Will state join push to dump Electoral College?

SPRINGFIELD -- If John R. Koza gets his way, American voters will never again have to worry about the inner workings of the Electoral College and why it decides who sits in the White House.

Koza is behind a push for states to circumvent the odd political math of the Electoral College and ensure that the presidency always goes to the winner of the popular vote.

Basically, states would promise to award their electoral votes to the candidate with the most support nationwide, regardless of who carries each particular state.

"We're just coming along and saying, 'Why not add up the votes of all 50 states and award the electoral votes to the 50-state winner?'" said Koza, chairman of National Popular Vote Inc. "I think that the candidate who gets the most votes should win the office."

The proposal is aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2000 election, when Al Gore got the most votes nationwide but George W. Bush put together enough victories in key states to win a majority in the Electoral College and capture the White House.

So far, Maryland and New Jersey have signed up for the plan. Legislation that would include Illinois is on the governor's desk. But dozens more states would have to join before the plan could take effect.

The Electoral College is set up by the Constitution to make the final decision on who becomes president.

States have a certain number of votes in the college based on the size of their congressional delegation. Often, all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to whoever wins the popular vote in that state. Someone who wins New York 51-49, for instance, would get all 31 of the state's electoral votes.

This system creates some problems.

One is that candidates can ignore voters in states, even large ones, that aren't competitive. If the Democrat is clearly going to win a state, the Republican has no reason to court the minority of GOP voters there and instead will focus on battleground states.

Another problem is the possibility of a result like that in 2000, where one candidate gets more votes overall but the other candidate gets narrow victories in just the right states and ekes out a majority in the Electoral College.

National Popular Vote says its plan would change all that.

"What's important to the country is that it would make presidential campaigns a 50-state exercise," said Koza, a Stanford University computer science professor.

Here's how it would work:

States forge an agreement to change the way they allocate general election votes. The agreement kicks in once it's been approved by enough states to generate 270 votes, or a majority in the Electoral College.

At that point, the states begin awarding their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of who carries each particular state. That way, the winner of the popular vote would be guaranteed to win in the Electoral College, too.

If the candidates tied in the popular vote, each state would give its electoral votes to the candidate who carried that particular state -- basically the same system used now.

The downside, critics argue, is that a close presidential election would require recounts not just in one or two key states, but throughout the entire country.

And it would further reduce the influence of small states as politicians focused on such places as voter-rich California, New York and Texas.

"Any way you look at it, I think smaller populations have a greater voice under the current system than they would under a national popular vote system," said North Dakota state Rep. Lawrence Klemin, a Republican who voted against joining National Popular Vote's agreement.

The California-based group has been promoting its plan since 2006.

The idea is a longshot and, even if successful, would take a long time. But there are fewer hurdles than the approach that has been tried previously -- amending the Constitution. That generally takes approval by Congress and then ratification by 38 states.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has not decided whether to sign the legislation joining the plan, his office said. When he was in Congress, Blagojevich co-sponsored a constitutional amendment in 2000 to abolish the Electoral College.

An Illinois sponsor of the plan, Sen. Kirk W. Dillard, R-Hinsdale, said he initially worried the plan would give major cities too much influence. After reviewing population numbers, he said, he concluded it would force candidates to contest more areas, such as Illinois, instead of just visiting "when it's time to gobble up cash for their campaign."

California and Hawaii also passed legislation endorsing the National Popular Vote plan, but the governors there vetoed the idea. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said it would run "counter to the tradition of our great nation, which honors states' rights and the unique pride and identity of each state."

Koza said he began toying with the multistate agreement plan in 2004. He believes it would standardize the way states award their electoral votes, give every voter the same influence as all other voters and keep candidates from ignoring some states in favor of battleground states like Ohio and Florida.

He noted that neither presidential candidate visited Illinois in 2004, even though it has a population of about 12.8 million.

"The Republicans wrote it off and the Democrats took it for granted," Koza said, "and that's typical of two-thirds of the states."

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