 So welcome everyone. Thank you so much for being here for those of you who don't know me or haven't attended one of our meetings or our events before. My name is Caitlin Pena. I'm the director of operations and programs for the Center for Election Science. If you're new to the Center for Election Science, we are a nonpartisan non-profit that advocates for better voting methods to empower voters. And the main voting method that we advocate for is called approval voting. And so if you haven't heard about approval voting, approval voting allows you to vote for as many candidates as you like. Votes are tallied up in the candidate with the most votes wins. It's that simple. You're not forced to vote for just one candidate. You don't have to rank them. Nothing like that. You just vote for the candidates you like. And so we've helped activists in Fargo, North Dakota and St. Louis, Missouri get approval voting implemented for their city elections. And we're trying to help even more citizens across the country who want better elections in their cities. So if you want to learn more about that, you can go to our website. But tonight we are here to talk about the national popular vote, the movement around that and around the interstate compact. So I'm very excited to have Eileen here with us. And I'll give her a chance to introduce herself in a moment. But before I do that, just a little bit of housekeeping. Eileen and I will have, I have some questions prepared. So we'll probably talk for about 30 or 40 minutes. And then I will turn it over to all of you so that you can ask your questions and get them answered by Eileen. So feel free as as she and I are talking to put your questions in the chat. And if you can remember, try to put question in all caps at the beginning of your question just it makes it easier. If there's lots of chats going on to be able to see those questions come through. But with without further ado, I am going to introduce Eileen Reeve to you. She serves as the national grassroots director for national popular vote. She works on building momentum and support for this issue nationwide and on training volunteers to be organizers and informed advocates for the cause. Eileen is based in Portland, Oregon, and she's traveled to 13 states on behalf of national popular vote. So she's she's done a lot of Lake work. Very nice to have you here Eileen. Yeah, thank you for having me Caitlin I look forward to chatting with you and everyone that's on thanks for joining. Absolutely. So just just to start us off, can you tell us a little bit first about your organization national popular vote. What what is the work that you all do look like as far as advancing this movement. Yeah, so we advocate for the national popular vote compact, which is a state based reform of the electoral college. So we're not working working on abolishing the electoral college. We're not working on getting to a national popular vote in a way that we can have it by this decade if not by the next election. And so just kind of an overview of what that bill actually is. So the national popular vote compact works by states agree to join the compact by passing a state law. And the law says that bill award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The bill only goes into effect in those states, when collectively states with a majority of the electoral votes so 270 or more have signed on to this compact. And so when that happens you have enough electoral votes to win the presidency. And so if you have a majority of the electoral votes committed to the national popular vote winner. So it's guaranteed that the electoral college winner will be the national popular vote winner. And so it's a way to get one person one vote through the electoral college. Our organization has been around for about 15 years and this is the sole thing that we focus on, and we've been the one driving the lobbying and advocacy for it during that time. I had super helpful to have that explanation that was going to be my next question for you, just in case there was anybody out there who didn't know what we'll call it the NPVIC for short, what that entailed so why do you and the organization national popular vote feel that the interstate compact is needed and what problems do you think it solves. I think the way that we elect the president now is broken. Five of our 46 presidents have come into office without having originally won the most votes. On top of that which I mean that alone should be glaring enough right that 10% of our presidents didn't even have the most amount of voters behind them. But the way that it really affects our campaigning is really significant. So, because 48 states and DC use winner take all laws for awarding their electoral votes. So that means that whoever gets the most votes in their state on election day gets all of their electoral votes. As a result, most of the country is completely ignored in the general election for the US president, because we already know how California is going to vote we already know how Maryland's going to vote we know how North Dakota South Dakota and Wyoming are going to vote. The entire general election campaign occurs in about a dozen swing states. If you look at the last several presidential elections virtually all of our campaign events occurred in just 12 states and so that leaves. The country ignored and most of our voters not being a part of it. And as if that wasn't bad enough that you know every vote is not equal and people's voices aren't really being heard. It goes beyond campaigning it affects that swing states get more federal funding, they get more disaster declarations they have a bigger role in shaping federal policy it's shaped around them right that's why we heard about fracking in the presidential and vice presidential debate and no one mentioned the wildfires that were affecting states that one in five Americans lived in so it has these really big implications that we don't even think of all