 Hi everyone thank you so much for joining us on today's community conversation the national popular vote. We're excited to have you here Sierra Club main has been hosting community conversations. Since the beginning of the pandemic really and it's been a wonderful way for people to come together virtually, and have some conversation on a variety of topics. And today we're super excited to be hosting the national popular vote with Margo Donis. And I would like to introduce you all to john Brodigam, who is a member of our executive committee here at Sierra Club main and he'll be helping to facilitate today's call so john I will pass it over to you. Thank you Marina it's really good to see good turnout today for this community conversation I think this is my second or third one I've done since the start of the pandemic. And it's been really valuable opportunity to connect with people I hope you'll find it as worthwhile as I have a couple housekeeping notes we asked that you keep your microphone on mute throughout the presentation to help with background noise you'll see a microphone symbol and the lower left of the screen. The microphone symbols cross to then you're muted. And next to that you'll see a video camera signal symbol. You're welcome to stay on or off video at your choice throughout the presentation. Let you know this is being recorded if you wish to not be seen. I feel free to turn your video off and then finally, we invite you to put any questions in the chat and I'll be monitoring the chat along with Marina, and we'll have some time for q amp a. presentation and also hopefully at the end. Okay. We also at Sierra Club we acknowledge the indigenous land and sovereignty of our, the place where we are now we are in the homeland of Wabanaki the people of the dawn. We extend our respect and gratitude to the many indigenous people and their ancestors who's rich histories and vibrant communities include the Wabanaki, the malice, the mick mack, the possum aquatic and Penobscot nations and all of the native communities who have lived here for thousands of generations and what is known today as main New England and the Canadian Maritimes. This acknowledgement does not rectify the ongoing violence of settler columns of colonialism but it's rather meant to cultivate unsettling awareness of its persistence towards rebuilding reconciliation. And it's honored to collaborate with the Wabanaki as they share their stories and thanks the Abbey Museum for their leadership and decolonization efforts in Maine, and the work to create effective land acknowledgments. Okay, so today, we're really lucky to have Margot Donis of South Portland Margo has recently retired from a career in it as a systems analyst and project manager she volunteers with the legal women voters, as well as with wayside food programs and partners for health. She has two daughters who reside in southern Maine. And without further ado, I will turn it over to Margot. Wait a minute. I'm trying to share my screen and I just hold a minute. I just had this set up so perfectly. Hold a minute everyone please. It can be tricky. I have issues. No worries. Let's start it up again and start the presentation. It gets here. Can everyone see my screen. I cannot see your screen. All right, let me go back to zoom and say, share screen. Oh, share. All right, here we go. Why. Okay, when I say share, I end up not being where I want to be. And all right, just hold a minute everyone. Go back and reset. For a second there. I know. Can you see it now? Yes, we can. Yep. All right. They present and I think we're there. We're there. Perfect. Looks good. Thank you very much. All right, so this is a presentation on the introduction to the national popular vote. In this presentation, I'm going to talk about our current presidential election system. And after I've reviewed that, I'm going to talk about the national popular vote interstate compact. Followed by a discussion of some of the myths around the national popular vote. And lastly, I'm going to talk about what an election with national popular vote would be like. I'm going to start by going straight to straight to the US constitution and the statement that all states have the soul power to determine how their electors shall be appointed. Our states. Our states are given. The number of electors for each of our states is determined in the constitution as a number of our senators and the number of representatives to which that state is entitled in Congress. So Maine has four. Electors that go to the. Electoral College. And Maine and all states have the right to decide how we will appoint those electors. Here, this map shows you how electors, how many electors every state in the US have. I want you to notice a little how impactful California is with 55 electors and Texas is with 38 electors. We're going to follow them through this presentation a little bit as we go along. But this is what our map looks like as far as how many electors each of our states in their own manner get to appoint to our Electoral College. The 2020 presidential election was the results are shown here. It takes 270 votes to win on the president's presidential election because there are 538 total electors. If you sat down and added up all of these, you would come up with 538 and 270 is half plus one. So we always know who's going to win because whoever goes over that to 69 whoever hits to the magic to 70 is the winner of the presidency in our country. As you can see, there are, there's a blue side of our country, which is the west coast and a red central portion of our country. Campaigning in 2020 and in most elections these days is done in what is known as battleground states. Battleground states are states where the campaign, the presidential campaign for the candidate knows that they could go either way. They could vote for, for reliably spectate. Let's back up a little bit here. Spectator states vote reliably Republican or reliably Democrat in elections. So campaigns that are not reliably one way or the other are labeled as battleground states. And this is where campaigners go when they are campaigning. You can see California, even though it has the most electoral votes was not visited at all by any campaign, any presidential campaigner in for the 2020 election, which is a little shocking when you think of how impactful they are. Texas had three visits. They're the second, they have the second most electors. There are advantages to being a battleground state. They get more in federal grant funds. They get more money in advertising. If you or I are contributing to a presidential election, very likely