|
|
“It always should be one person-one vote,” Davenport said. “In any political contest, the one with the most votes is the winner.”
The bill was passed March 20 on its third attempt in the House. The vote was 57-41 with seven representatives not voting. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.
Under the current system, which has been in use almost since the beginning of the United States, the president is not elected by popular vote. Rather, the Electoral College has been used, in which citizens vote for electors who cast ballots for president. A total of 270 electoral votes are needed for a candidate to win the presidency. The number of a state’s electors is equal to the number of representatives plus senators. Arkansas currently has six electors.
Davenport said the bill will not abolish the Electoral College. It will only reflect the popular vote cast around the country. Davenport defended the constitutionality of the bill, an argument made by many opponents, by saying that each state has the right to cast electoral votes as it sees fit. States are also allowed by the constitution to enter into interstate compacts with other states, he said.
According to Davenport, about 20 other states have introduced similar legislation. Should enough states, having the combined 270 electoral votes necessary to elect a president, pass the legislation, those states can enter into a compact to deliver all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. This would be done despite the fact that that candidate might not have won the popular vote in certain states.
Davenport said that the sentiment has been growing to have a more popular vote-oriented presidential election. He cited a KTHV-TV poll in Little Rock that showed 70 percent of those questioned would prefer a popular election.
Davenport also dismissed arguments that a more popular vote-based election would dilute the power and influence of smaller states.
“In a close election, the small states are ignored anyway,” he said.
According to Davenport, in the 2000 election, candidates spent about $15 per vote in the big electoral states. They spent about 47 cents per vote in Arkansas, he said.
“I thought that Arkansas should at least have the opportunity to debate it,” Davenport said of the bill.
Rep. Roy Ragland, R-Marshall, voted against the bill. He thought the Electoral College system has worked well. He said that former U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers once told him that he had never voted for anything that would change the Constitution and that was his feeling also.
“Every presidential candidate knows going in what the process is,” Ragland said.
Ragland disagreed with Davenport, saying he doesn’t see how the bill would give the state an advantage in the voting process.
“It just weakens the vote of the people of Arkansas,” Ragland said.
Rep. James Norton, R-Harrison, also voted against the bill. He felt the whole plan was unconstitutional. Some might think of it as a partisan issue, he said, but he didn’t.
Should the bill become law, Norton said, it would only cause candidates to ignore small states like Arkansas. His feelings were that Arkansas’ electoral votes should go to the candidate who wins the state.
“I don’t want California or some other big state dictating how our votes should go,” Norton said. “We’d be completely ignored. Arkansas will be a speck in the ocean.”
Rep. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, also voted against the bill.