of the time and affects a lot of our society and I think we have to fix it. Yeah, and that's that's so interesting because you know I hear you saying so many Americans are being ignored their votes essentially are the candidates don't care about them because they know they really don't matter in the end. But then lots of times you'll hear arguments from folks who want to keep the electoral college who say, if we get rid of the electoral college. These particular states or these particular cities will have all of the say and they'll be able to determine the outcomes of our election so what, how do you feel about that what's your response there. I think that that's one of those kind of really big misconceptions that hangs out there, really about where the population in America lives. If you look at the 100 largest cities in America. So number 100 on that list is spoken Washington 208,000 people. That is not exactly a liberal metropolis either because that's what a lot of people think is that cities are going to control the election and we're only going to have Democrats. 100 largest cities in America. They only make up 19% of the US population. Wow. Yeah, and it just so happens that 19% of Americans is also the same number of people that live in rural America, as defined by the US census. So you've got 19% of voters in the 100 biggest cities, 19% of people in rural America, and 62% of the country in between, which is in the suburbs where people are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. So, overall, I mean, there's like several myths in there about people thinking how it's going to work but people just really should look at the numbers and think about it that we know that people live all over the country we know that we don't have 400 of our 435 members of the country that are not just in California and New York right people are our representatives are all are spread out throughout the country because our population is everywhere. And so we're not just going to have candidates going to one state or a handful of states. That's what happens now, but we're not going to have that with a national popular vote. So, as far as your organization national popular vote and the interstate compact what progress have you all made so far. So, so far, 15 states and DC DC has electoral votes even though they don't have representation in Congress have signed on to the compact and so collectively we have 195 electoral votes and that's using the brand new numbers from the Census Bureau we have 95 electoral votes. So, when states with 75 more electoral votes, sign on to the compact, then we'll have enough to change the outcome of the presidency and make it so that the national popular vote winner wins. So we're over 70% of the way they're towards making this happen and this is something that we can do in the next few years. Yeah, that was actually going to be my next question. Are there any kind of anticipated wins coming up any or anything that you're specifically working on right now like particular states that you're working hard and or you're getting close. Yeah, so I'll start with looking backwards a little bit that in 2019, we passed the highest number of states that we've ever had passed in a single legislative session. We have four states joined in 2019. And that was kind of the culmination of a lot of work in progress. So this year in 2021. We haven't had any legislative victories yet, unfortunately, but we've been doing a lot of ground game of building up organizational support in these states. We've had committee hearings we've got a committee hearing coming up actually in Maine on Tuesday of next week. So we're seeing progress in some of those states. But as far as enactments we don't have one that's right on the horizon, but we are optimistic that that if it doesn't happen this year we'll see a lot of advancement in 2023. Because an important thing to think about is that because of the new census numbers, we're going to have new elections in the state legislatures in almost all of the states that we're working in. So we will see maybe some different composition of those chambers. Yeah, those the census numbers are really going to have some ripple effects across across the country so it'll be interesting to see how that might affect what goes on with the interstate compact. And so as when exactly did the this project kind of start and how is the the progress gone like have you have. I guess what's what what has been the, the rate at which you've been kind of acquiring states if you want to put it that way. So we started in 2006. And the first state that passed was in 2007. It was championed by a freshman legislator at the time who is now a congressman Jamie Raskin made it his, his one issue that he really wanted to work on and was got Maryland to be the first state to join. And, and it's been steady progress since that over the last 15 years. If you look at it in terms of when states have passed, we have had lows we have had a couple of years where we didn't have any states joined, and then we've also had spurts where you know in 2018 we had Connecticut join and then in 2018 we had four more states joined. If you look at it in terms of electoral votes, it's a little bit harder to look at it that way because you know we can have steady progress we can get Delaware that has three, but we can get California in New York and we saw those numbers obviously jump when we've added those larger states. Yeah, absolutely. So it seems like you're making pretty, pretty even progress there. What has been what have been the challenges that have been coming up with this. Any, anything in particular that's just kind of causing barriers or you know, major questions that people ask those sorts of things. Yeah. So, number one, I would say, if we just look at legislators, so the people that actually have the power to vote on this bill and states. Honestly, it's just inertia. They oftentimes there's just this feeling that they