New York Urged to Pass National Popular Vote Plan

Democracy, elections and voting at Democracy Chronicles

To pass national popular vote plan would surely revolutionize American Presidential elections. Ballot Access News, written and published by election expert Richard Winger, had a recent post about New York’s role in the fight for national popular vote as opposed to the current system using the antiquated Electoral College. Winger writes about the issue in his post, “Article Analyzes Why National Popular Vote Plan Bill Has Not Passed in New York“:

This article in CapitalNewYork analyzes one of the biggest mysteries of the National Popular Vote Plan movement…why the plan has never passed in New York state. The plan has passed in the State Senate in New York (in a previous legislative session) so the conventional wisdom would predict that it would also pass in the Assembly, where Democrats have a huge majority over Republicans. But because the Democratic Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the Speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, don’t seem to care about the bill, so far it has not passed the Assembly.

From the original article:

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe Griffo, a Republican who represents a rural district upstate, was identical to legislation already passed in eight states and the District of Columbia, which joins the participants together in an experimental interstate compact that would effectively eliminate the Electoral College and fundamentally re-shape the modern campaign. Technically, states can’t simply eliminate the Electoral College. But in practice they can see to it that the current, anachronistic system stops mattering.