our money is going to these battleground states, especially the 13 closest ones. And they will be spent on their advertising and on their campaigning. Policy favors often go to battleground states. They get more disaster declarations. They have more exemptions from certain laws. And they favor in 2020 at any rate 2019, there was faster tariff relief to battleground states. So we can see that California is a spectator state in Texas, knowing that they would matter in the next election. So. If we go back here. What we can see is that. California being a spectator state in Texas almost is a spectator state. And in Texas, there were five million votes. Cast for Democrat for the Democratic candidate, 46%. In California, there were six million votes. Cast for the Republican candidates. And all of those votes were not reflected in the result of the election because of our electoral college system, because these were spectator states. There have been several elections in the. History of the U.S. where the winner of the popular vote. Lost the election. In other words, the second, the one, the candidate who got. The lesser amount of the popular vote. One was declared the winner by the electoral college. Five times. In the history of the U.S. National popular vote, but by the electoral college that overrode the will of our national voters. In fact, these are the five times when it fell that way. There were many other elections when it was very close to following this. To having the second place winner take the prize, take, take the presidency. Question that is asked by a lot of people is, could it be different? Could we be electing our senators, our representatives, our governors? We elect them with the popular vote. Why can't we do this for presidents? This is the only election in the United States where we have an electoral college and intervening system to assign or reassign our individual votes. In this country, we do decide how we elect our president. We have the ability to decide this. We have options. Our first option is to keep everything as is, to keep our state appointed electors and keep our electoral college. Option two is to change our U.S. Constitution to determine the president via the national popular vote. The U.S. Constitution is not easy. We have a system that was put in place by the Constitution for these changes. It would require a two-third majority amendment be adopted by the U.S. Congress, and then it would need to be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislators. This is not easy to do, it would be a long process. There is an option three. Option three is to keep the electoral college as is, not to change it, but instead to go to the state laws and require that their state appointed electors vote for the national popular vote winner. And that's when we at the beginning, the second slide that I showed you, showed that in the Constitution, the states have the sole power to determine how their electors will be appointed. So with national popular vote, if we can get enough states to decide to appoint their electors according to the national vote winner, then we will change how we have elected our president. That's what the national popular vote interstate compact The states in the compact commit their electoral votes to the winner of the national vote. The compact is in effect when 270 of the electoral votes are committed. 15 states today commit 195 electoral votes. We need 75 more, of which Maine will be four of those 75. There are other states today considering joining this compact. The compact is constitutional. It doesn't abolish the electoral college. We don't need a constitutional amendment to do this compact. We favor voters, not parties. It's nonpartisan. There are small states, large states, urban states in this compact. As you can see listed here are the 15 states in the district of Columbia that are in our compact. These represent these control 195 electoral votes. The national popular vote interstate compact guarantees every vote in every state in every presidential election will be equal and relevant. The candidate with the most votes will win. And we expect that candidates will be motivated to seek voter support in all 50 states. I want to move now to some common myths about the national popular vote and what it will or won't do. I'm going to address the myth about our small states that they may lose an advantage. The second myth is will the big cities dominate an election. The third is didn't the founders design the electoral college for a reason. And the fourth is do only a minority of voters support national popular vote. Let's start with a small state advantage. 12 of the small states divide evenly as far as how they reliably vote today. Six of those states reliably vote Republican and six reliably vote Democrat. So really those 12 states are spectator states. They're not getting visits. They're not getting any favors. No campaign visits went to Maine's first district. And two campaign visits went to Maine's second district. And two campaign visits went to Maine's first district. And they get a lot of benefit out of being a small state. Four campaign visits to the battleground state of New Hampshire because it was a battleground state. Small states are supporting the national popular vote. Vermont, Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, District of Columbia. And so for one thing, from this 2010 census, the population of the big cities is about even with the population of rural America. So it's expected that if our national popular vote compact goes into effect, it will matter to campaigns that they visit where the population lives and we're evenly divided. Why isn't that the next question is on what did the framers want in the original Constitution? There were a lot of things the framers outlined that are no longer there today. They expected the lecture in the original arrangement in the original 13 states, but they often, more often selected their state legislatures or had their state legislatures appoint their electors to the electoral college, not the state citizens. State citizens today are the voting for president and that's how things have changed over the years. In the original Constitution, enslaved people, women, men without property were excluded. That's been changed with amendments over the years. In the original electoral college, the first place winner became president, the second place winner became vice president, and this was a terrible problem in the election of 1800 when Jefferson against Burr tied. So that was changed quite quickly after that election. And the original Constitution