don't want to change the system that they, they don't want to mess with it, which is funny when you really think about it because it's their constitutional duty to consider it and not, oh, we'll leave all this stuff up to the state it is explicitly left up to the states in the Constitution to make this decision on behalf of the people. And a lot of them think, Oh, well, the founders set it up this way. So it's, we should just stick with that. But they don't actually look a little bit deeper sometimes and realize that, no, the founders didn't come up with the winner take all laws. The winner take all laws were not debated at the constitutional convention there were no votes taken on it, because they hadn't been thought of in the first presidential election, three states used winner take all, and they all repealed it by the next election. So the idea that our current system is what the design that the founders came up with is just incorrect, but really breaking through with that to people can be a little bit difficult sometimes. Because I think a lot of people think that they know something about the electoral college or about you know where our population is or what the college is supposed to be doing. But understandably, haven't really dug into it I haven't had a reason to or, or honestly maybe what they were taught in school is incorrect. And so you're working against some of those misconceptions that people have. So I think that one is a big one kind of that like folks like this civics category if you will. Yeah, absolutely and we get that a lot even just trying to advance approval voting. Lots of times people think that it's unconstitutional for some reason, even though there's nothing in the in the Constitution that prohibits approval voting or ring choice voting or any other alternative voting method states have adopted some of these. So we know that it's not unconstitutional. And there's kind of this idea that if it's not explicit or if it's, it's not the way we did it from, you know, 1776, then it must not be what we should be doing. And I think it's always it's always good to evaluate our systems and our processes and we know more, you know, we can keep learning and keep refining things until we strive towards that more perfect union right that's that's what it's all about. And so yeah you were talking about the, the constitutionality and that's actually another thing that I was going to ask you about, which is that I have heard some critics say, Well, the interstate compact might not be constitutional because the Constitution prohibits compacts among states. And so that's kind of a question of, if it goes into place, will it is it going to go to the Supreme Court what's going to happen so how do you all feel about that. So, I'm going to reframe that a little bit, because the Constitution does allow for compacts between states. Specifically, what it does say and I'm going to give an abbreviated version of the quote from the Constitution here is that no state shall without the consent of Congress, enter into agreements or compacts with another state. And really around the congressional consent is the argument that we hear most from critics that the lack of consent from Congress, it means that the compact isn't valid. And so, as a response to that, you know, our opinion and national popular vote is is looking at the interpretation of the Supreme Court the Supreme Court has over 100 years of case law, where they say that interstate compacts that encroach upon or with the just supremacy of the United States, those are the ones that need constitutional congressional consent, and everything else they have said don't doesn't need congressional consent. So compacts that are, you know, deal with water law, you know, commerce, if it's the international migratory bird tree like things like that that involve federal powers that needs congressional consent. But if you're passing an interstate compact to deal with exchanging information on sex offenders a very common one in the US, that is an example of compacts that don't need congressional consent. So, because the awarding of electoral votes is explicitly left up to the states and the Constitution, we believe that that's a federal and plenary plow power excuse me. And so we don't think that this will need congressional consent. The most recent ruling on this kind of relating to this generally is actually only from 2020, from June of 2020. And so that was an eight zero decision affirming the power that it's an absolute power of the states to decide what how they want to award their electoral votes. So even with the current composition of the court, we feel confident about that we won't need consent. So that being said, this is America, it's litigious society, we know we're going to end up in front of the Supreme Court before we change the way America elects the president. If they overturn 100 years of Supreme Court president and say, we need to get consent. That's okay, we will then go and lobby Congress the same way that we've lobbied every single state legislature in the country on this issue. So if you all are prepared for every eventuality, and you're probably stocking up on law, on law years with with this stuff, like you said, we're definitely let litigious here in the US. We try I mean, when this compact was created, I mean, it was an idea that was put in a law review article somewhere that someone kind of came up with and it sat out there for a little bit before anyone did anything with it but it was our organization, and the chairman and founder of our organization, Dr. John Posa, who pulled together a team of some of the finest lawyers in the country at the time and said how do we really craft this bill in a way that's going to work exactly the way that we want. And so there was a lot of work that went into compiling the 888 words that the compact back at the founding of the organization. Yeah, I'm sure that I mean, even just putting together a ballot