In May, Governor Sisolak, to his great credit, vetoed AB186, a bill to apportion all of Nevada's Electoral College votes to the winner of the National Popular Vote. If this had passed, Nevada would have become a true fly-over state, waiting on election night to see who won the national popular vote, knowing that how we voted in Nevada wouldn't really count at all.
Maybe now is the time to take a step forward and make sure Nevada's Electoral College votes really reflect the will of the people. Under our current legislation (NRS Chapter 298), all 6 of Nevada's Electoral College votes have to be cast for the presidential candidate who wins a plurality of the votes cast in the election. Winner take all.
So just a few votes in a tight election could throw Nevada one way or the other. Complicating this are third party votes, which depending on how they break, might ensure that a candidate with only a small plurality (say down in the 30% range) gets Nevada's Electoral College votes in some future election.
Plurality voting has a long pedigree, dating back to Andrew Jackson and his being "robbed" of the 1824 election despite having won a plurality of the popular vote. In the aftermath of that election, state legislatures moved to ensure plurality voting in the selection of Electoral College electors until it became the norm. Currently, 48 of 50 States use plurality voting while Maine and Nebraska use the "Congressional district method".
If we truly want Nevada's Electoral College vote to reflect the will of Nevadans, perhaps we ought to look into the Congressional district method. The Congressional district method allows the voters in each Congressional District to select their presidential candidate by plurality vote and apportions the two state electoral college candidates to the party with the plurality of votes in the state. So if folks in Las Vegas want to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate and folks in Elko want to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, they each get an elector who will vote according to their choice for President in their Congressional District. If you wanted to ensure that voters preferences were accurately reflected on a state-wide basis, you could apportion the two state electors by state popular vote. If it were a rough tie between two candidates for example, they each would get one state electoral vote. Had this system been employed on a national scale in 2016, President Trump would still have been elected but by 267 votes to 265 votes for Hillary Clinton (& with 6 votes for other candidates). Instead he won by 334 votes to 227 with 7 votes for other candidates.
The two main political parties being what they are have fought to preserve the "winner take all" approach, each thinking they will steal the others lunch. Neither seem to be really concerned that the Electoral College system accurately and truly reflect the wishes of the people of Nevada.
If put before the people of Nevada, it would be hard to argue against the Congressional district method. It might ensure that our voice is clearly heard in future presidential elections.
-- Mike Power
What do you think? Should this be a plank in Alliance Party of Nevada's platform? My email is chair.nv@theallianceparty.com.
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