Sixteen Democrats in the Georgia State Senate have filed a bill calling on Georgia to enact the Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote.
According to the language of the bill, this agreement calls on states “to join together to establish an interstate compact to elect the president by national popular vote.”
The Georgia General Assembly identifies State Sen. Gloria Butler (D-Stone Mountain) (pictured above) as the bill’s primary sponsor.
The people behind the national movement, on their website, said 15 states and the District of Columbia, since 2006, have enacted this National Popular Vote bill. Those states include, among others, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, and California. Those 15 states currently have 196 electoral votes, according to the website.
“The bill will take effect when enacted by states with 74 more electoral votes (for a total of 270),” according to the website.
Organizers said states’ “winner-take-all” laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each state have flaws and that the U.S. Constitution does not require these laws.
“Because of these state winner-take-all laws, presidential candidates only pay attention to the concerns of voters in closely divided battleground states. In 2020, 2016, and 2012, a dozen battleground states received 96 percent, 94 percent, and 100 percent of all of the general-election campaign events, respectively,” according to organizers.
“In these three elections, 25 states did not receive even one campaign event, and six additional states received only one. The politically irrelevant spectator states included almost all of the small states, rural states, agricultural states, Southern states, Western states, and Northeastern states.”
Other bill sponsors include:
• State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur)
• State Sen. Harold Jones II (D-Augusta)
• State Sen. Jennifer Jordan (D-Atlanta)
• State Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta)
• State Sen. Elena Parent (D-Atlanta)
• State Sen. Valencia Seay (D-Riverdale)
• State Sen. Sally Harrell (D-Atlanta)
• State Sen. David Lucas (D-Macon)
• State Sen. Freddie Sims (D-Dawson)
• State Sen. Gail Davenport (D-Jonesboro)
• State Sen. Michelle Au (D-Johns Creek)
• State Sen. Kim Jackson (D-Stone Mountain)
• State Sen. Nikki Merritt (D-Grayson)
• State Sen. Sheikh Rahman (D-Lawrenceville)
• State Sen. Ed Harbison (D-Columbus)
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