initiative language you know we have a little bit of experience with that takes a lot of time and effort and so something like this that affects the entire US and that you know is going to be a little bit controversial for some folks right. I'm sure you put in lots and lots of time and effort there. So I've just got a couple more questions and then I'm going to toss it over to the chat so get your questions in there, everybody just as a reminder. And so this is something that I think a lot of folks on the call will be interested in hearing more about we might have some more more specific questions from people in the chat as well but as I mentioned earlier we're seeing more and more cities and states adopting alternative voting methods like voting approval voting, even other voting methods like star voting are starting to come up as well. So how does the interstate compact account for those alternative voting methods and you know is it going to be possible for a single national boat to be tabulated if different states are using different methods. Is that something that you all have thought much about. So it is possible if states are using different ways of calculating their vote to come up with a national popular vote. I think what is the duty of the state legislature is that if they decide that they want to use approval voting or rank choice voting or some other method for awarding electoral votes. To pass that law, they need to think about okay how will this be calculated with a national popular vote assuming it goes into effect. You know it's, I think it's, especially within state legislatures it's out there enough that this is something that could happen. And so that that should be on their radar. You know we're having those conversations in Maine right now, Maine of course uses rank choice voting for awarding their electoral votes. And we want Maine to join the national popular vote compact and so looking at making sure that when they pass that legislation they say, okay, what is this going to look like how is this going to be calculated. And on the flip side it's for states that are passing the compact is is understanding that that's a part of what they're signing up for is that those states still preserve that power to decide how they want their vote counted. I wouldn't be surprised if we get some additional questions about this. In the chat we'll see. I am not the super technical voting methods person I know enough from working at this work at this organization and being able to talk about it. But I know there are some some people in the chat who probably have even more specific questions and what I have so I'll leave that up to them. But it's good to know that you all are thinking about that it's something that you're aware of, especially you know with Maine you're currently working with me and you know that that's something that that's going to be an issue for them. So it's good to hear that it's on its top of mind. Yeah, and one other thing I should add to that. And so when we this we being national popular vote as long before I worked for the organization. When they were crafting the bill, one of the people that worked on that and as one of the co authors of our book every vote equal is Rob Ritchie from fair vote so it was at the beginning something that we thought of it wasn't an afterthought. It was, how do we make sure that this bill allows for this in the future, but also without explicitly naming any other alternative voting method because then that leaves room for whatever comes up in the future to work within the bill. Right. Yeah, I appreciate that as well because yeah we see that there's lots of there's lots of new methods coming coming around. And so my last question, before we go to the chat is just if folks are interested in getting involved in trying to make this happen in their state, or just helping you in general what what can they do. So, signing up if you go to national popular vote comm slash volunteer, you'll get linked in with me and I can let you know what's going on in your specific state if we've got a grassroots campaign going if we've got people that are meeting that we can connect you with. Or if you're in a state that's already passed it, or if you're in a state where you're saying you know there's no way this is ever going to pass in my particular state. You can still help us by helping you know work phone banks when we're doing big legislative pushes and volunteering that way to help mobilize people across the country. And also honestly just talking to your friends and family about this, especially as people who really care about election reform. I'm guessing since your participants with the Center for Election Science just talking to people and letting them know that this reform is out there. There's a lot of people think, Oh, we can't change the way we elect the president like we can do all these other things but that's that's too far. Or they just, they don't know about the mechanism of the national popular vote bill and so getting the word out there about that can be really helpful because no we don't have to abolish the electoral college, we don't have to go through a constitutional process. We can reform it for the betterment of America through state by state action and we can do that in the next couple of years. Awesome. Okay, so I did actually get some questions ahead of time. So I'm while I let some additional folks get their questions into the chat. I have one here from Brian shank. It's a bit long, but I think each each piece is necessary so slow me down if I go too fast so Brian asks, does the plenary and exit and exclusive power to choose electors belong to the state or to the state legislature. If it is determined by the Supreme Court to belong to the legislatures, then is the six month blackout period of the of the interstate compact unconstitutional or unenforceable. How can any newly elected legislature dissatisfied with a popular vote be prevented from