Our Mission:
Our mission is simple: to reform the country’s presidential election system to assure two things. First, that the candidate for the country’s highest office who earns the most votes nationwide becomes president. This is the governing principle in every other American election, and polls consistently show that Americans across all demographic categories favor this reform. Second, that the votes of all citizens in the presidential election count and matter equally. This means ensuring that individual votes get counted toward state popular votes; ensuring that state popular votes are respected when tabulating the national winner; and encouraging reform such that individual votes influence the election outcome in as direct a manner as possible.
The Problems:
The current presidential election system is broken. In the general election, candidates campaign, advertise, and make policy promises primarily in states accounting for about 20% of the population. They ignore all the voters in about 40 states. If elected, they have every incentive to shape all legislation and executive action to curry favor from a few voters in a handful of states. They understand that for the only nationally-elected office—the Presidency—this election system violates the promise of equality that is the bedrock of the American Dream.
The candidates behave in this anti-democratic manner because the system tells them winning the national popular vote is meaningless. In about one out of every three close elections, the popular vote winner does not become president. As more Americans continue to move into fewer states, the odds of the people’s choice not ending up representing the people after close elections will steadily increase.
If candidates were obliged to value each voter equally, everything about the general election process would be different. Campaigns would compete to register voters, and encourage voters to vote, in every nook and cranny of the country. Candidates would have to appeal to everyone, and not just to win thin pluralities in a small number of states. Because the presidential campaigns define the level of participation, truly national general elections would create bigger electorates for all federal and state candidates in all states. As a result, all citizens would know they were part of a consensus that not only picked the president but also all other candidates, and down-ballot the most partisan extremists on both ends of the political spectrum would not be able to appeal to the broader spectrum of voters.
The current system violates the fundamental principle of one person one vote. But it also is a root cause of dysfunction in all American politics.
Serious defects in this country’s election processes from election day to inauguration day enable threats to nullify the will of voters and undermine the integrity of our democratic processes. Although the 2020 presidential election was in many ways a success, there were unprecedented efforts by both elected and appointed federal and state officials, in the executive and legislative branches, to alter or nullify properly compiled election results. Many Americans continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen, and they are being primed to believe it could happen again. There is no guarantee that our institutions will successfully withstand future pressures from those who cynically manipulate our system to disenfranchise voters and stoke partisan bitterness and outrage.
The Cause:
The winner-takes-all system. The current winner-takes-all system used by 48 out of 50 states to allocate their Electoral College votes incentivizes candidates and their campaigns to focus on swing states where the yield of electoral votes is the greatest. But the U.S. Constitution does not specify use of this system, and the founders did not intend that the states use it. The system was first adopted in 1800 by a single state, Virginia, for the partisan purpose of improving the chances of its favorite son, Thomas Jefferson, in the presidential election of that year. Other states gradually adopted the same system to obtain the same leverage as Virginia.
Possible Solutions:
Abandoning the broken winner-take-all system. The Constitution (Article II, Section 1) gives full authority to the states to determine how they will allocate their electoral college votes. Having created and adopted the winner-take-all system, the states have the authority and obligation to replace or modify it, without the need to amend the Constitution. The following solutions can be pursued independently or in tandem:
Constitutional Amendment. Replacing the electoral college system with a national popular vote system through constitutional amendment would be the most effective reform. However, this solution is not realistic in current circumstances. It would become more achievable if state-adopted reforms paved the way for a constitutional amendment.
Voter Choice Ballot. The Voter Choice Ballot is a type of ballot that states could adopt that would give that state’s voters the opportunity to cast their votes in favor of their preferred candidate in the tally of the national popular vote, but also to direct that their votes be counted for the winner of the national popular vote in their state’s allocation of its college votes if their preferred candidate does not win that vote.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the Compact, each member state gives its votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The Compact would not go into effect until enough states totaling 270 electoral votes join—the number needed to secure a majority of electoral college votes. States totaling 196 electoral votes have signed on so far, but persuading five or six additional states with at least 74 electoral votes to join the Compact seems highly problematic in the near- to intermediate-term.
We created a nonprofit called Making Every Vote Count Foundation to advocate for reform of the electoral college and the electoral process in general across the country. You can learn more about MEVCF at this website. Please help us by enlisting as a supporter. We have also created a 501(c)(3) called the Making Every Vote Count Foundation, which you can visit here.
Board of Directors -
Elizabeth Cavanagh, Jake Fuentes, Jonathan Bell, Blair Levin, Nicholas Allard, Maggie Brennan, Rachelle Chong, Jamil Favors
Become a Supporter
Americans across the country agree that the current Presidential selection system is broken, and that the candidate with the most votes should become President. Become a MEVC Supporter and tell us why you believe now is the time for reform. We will share your message on our website.