:

“It’s all tied up folks, bottom of the 9th, the bases loaded, here comes the pitch – Golly did he get a hold of that one! It’s going, it’s going, it’s gone! A home run! But stand by folks, the baseball Electoral College is chewing this one over. Philly loses; they lose! Sorry folks, under electoral college rules, the team with the most runs doesn’t always win.

“In real life, the team that scores the most runs wins but the candidate who gets the most votes doesn’t always win the election. It’s happened four times in our nation’s history. So if we’re going to change how Pennsylvania’s votes count for president, shouldn’t we switch to the only system that guarantees the winner actually wins?  Support the National Popular Vote Initiative. The winner should win.”

10 Responses

  1. Just look at how much PA’s voters get versus 2 states bordering us, West Virginia and Delaware…each one of those 2 states popular votes effectively are equivalent to two of Pennsylvania’s, when translated to Electoral College votes…i.e., PA has 20 electoral votes for 12.7 million people, a ratio of 1:635,000, WV has 5 electoral votes for 1.8 million, ratio 1:360,000, and Delaware 3 electoral votes for 900,000 people, ratio 1:300,000. Why should they have more clout, essentially double, than PA? Are they smarter? (lol!) Just because they live in a smaller state should not negate one person one vote.

  2. This initiative is misguided. Majority vote discriminates against the minority. The electoral college addresses the rights of the small states -this is the beauty of our constitution! Without this protection, the people would be subject to the tyranny of the majority. Therefore this movement is misguided and doesn’t understand how fragile liberty can be.

  3. This popular vote idea is contrary to the Constitution which forms a federation of individual states with a proportion of the say in the presidential election. If some states do NOT have strict enforcement of voting procedures they will gain a disproportionate say in the election. (The dead people in Chicago could very easily elect the president.)

  4. The analogy is wrong. The baseball game is analogous to a state; the Presidential election is analogous to the World Series, and the team that scores the most runs in the World Series does not always win. They usually win, but not always. No matter how much you win by, you need to win four games out of seven.

  5. This whole movement to change the electoral college is just plain bogus. We are on the brink of plunging into a worldwide depression and this group is trying to use horrible radio ads to convince us that we should change the electoral college.

  6. This is the worst liberal idea I’ve seen to date. No one wants to hear your four paragraphs of dubious electoral college factoids…the bottom line is that this is a horrendously managed campaign that is just trying to make it easier for democrats to get elected so they can forward their communist agenda. This was also the worst ad ever produced…horrible all around.

  7. National Popular Vote would go into effect, and the need to win the most votes in the entire country, would become the way campaigns would be run throughout the U.S., when states with 270 electoral votes enact it.

    The bill has passed 31 state legislativ­e chambers, in 21 small, medium-sma­ll, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC (3), HI (4), IL (19), NJ (14), MD (11), MA (10), CA (55), VT (3), and WA (13). These 9 jurisdicti­ons possess 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

  8. I forgot to mention . . .

    A survey of 800 Pennsylvan­ia voters conducted on December 16-17, 2008 showed 78% overall support for a national popular vote for President.

    Support was 87% among Democrats, 68% among Republican­s, and 76% among independen­ts.

    By age, support was 77% among 18-29 year olds, 73% among 30-45 year olds, 81% among 46-65 year olds, and 78% for those older than 65.

    By gender, support was 85% among women and 71% among men.

    NationalPopularVote

  9. In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO– 68%, IA –75%, MI– 73%, MO– 70%, NH– 69%, NV– 72%, NM– 76%, NC– 74%, OH– 70%, PA — 78%, VA — 74%, and WI — 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE –75%, ME — 77%, NE — 74%, NH –69%, NV — 72%, NM — 76%, RI — 74%, and VT — 75%; in Southern and Border states: AR –80%, KY — 80%, MS –77%, MO — 70%, NC — 74%, and VA — 74%; and in other states polled: CA — 70%, CT — 74% , MA — 73%, MN – 75%, NY — 79%, WA — 77%, and WV- 81%.

    On Election Night, most voters don’t care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district… they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans consider the idea of the candidate with the most popular votes being declared a loser detestable. We don’t allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

    The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislativ­e chambers, in 21 small, medium-sma­ll, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC (3), HI (4), IL (19), NJ (14), MD (11), MA (10), CA (55), VT (3), and WA (13). These 9 jurisdicti­ons possess 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

    NationalPo­pularVote

Email:
  • Do you agree that ByteDance should be forced to divest TikTok?


    • Yes. It's a national security risk. (60%)
    • No. It's an app used by millions and poses no threat. (40%)
    • What's ByteDance? (0%)

    Total Voters: 30

    Loading ... Loading ...
Continue to Browser

PoliticsPA

To install tap and choose
Add to Home Screen