dropping out of the compact in the middle of a presidential campaign. Did that. Did you get all of that. You're gonna have to help me help me make sure I answer all of those points though. Sure. So, the, I think the first part of it was around the state legislature versus the state. So article to section one of the US Constitution says, each state shall appoint in such manner as the legislature there of may direct a number of So the power to award electors is up to the state legislature. It is a question that kind of hangs out there on, particularly within article two of the Constitution, if the meaning of the word legislature means the actual body of people that meet in your state capital, or if that can also mean the people through a ballot initiative. So the key from the Arizona redistricting case that the current Supreme Court ruling is that that does extend to the legislature, or excuse me to the ballot initiative. But it's kind of one of those undecided things on if that will continue to be the case because it's a little bit of a more, a more closely divided issue. It's a little blackout period so I'm just going to explain that first so it's in the language of our bill at a state cannot withdraw from the interstate compact between July 20 of an election year and six months later inauguration day. And the purpose for that is to prevent a state from gaming a system you don't want California to be a part of the compact and to say, Oh, okay, looks like the Republicans going to win the national popular vote. We're out. It's October, we're throwing the election up in the air. No, that cannot happen because of that, because of the language in our compact. The binding part of that though that holds the state legislature to that is not the language of the compact itself but it's actually the compact clause, or in the Constitution. So no state in the history of the Republic has ever left an interstate compact without adhering to the terms of that compact. So, you know, the question is like well if it's absolute power of the states, does that override the agreement that the states are in. And the answer is no, because it's in the Constitution. How these interstate compacts are regulated that they keep the states, when they enter into it, they know that they have to adhere to the terms of withdrawal. And I think that was maybe only two parts of the question so can you remind me of the final part. So the last part was, how can any newly elected legislature dissatisfied with a popular vote be prevented from dropping out of the compact in the middle of a presidential campaign and so that I think that kind of follows with what what you were just saying about the blackout period correct. Yeah, and then the only thing I think I'll add a question we've gotten more especially since January 6 is concern about state legislatures trying to withdraw afterwards, or trying to say, not even trying to withdraw but trying to say, trying to just appoint a different slate of electors entirely. And the thing to know about that is that there is only one day that electors are chosen that comes from the language of the Constitution that electors are chosen on a single day that is set by Congress. The state legislature cannot federally after the election, try and say, oh, we're going to change our law and really we're going to do that. They're just multiple reasons why that can't happen. But that's a great question from that individual. He clearly knows what knows his stuff. I know Brian he definitely knows his stuff. Okay, so we've got a question from Martin that you probably get pretty often. Can you explain why you aren't trying to just get rid of the electoral college. Um, so I mean as an organization, that's, that's not what we're about. There have been over 800 attempts to change or abolish the electoral college more than anything else in our Constitution. Only one change has been made. That was the 12th amendment, which made a few small changes, the biggest of which being that no longer the second place candidate became the vice president and it gave us the slates of president and VP. Um, so, honestly, I think that the task of amending the Constitution is a really big one. And that that's one that isn't on the horizon. I really like the national popular vote compact because of the fact that it's something that we can do in the near future. This is a huge problem. For Gen Z, they've spent at least 50% of their life with a president who wasn't originally elected by national popular vote. For millennials they've spent at least 30% of their life that way. So you have these massive repercussions, especially for younger generations, I mean five of our nine Supreme Court justices were awarded, or excuse me appointed by presidents who didn't originally win the national popular vote. So this is a really big problem, especially right now. I think that this is the way that we can fix it is through the state power of reforming the electoral college. And I like the fact that it's something that because of that we get more people from both sides of the aisle agreeing to work on it, you know, I lobbied this bill in Oregon, when they passed it in 2019. And we had several Republicans vote for the bill that I know from my conversations with them. They liked that it was a state reform, they never would have agreed to abolishing the electoral college they like this idea of let's try it out first. In case there are unintended consequences. I don't think there will be I think the entire country is going to be better off once we have a national popular vote, but at least it brings those people along that we can try it out and make sure it's the right fit for the country. Before we do a big constitutional change. And then Camille asked, is it harder in Republican states. And I know Camille is watching from Canada so she's probably curious about the politics of all this. Yeah, that's a great question. So, frankly, yes, since the 2016 election in particular, and