BOSTON -- The Electoral College vote happens today, and some good-government groups and democracy reformers are taking the opportunity to renew their calls for a one-person, one-vote system.

Massachusetts is part of the National Popular Vote compact, which says if states representing 270 electoral votes - the number required to win - all join the agreement, they'll award their electors to the presidential candidate with the most votes nationwide. Five of the nation's 46 presidents have come second in the popular vote, including Donald Trump and George W. Bush.

Pam Wilmot, vice president for state operations at Common Cause Massachusetts, pointed out the winner-take-all method of awarding electors has led to less voter engagement and participation in Massachusetts as well as other states not considered battlegrounds.

"The process means that the vast majority of states, including our own state of Massachusetts, are ignored in the process; we essentially have no role," Wilmot said.

She said focusing on a small number of votes in a small number of battlegrounds leads to more opportunity to try to manipulate the outcome. She thinks that's part of why the Trump campaign has tried to overturn the results, despite the wide margin.

Proponents of the Electoral College say the system prevents chaos in close elections - it makes targeted recounts possible for only the states where the vote is close, or might affect the overall outcome, whereas a close national popular vote could prompt a full national recount.

Wilmot said safe Democratic states such as Massachusetts are impacted, but also Republican states - both small and large - because the outcome is the same if a candidate wins by one vote or by 1 million votes.

"The one-third of voters in our state that voted for Donald Trump, those votes didn't count at all. If we had a national popular vote, those would be added to the totals of other voters in other states," she said.

Two states do split their electoral votes by congressional district - Maine and Nebraska. But for others that lean heavily toward one party or the other, Wilmot said, democracy is better when everyone participates, and she thinks a national popular vote would help.


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Abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, gun-violence and democracy itself are some of the issues Democrats said are at stake ahead of November's election.

Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, took part in the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee's "Summer of the States" event where the power and role of state legislatures was discussed.

She said within the Arizona legislature, Democrats are currently only two seats away from potentially flipping both chambers, which would deliver what she called a "Democratic trifecta" for the Grand Canyon State. Sundareshan has been an advocate for protecting contraception and reproductive rights in Arizona.

"It was Democrats who led the effort, successfully, to repeal our 1864 abortion ban," Sundareshan pointed out. "We got one or two Republicans to join with us but that was not an effort that the Republican majority led."

Sundareshan and other Democrats are banking on abortion to drive voters to the polls this November in Arizona, where President Joe Biden won by just 10,000 votes in 2020. Recent polls show Biden is currently behind former President Donald Trump in their likely rematch.

Meanwhile, the coalition Arizona for Abortion Access recently submitted 800,000 signatures to get a measure on the ballot to enact a constitutional protection for abortion.

Sundareshan noted Republican lawmakers have been able to bypass Gov. Katie Hobbs' veto pen by placing several ballot referrals to voters she argued are anti-democracy, anti-immigrant and anti-worker. House House Concurrent Resolution 2060 will be on the November ballot. It could expand regulations for businesses to verify the status of independent subcontractors and make it more difficult for migrants to access public benefits.

While backers said it will achieve what the federal government has failed to do, Sundareshan countered the proposal will only hurt Arizona.

"We are the backstop against attacks on our democracy and Arizona is at the forefront of these attacks," Sundareshan emphasized.

Sundareshan added all eyes will be on Arizona as a key battleground state. She reminded voters while the presidential race does garner lots of buzz, state lawmakers are vitally important in safeguarding the everyday freedoms and protections citizens reap.


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A U.S. Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity from prosecution is raising concerns about the power of the executive branch - and the future of democracy. In one of its final decisions of the term, the majority of justices ruled in Trump versus United States that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution when performing "official acts."

Adrienne Evans, executive director of United Vision for Idaho, said this means the president can break the law and not worry about being investigated.

"Do we trust whomever is elected next not to use that power? Because right now," she explained, "everything hinges not that the power has been granted but will there be a president that we have who will not use that power to their favor?"

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the ruling makes the president a "king above the law."

Evans noted this issue has been compounded by the politicization of the courts, and added that the courts have been weaponized to serve the party in power.

"We have always lived in a system where we had relatively stable systems of checks and balances. What this latest decision by the Supreme Court did was it put all of the power in the hands of the executive and, in subsequent rulings, also undermined the administration of the state," she continued.

Evans said Congress could take steps to rein in the Supreme Court by instituting term limits, creating an enforceable code of ethics and expanding the number of justices on the court, but added that Congress will have to act soon to prevent a worst-case scenario in which democracy erodes completely.

"It's going to take the will of the people demanding that their congressional representatives vote for those measures, that we take this moment as a dire warning that we have to reset course if we still believe that democracy is our best path forward," she said.

In a significant turnaround, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has reversed its stance on ballot dropboxes - making them legal again in a 4-3 ruling.

Two years ago, when conservatives controlled the court, the justices restricted the use of dropboxes. The ruling said they could only be placed in local election clerks' offices, and a voter had to return their own ballot in person. However, when Justice Janet Protasiewicz was elected last April, control shifted on the high court.

Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, is pleased with the decision and said his organization has known all along dropboxes are safe and improve voting access.

"They are a way that the electorate can access our democracy when it isn't necessarily so convenient," Ramos argued. "For our health care workers, the rural community, single parents out there."

Conservative members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court were against reviewing the case, stressing the significance of upholding and respecting legal precedent.

Luke Berg, deputy counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, condemned the ruling, calling it "one of the worst decisions from the court in recent memory." He is convinced it was political and not what he thinks a court should be doing.

"I think it's deeply ironic that the court announced, by judicial fiat, its policy preference on a voting issue on the same day that it issued an opinion praising separation of powers, and then violated those very principles in the other opinion it issued," Berg asserted.

Ramos maintained the decision to make ballot boxes more widely available sends a clear message not only to the people of Wisconsin but the entire country.

"Especially after the year we've had, with bringing new maps, after living under the extreme partisan gerrymander that we've lived under for over a decade," Ramos emphasized. "It's a message of hope."

Ramos added he is proud of the volunteers, activists and key organizations who worked to bring about the change.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.


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