Committee hears legislation on binding electoral votes to national popular vote

CARSON CITY — The debate over the Electoral College has been at the forefront for a while, triggered again by the 2016 election, in which President Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote.

A nationwide push for legislation committing electors to voting for the winner of the national popular vote has been taken up in statehouses across the country, with mixed results.

And once again, Nevada lawmakers have taken up the debate in Carson City. A bill was brought before the Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections Tuesday that would sign Nevada onto legislation pledging its six electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.

The agreement has been enacted in 12 states and Washington, D.C., which have a combined total of 172 electoral votes, according to a nonprofit promoting the issue. Colorado Gov. Jared Pollis is expected to sign a measure bringing the state in line with the contract soon, bringing the vote tally to 181.

For the laws to have any real effect, the states under the contract must have a combined total of 270 electoral votes — enough for a majority.

The debate in the statehouse mirrored the nationwide debate.

The bill’s opponents stressed their fears that locking Nevada’s electoral votes into the national popular vote would invalidate the votes of Nevadans and force the state into following the trends in larger population centers such as New York and California.

The bill’s supporters listed concerns over the fairness of the Electoral College system and the perceived unimportance of votes in states with a clear partisan majority.

Anthony Palmer, a Henderson resident, opposed the bill, saying it undercuts the importance of smaller states in the electoral process — he expressed concern over the influence of California and New York.

“Currently the citizens of the state of Nevada determine how our state is represented in national elections with the Electoral College,” he said. “Individual votes count, but in a way that is represented by the states.”

Molly Rose Lewis, a Reno resident, spoke in favor of the measure, calling the Electoral College a relic of an earlier time in government.

“First, the Electoral College is arcane. It was founded when people of color could not vote, when women could not vote,” she said. “It was founded at a time when the logistics of counting ballots from across a vast geographic distance was simply inconceivable.”