we have seen slower progress in Republican leading states. If you look at the 15 states and DC. I'm actually I'm going to go ahead and just quickly share this graphic so you all get a sense of where has passed it so far. Two seconds here. So if you look at this where the states that have passed it so far. They're mostly Democratic leading states, you know, there's no hiding that fact. And so with that, we have made progress in Republican chambers before. We have passed chambers in Oklahoma and Arkansas, when we passed the New York Senate. They were held by Republicans so we have made progress in Republican chambers overall. But since 2016 that's gotten harder. Because of the perception that the current system benefits Republicans. But I'm happy to report that we are seeing that shift since the 2020 election. You know, if you look at the 2020 election, Donald Trump came really close to winning. He was less than 22,000 votes away from winning a second term. He only needed those that those additional votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, and he would have won the election. And so, if I'm a Republican strategist, I might be looking at that and thinking yeah that's not really a stable system for us either. Donald Trump won the popular vote in the battleground states in 2016. He won the popular vote in the battleground states in 2020 he got a million more votes in the battleground states, but he didn't get them in the right states to win. I think people on both sides of the aisle can say hey this isn't really a great system for us, and we should just make it one person one vote. And also, you know it's kind of always out there that Texas is getting slightly bluer with every election. If Texas flips blue, even for one election I mean that's going to make it very difficult for Republicans to get to 270 electoral votes. So I think that there's a lot of reasons that we're we're starting to see some people come around on that now that we've had another presidential election behind us. And, and before I go to another question, you have mentioned a couple times about one person one vote right and so just for anybody out there who may not understand what that references or how that comes into play with the electoral college can you just explain that. Um, so under the current system, every vote for president is not equal within if you're in a battleground state your vote is extremely important you get to help decide who the next president of the US is. If you are anywhere else your vote is taken for granted. And so when we say one person one vote, we mean that we think that whether you're in, you know, downtown Manhattan or Miami, or Juneau Alaska, you should have an equal opportunity to change the outcome of the presidential election. And then I'll just show I think that this might share more appropriately sized to this time. So this is the where campaign events have occurred just from the most recent three elections. And you see that in, you know, 2012 100% of events happened in a dozen states in 2016 and 2020 those numbers were 94% and 96% respectively. Huge swaths of the country are being completely ignored. And we want their votes to be equal you we want those voters to matter I mean I think especially around the 2020 election you know we saw higher voter turnout than we ever have just fantastic and people felt like their vote really made a difference. And I hate, I really hate to be the one to say well your vote didn't really matter because I don't want anyone in this country to feel that their vote doesn't matter. So that's why we have to make it so that every vote is equal. So that regardless of where you are you have an equal opportunity to be the one vote that decides the outcome of the election. Awesome. Yeah. We're really focused on on every voice counting as well because it happens a lot with our current choose one voting system that lots of times people's voice voices don't really count. So another good question, which is kind of goes back to the basics of the bill is what does consent entail the majority vote passage of a federal law like how I think they're asking how does this go into effect. Yeah, so how it goes into effect is being passed by the state legislature. And so the interpretation of that means that both chambers of Congress, or in the one case one chamber for our one unicameral legislature, and the governor has to sign the bill for it to go into effect. So it has not so far been passed by a state constitutional amendment anywhere with a higher qualification that some states have. It's just a bill like any other bill that a state would pass. So whatever the requirement in that state is for passing it is what it is for the national popular vote bill. So you kind of answered this question. Just now when I was asking about the one person one vote, but Thomas asks, how do you try to convince people who think the current system is stacked in their favor. You know, for or the question about the Republican states like how do you convince those folks if they feel like the current system is benefiting them. I mean it's, it depends a little bit on the state honestly what the what the best argument is, but a lot of it just comes down to fairness. If you are currently in a battleground state, and you like that you listen to my presentation and you go we get more federal grants worth more dollars. That sounds great, sign me up. One more thing to remember is your state is not always going to be a battleground state. And if you do plan on living there for the rest of your life, you're going to have a time in the future where you're completely out in the cold with the rest of the country. It might be nice to be able to move or have your friends and children or whoever move and have them have an equal voice in selecting the president gets a very straightforward concept honestly just sticking with that message that it should be one person one vote. It should be incentivized to campaign in all 