An obscure but well-funded campaign to reinvent the Electoral College and elect the president via a national popular vote has alarmed GOP leaders, who have mounted a counterattack with the help of a newly revived nonprofit. The fight over the Electoral College is “the most important issue in America nobody’s talking about,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said at a Wednesday forum co-sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the State Government Leadership Foundation, a GOP-friendly nonprofit that has recently unveiled a new website and ramped up its operations.
The National Popular Vote campaign would replace the Electoral College system, which assigns electors to states based on the size of their Congressional delegations and requires a candidate to win at least 270 of 538 electoral votes to become president. Eight states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that would instead deliver their Electoral College slates to the candidate who won the most popular votes nationwide. The laws will go into effect when enough states pass similar legislation to break the 270-vote threshold.
The popular vote movement is being spearheaded by “two eccentric businessmen and one of George Soros’ sons,” McConnell declared at the forum, which featured comments by a half-dozen secretaries of state and by election lawyer and former Federal Election Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky.
McConnell added: “They are as well-funded, unfortunately, as they are well-organized, and they are getting close to the finish line.” Advocates of what’s known as the National Popular Vote Compact say they have 49 percent of the 270 electoral votes they would need to change the way the president is elected.
Full Article: GOP Nonprofit Backs Electoral College : Roll Call Lobbying & Influence.