framers wanted to make a process for amendments. They wanted the Constitution to be able to be amended not too easily, but they also wanted a process which I outlined earlier where you would adopt an amendment and then ratify the amendment. The other myth is that a lot of Americans do not support national popular vote. This is simply not true. In 1960, Senator Margaret Chase Smith from Maine cosponsored a national popular vote bill. In 1970, we came very close to passing amending the Constitution to have a national popular vote for president. At that time, 80% of U.S. voters supported a national popular vote for president. And the U.S. House passed an amendment for this. The U.S. Senate filibustered it and it died being defeated by five votes. We really came close in 1970. A 2019 polls show 61% of Mainers support national popular vote. And as state demographics are changing to be more competitive, national popular vote is preferred by many party leaders. Lastly, let me turn to what an election with national popular vote would be like. The winner would be seen as more legitimate. Campaign platforms would address more national issues instead of favoring battleground state issues. One example of this is is that campaigns often talk about manufacturing and about coal production and so on. Where those are interests of many of the battleground states. Campaigns sell them talk about logging, for example, which is a main interest in the North West. They sell them talk about things going on in California with the IT industry or with wildfires and water problems. It's expected that national issues will change. And campaigns and what they stand for will follow the national issues that we have. Vice presidents can be chosen from any state versus a battleground state. Today, when campaigns are run, the vice president is carefully chosen so that he or she comes from a battleground state. And it's expected there will be more voter participation in 2020. 60% of voters turned out in battleground states. 60% of voters turned out in spectator states. Campaign visits would be made to most states. Campaign visits would be made equally to cities and rural areas. Spectator state campaigns will get more support from their national party and down ballot candidates in spectator states will benefit from presidential candidate events. Lastly, nationwide, Americans will vote as Americans, not as red state Americans or blue state Americans. And my question here is, I'm thinking we would share more of our political views with our neighbors, our families and our friends who may not agree with us. I don't think there will be more votes with our neighbors. I'm probably talking about more political issues with them, which today I kind of avoid. What's the point? Because I don't think their vote is going to count because they're voting. I know that my district will go in a certain direction. That's how we live today. I think we would be less polarized if we all knew that all of our votes counted equally. That to me is a big benefit. If you want to take action around national popular vote, I can share this. With you, nationalpopularvote.com for more information. Here's their link. Let the people pick the president is an important book for book discussions. You can subscribe to our e-mail list. And you can like our mainers for national popular vote on Facebook. And lastly, we have a link with the national popular vote. We have a link with the representative with an e-mail or with a phone call around national popular vote. We have tools for writing a letter to the editor and we invite your local library to co-host a book group with the league and to attend our monthly training for national popular vote. Thank you. I appreciate that. Why don't we take some questions? I do see one question, which was from me. And I'll pass this along. Can you give an update on the status of the legislation and the main legislature for the coming session? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it stayed in the committee. It did not get voted out to proceed to the floor. So we don't expect in this coming year, 2022 that it will be reintroduced. However, in 2023, we expect that it will be reintroduced. And our efforts right now are trying to. To continue to fill their questions and so on. Another piece that I didn't, I can elaborate on a little bit. If Maine were to join the interstate compact. We would, let's say we joined. In 2023. Doesn't become active until enough states join to reach the 270 threshold. So let's say that threshold is met. We get like Virginia and North Carolina in, and we end up with the 270. And now January of 2024 comes up. All of the candidates will know that they have to vote, have to campaign nationally because this is an effect. And. Any state that wanted to pull out of the compact. Cannot do it in the last six months before the election. So from July one until January 20th, they're required to stay in the compact. They cannot withdraw. So that the compact is not in effect. And I'm sure if that makes sense. But that's part of how the compact reads. So even if we join this year. It just doesn't come into effect until enough have joined. I'll ask another question just to keep the conversation going. Is there any. Opposition to this idea in, in Maine. And if so, What kind of arguments are they making. In 2019, we came really close to passing this bill. In 2019. Again, I don't believe any Republicans voted for it. But in 2019, the house, the state house passed it, the state Senate passed it, went back to the house. And after a couple of different votes. It was switched and not passed by like one vote. We came very close in 2019. Again, the small state argument saying means a small state. We get more because we have these four electors. Somehow we get an advantage. Again, we're not really getting an advantage as I showed. Arguments against it are given by. Many conservative. People thinking that. They won't benefit from it and that. The elections that have gone their way in since 2020 have been two different elections. But there are many conservative leaders, Michael steel among them, who are on the national popular vote board. And who want. Republicans to campaign all across the country. So, there are states that are almost going to turn blue. Texas being one of them. And that would flip the electoral college in the Democrats. Benefit. So it's really dicey whether conservatives can say, well, we benefit, so we really don't want to change it. So, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point too. Probably within a few years from now. And a lot of conservatives are