50 states, and finding you know the argument that resonates with those individuals. I'd say generally though if you're thinking more about it from the aspect of talking to legislators who you, you know what party they fall in. I'm trying to use the examples of the fact that it's, it's not always going to benefit Republicans, even if they think that it is right now. In 2004 we were less than 60,000 votes away from having President John Kerry. If 60,000 more voters in Ohio had voted for Kerry instead of Bush, we he would have won the state of Ohio and become the president despite losing the popular vote by a wider margin than what Donald Trump did in 2016. And if 60,000 votes sounds like a lot. It's good to remember that 115 million ballots were cast in that election. So, it very nearly went the other way, and it very nearly could in the future as well and so if you're partisan looking at it from that angle I think that that's a good talking point to use with folks. Absolutely. And that's something we run into a lot as well. We're a nonpartisan organization. Voting methods themselves are nonpartisan. They don't, they don't care about parties. We're just trying to make sure that all voters have their voices heard, but you get that question about well you know things are going right for me or this this voting method they just want to get this certain party in in power and that's really not what it's about right. We just want to make sure that every person's voice is heard. So here's here's a good question about about the voting method aspect that I thought might come up Sarah asks, well, she says, summing approval score start and star ballots is fairly straightforward. But how do our CB fans want their votes to be summed with plurality votes to calculate a national popular vote. Do you know the specifics of how how they're wanting those calculations to be done. Yeah, I mean what I think we're seeing in Maine is a good model for that but that's you know not necessarily what speaks for every rank choice voting person across the country, but would be looking at the final tally of votes and then using that to be the the numbers for the national popular vote, and the other option that you could do would be essentially just doing first round voting which would essentially not be using rank choice voting. So while a state could do that, I think that that would overall be less likely to be used in states where they've already passed during choice voting. Gotcha. Jeff asks both houses of the Nevada legislature passed the NPV. So by the power of the legislature under article two section one of the Constitution is that not sufficient in itself, why does the governor need to approve. Yeah, that's a great question and one that comes up often, but there's really no interpretation, kind of in any federal law where legislature in modern day doesn't include the governor that's just kind of what's been the standard is that if you're going to get a bill passed. You have to have the governor involved that's how states have set up their government. And so the governor is kind of included in that legislature even though we think of the two chambers usually when we think of the word legislature. Good to know. Lots of interesting facts about the way our, our governments are set up. Sarah came back she she's got kind of a follow up question about the the range choice voting tabulation so she says so for our CV, would that be near narrowing it down to the top two finalists and then dividing electors between those two or I think what what did you mean by you know the final round of voting. Yeah, so sorry I was giving that answer for calculating a national popular vote. It would. So, whether a state is in the national popular vote compact or not, and they want to use right choice voting. They when they're setting that up in the future can say okay. We want it to be calculated with yes the top two or the top three votes in the final round will be used to calculate the national popular vote winner. So again would be up to the state legislature to ultimately make that call. But I what I should say is that you know the states don't have to participate in national popular vote if they're using right choice voting and vice versa. It's more of a matter of recognizing that this is a reform that's on the table. I think it's very likely to happen you know in the next 10 years if not sooner. The state legislatures are passing laws for how they're going to award their electoral votes they should think about how it can interact with the national popular vote compact. Absolutely. And then so he asked what are the key target states so I I'm sure that you guys obviously you want every state to come on board, and you. I know we went over this earlier but what are the key target states or are there states that you're currently working on I know you mentioned me. Yeah. So, as far as states that we're working on. Number one, there are nine states that have already passed the national popular votes for bill through one chamber in a previous session. Those nine states have 88 electoral votes. So if we just passed the bill in those states we'd be there. So a number of those are our target states when we're looking at you know Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine, Nevada we hope to get passed soon as well. And it just depends honestly on how those state chambers look and where we can get support. And another great example. We had a bill introduced in 2018 in Michigan, which had 25 of the 38 senators on the bill, which was 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats. So that's a state where we have a lot of institutional support. So, I can kind of maybe put the list of the states where we've already passed NPV in the chat and that might be helpful as well. But certainly if folks want to get involved. If you like I said when if you sign up to volunteer at national popular vote comm slash volunteer. I'll get back to you with this information