Mainers Debate Potential Withdrawal from the National Popular Vote Compact

The distribution of Maine’s four presidential electoral votes was up for grabs in Augusta Monday morning, as lawmakers on the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee held a public hearing on legislation related to Maine’s participation in the Electoral College.

Two nearly identical bills to withdraw from the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact were the focus of a public hearing Monday morning.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among the states that could bring about sweeping changes to how the President of the United States is elected.

If enough states were to join the Compact, it would effectively override the electoral college by guaranteeing that the winner of the national popular vote would always be elected president, regardless of who earned the most electoral votes.

By joining this Compact a year ago, Maine’s four electoral votes could eventually be awarded to whichever presidential candidate garners the most votes nationwide, irrespective of who the majority of Mainers vote for at the ballot box.

[RELATED: Maine Joins the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact]

Once Maine officially became a part of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, the coalition represented a total of 209 electoral votes — out of 538 in total.

Among the states that have also signed the Compact are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhone Island, Vermont, and Washington. These are all predominantly “blue,” or Democrat-leaning, states.

LD 252 and LD 1373 both would see Maine withdraw from this agreement and contain nearly identical language aside from the clause outlining the date by which the governor must submit the election results.

Rep. Barbara Bagshaw (R-Windham), the primary sponsor of LD 252, explained that her bill is “rooted in one simple principle: our electoral vote should reflect the will of Maine voters, not the voters of other states.”

By adhering to a national popular vote model, she argued that Maine would be “effectively silencing our own distinct voice.”

In testifying on behalf of her bill, Bagshaw went on to suggest that a national popular vote system would ask Mainers to “blind[ly] place trust in an election system they didn’t vote for and cannot oversee,” as their electoral votes would be determined by the outcome of other states’ elections.

Consequently, she asserted that repealing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would “restore clarity, consistency, and confidence” in our presidential election system” and “return our state to a system that respects the will of our people.”

Under a national popular vote model, Bagshaw explained, “larger states are going to be making the decisions and we’ll just be handing over the electors.”

LD 1373, sponsored by Rep. Ken Fredette (R-Newport), would similarly pull Maine out of the Compact. Rep. Fredette represents a northern Maine district that would be more directly affected by eliminating the current distribution of the state’s electoral votes.

Rep. Arthur L. Bell (D-Yarmouth), the legislator who sponsored last year’s bill that led to Maine joining the Compact, appeared before the Committee Monday to offer testimony urging members to reject the effort to withdraw.

According to his interpretation of the National Popular Vote Compact, it upholds the “promise to Maine and the American people of one person one vote,” as well as “promise to make presidential elections fair and simple.”

Rep. Bell went on to cite a poll that found 72 percent of Mainers support replacing the electoral college with a national popular vote system, suggesting that this is the case because they “look at the way campaigns happen and know it’s broken.”

“We are in an era of intense political divide, our democracy is on the ropes and we should consider working together to fortify it,” said Bell, which he indicated could be done through the Compact by “advancing the straightforward principle of one person one vote.”

Several Mainers also turned out to offer testimony in support of withdrawing from the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, citing similar concerns over the impact that a single national count would have on the weight of Mainers’ voice in presidential elections.

“According to the 2020 Census, 27 states have more than three times the population of Maine. The largest state in terms of population, California, has twenty-nine times the population of Maine,” said Kathleen Szostek from Dixfield.

“If we stay with the national popular vote, Mainers will have no voice,” said Zoster. “Presidential candidates need only to campaign in the highly populated states to win an election.”

[RELATED: Maine Republicans Seek to Withdraw from National Popular Vote Interstate Compact]

Sean Parnell of Save Our States — an organization dedicated to preserving the Electoral College — articulated similar issues, noting that “if the compact were in effect, Maine’s four electors would no longer represent the people of Maine.”

He also raised technical concerns with the Compact, suggesting that it would, in practice, result in numerous complications that could potentially jeopardize the integrity of presidential elections.

Testifying in opposition to the withdrawal was Christopher Pearson of National Popular Vote who argued that the system, should it take effect, would actually enhance Mainers’ voting power.

“Under national popular vote, every vote would be added directly to the national count,” said Pearson. “No voter will have their voice canceled out at a state level.”

He also suggested that criticisms of the Compact are unfounded, again underscoring what he sees as the benefits of a national popular vote system.

“It’s difficult to attack the merits of one person one vote, it’s difficult to argue that every voter should matter and play a meaningful role no matter where they live, and it’s hard to dispute that candidate should campaign everywhere, and impossible to argue that the top vote-getter should not win the election,” he said. “So opponents of national popular vote don’t try. They try to distract, tell half the story, and hope that busy legislators won’t fill in the blanks.”

Despite asserting that the National Popular Vote Compact is non-partisan, it was pointed out during questioning that no Republican-leaning states have joined to date.

Representatives from the League of Women Voters, Maine Youth Power, Coalition on Racial Equity, and others also testified in opposition to the withdrawal.

Augusta resident and veteran journalist Douglas Rooks argued that “it would be a grievous error to repeal this law,” suggesting that the Electoral College “discourages voting” in many non-battleground states.

“Beyond equality and fairness, we must consider how to strengthen our great republic in these embattled times by selecting the president [how we do all other offices] by joining the rest of the world and choosing our top leader by popular vote,” Rooks said.

On the other hand, former University of Maine professor and Cooper Selectman Jon Reisman urged Committee members to “work toward a less divided Maine” by withdrawing from the Compact.

“National popular vote is a divisive effort that disenfranchises, or threatens to disenfranchise, a substantial fraction of every right of center voter in the second congressional district,” he said, going on to explain that the Compact would have similarly disenfranchised left of center voters in the first congressional district during the most recent presidential election.

The Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee are now expected to hold a work session in the near future where members will discuss the possibility of withdrawing from the Compact in more detail.

Disclosure: Jon Reisman’s work has previously been published by the Maine Wire.