Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Ari Savitzky, major domo of Fair Vote RI, will be offering a talk tomorrow, entitled "Electoral College Dropout."

Wednesday, June 25th
7pm
@Blue State Coffee

A growing movement is calling for the National Popular Vote compact, a plan to directly elect presidents by popular vote. Every state entering into the NPV compact agrees to give electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, and the compact goes into effect once states making up a majority of the Electoral College have entered into the agreement. Because Rhode Island isn't a swing state, our concerns - and our votes - are routinely ignored by the presidential candidates. Find out how we can change that.

In related news, the General Assembly has approved legislation to sign RI "to a pact meant to ensure that the candidates who win the most votes nationwide in presidential elections are the ones who win the White House."

The legislation (2008-H 7707, 2008-S 2112), sponsored by Rep. Donald J. Lally Jr. and Sen. Daniel P. Connors, has been introduced in state legislatures across the country in an effort to prevent the Electoral College from choosing a president and vice president who did not win the popular vote.

“Four times in our country’s history we have been led by presidents who did not win the support of the majority of Americans. That is not how democracy should work. Each person’s vote should be counted equally. We have the technology to determine exactly how many votes are cast for each candidate across the country, and it’s time we started directly electing our president and vice president that way,” said Senator Connors (D-Dist. 19, Cumberland, Lincoln.)

In yet more related news, Governor Carcieri has vetoed legislation, sponsored by Ed Pacheco and Rhoda Perry, that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote.

In his veto message, the gov said existing law allows those under 18 to pre-register, provded they will be of voting age by the time of an election. Carcieri calls it "both counter-intuitive and counter-productive" to add the names of thousands of ineligible voters to voting lists.