seeing this as. Very possible. Can you remind us other than Maine, what other states are likely where this is. Could be come up for a decision in the next few years. That's something I don't have as a list. I can get that for you and send it to you later. So, there are multiple states being looked at it. So. I can get you a list. Yeah. Are there any other questions from the folks who are here today? There's a question is the League of Women Voters pushing this in any particular state. And I assume that we don't really have an answer to that right now, but we can get back to you on that. On that issue. Is there anything that people can do to get involved in this? If we want to get involved here in Maine. Again, I'll share the last two slides. After this, and you can put it, send it out to the people on the call on. You can come to a monthly meeting when we do a training. You can, we have ways of showing you how to write letters to the editor or contact your representative. You can become a speaker volunteer be a speaker like me. Yeah. And we did a lot of work in sadly last year. They didn't, didn't pan out, but we, when it was in committee and we wanted it to be voted out. So, so to the floor are our group did quite a bit of. Reaching out to voters from different districts in Maine, different municipalities, so they could call their state rep and encourage them to support. So. We expect to be doing that kind of work too in 2023 when this comes back up again and is in committee again. I mean, we attended it by zoom, different committee hearings on this and we're able to speak. So it was educational about how to do. I'm political meetings via zoom. We felt like a lot of the representatives. We're under informed about national popular vote. Interstate compact was, I think people think it's a little more complicated than it is. And we felt like education was, was required or reaching out to them was helpful. So. Do you think that the national popular vote, if it was approved. Would, would change anything with respect to the kinds of policies that are most important to us. Not just our core policies regarding energy, the environment, health. And preservation conservation, but also our policies of equity and inclusion. Would those get more attention under a national popular vote system. I think. One of the things that is happening is that so much money is given to candidates who only spend it in. In a handful of battleground states. So if you took all of that money and you try to get all Americans to vote. Then you would also care about Americans who may be in a minority. But I think it's important to think about that. For example, I remember hearing after the election in Texas that. There were local. Activists who wanted to reach out to local radio stations that a lot of Texans listen to, but they didn't have any money to reach out to those hosts and find ways to speak. So I think it's important to think about that. I think it's important to think about that. I think it's important to think about those activists and they, they were denied money from the national. Election group. So we would care, I think about. All Americans. And especially some of these minority groups that. That matter a lot to us. I'm not sure if that's answering your question, but. I think that the group that's working on that. The group that's working on it. And I think that the issues on all districts. And all regions of the country would start to happen. Well, as, as everybody knows, the Sierra club has a. Very strong. Democracy agenda. In all matters. And supports a wide variety of measures to make sure that the voice of the people. money or flukes in our election systems or anything like that. So I think, you know, I think that this fits right in the fact agenda, even though I don't believe the CR club nationally has taken a position on this as of yet, unless I'm mistaken. Yeah, we're the only democracy in the world that has anything like this electoral college. The lion's share of democracies do a direct election for president. Another person has commented that there we see how many people support things like anti choice and anti women's health measures in Texas and don't members of Congress who don't take any action on climate change, even though these are positions that are very popular with the public. They're just really the electoral system doesn't seem to be responding to that. All right, I mean if a campaign if if they started campaigning in somewhere like California I imagine they'd start getting questions about how can you help us with this the wildfire wildfire problem and things of that nature. They're not being asked those questions now and in Michigan and Ohio, where they go. You know, the campaigns are simply going to care more about all issues. That's the expectation. Right. Are there any other questions for Marco. Well, maybe we can wrap it at that point then and thank you for everybody for joining and participating and great job Marco for your presentation really salute you for your work in this area and appreciate your bringing us up to date and giving us a thorough background or on on NPV in Maine and in the country. So we really appreciate it and I'll turn it back to Marina. Yes, thank you john and I'm going to share my screen just for a couple of wrap up slides. Just wanted to thank you so much Marco for joining us today and for the great conversation and sharing your expertise on such an important topic with us it was really a pleasure to have you so thank you. And thank you for everyone who joined us today. Marco is going to be sending those couple of slides to me so I'll be sure to email everyone with those slides and some take action items for you. I also like to invite everyone to stay updated on our work by following Sierra Club main on social media. You can also follow us on our website or work on our website and you can subscribe to our newsletter at Sierra Club. org slash main. And before we take off, if my time changes here. I just wanted to invite everyone to our next community conversation, which is next week next Tuesday, October 12 at noon. I'm Marina Fyalkoff of the wild seed project will walk us through what it means to rewild in 10 action steps. So rewilding really helps to safeguard wildlife habitat, support the biodiversity and mitigate the effects of climate change. So if you are interested in that I will actually put a link to register in the chat. We hope to see you there. Other than that, thank you everyone and thank you margo and john for your help facilitating it's been a pleasure. And thank you for having me inviting us to talk. Thank you.