that's specific for your state on how you can get involved because we do have grassroots supporters in all 50 states across the country. Awesome. So he also asked along those lines if we are an organization interested in partnering on this issue. Who can we contact to set up an initial conversation with that be you or someone else. Yep, that would be me. And so, are they on the chat I can put my email in here as well. Yeah, go right ahead and do that. And then I can also in the email when I follow up with the recording tomorrow or Monday. I will include your information there too so folks can get in contact. Great. All right, and then I, this is the last question I'm seeing in the chat I'll give you all a final, a final call for any questions. This one's not directly related to the national popular vote but something interesting and still related to elections so Jerry asked in your conversations in a country, do you find that most people recognize that Biden won the 2020 election, and that the vote count was not rigged. You know, I'm sure that you hear from just as as election organizations we get all of the things that people are thinking about elections whether it's related or not. And so I'm sure this is something that has come up in your conversations with folks. Right. So my personal experience. I, the people I am talking to. Yes, they do recognize that Joe Biden won the presidency. That being said, I work specifically in our grassroots space. And so that's a lot of people that are individuals and organizations also interested in election reform. So in particular, do the lobbying we have a lobbying side of our organization that does that and so I can't speak to if they've had to interact different interactions with any legislators in a particular state. Gotcha. All right well I'm not seeing any other questions here in the chat so I think we'll just go ahead and wrap it up here a little bit early. I want to call out this quick comment from sass who said that's my favorite part of this entire topic the electoral college is ironically unconstitutional. When you were talking about one person one vote you know everybody, most of us are familiar with the idea of one person one vote and we really value that idea as Americans right but the way that the electoral college is set up it gives voters in certain areas it gives our votes more weight and that's that's not equal that's not one person one vote. So it seems like changing the electoral college which actually be the more constitutional thing to do. But thank you so much. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say if I can kind of as a closing. Yeah I mean it's, it's a very fundamental principle, the, the term of one person one vote came from some of our landmark civil rights cases in the 1960s that really established that precedent and I think that it's time that we get the way that we elect the president to that. I certainly think you know I talked to people a lot who do support alternative voting methods. And you know there's often that question of, not just how they interact but like, well is this enough. Shouldn't we be jumping forward and using approval voting or rank choice voting or star for electing the president. I think the thing to keep in mind is the fact that this is the only reform and the only election that we're talking about that it deals with the entire country. And so one state doing one thing isn't fixing the systemic issue of how we elect the president we have to look at it as a big picture. And if you're someone who you're like, I can't believe we're really advocating for a system that's first past the post like that's not the best we can do. We have to work with us anyway like give national popular vote a chance to really look at it because we have to fix the system of the way we elect the president now. We have to prevent the fact that someone can get less votes and still come into office, and that we've had that happen twice in the last two decades and came less than 60,000 votes from having it happen again twice more. Absolutely as Americans have to reject that and make sure that that cannot happen anymore. And then if you want to advocate for reform beyond that. Great, I'll be a part of that conversation and be happy to sit at the table, but we have to fix this first. And so I just appreciate all of you taking the time to have this chat with me tonight so thank you all. Absolutely thank you so much for being here and I think all of us, you know, we're all working on different reforms there are so many good, good government democracy reforms out there right now for folks to support. And we don't have to be, you know they're not mutually exclusive a lot of these voting methods kind of are so that it's, it's a little bit different there if you get one voting method implemented you're not going to get another vote with things like, you know, automatic voter registration or the interstate compact or voting methods or campaign financial form they're just so so much out there that needs to be done. And so we all have to kind of support one another, how we can. So speaking of that everybody. If you're interested in getting involved with national popular vote. She mentioned it's national popular vote.com slash volunteer. So I'll put that in the chat again. So if you are enjoying this, this event. If you love approval voting and you want to see more people be able to use it. Definitely consider donating to the Center for Election Science to support our work with approval voting and making these types of events and other activities happen for all of you. So I will go ahead and put that in the chat as well always got to get a little donation plug in there. But thank you everyone so much for coming out for your great questions, and especially thank you to Eileen for taking the time to do this we really appreciate it and appreciate all of your your hard work on this. Thank you Caitlin. Awesome thanks everybody have a great night.