The Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee heard testimony Feb. 23 on two bills that would alter how Nebraska\u2019s five Electoral College votes are awarded in presidential elections.<\/p>\n
Currently, two votes are pledged to the statewide popular vote winner, with the remaining three pledged to the popular vote winner in each of the state\u2019s congressional districts. All other states except Maine award electoral votes on a statewide, winner-take-all basis.<\/p>\n
In 2008, Barack Obama won the electoral vote tied to Nebraska\u2019s 2nd Congressional District by winning the district\u2019s popular vote. It was the first time that Nebraska split its electoral votes since adopting the district plan in 1991.<\/p>\n
LB21, introduced by Omaha Sen. Beau McCoy, would return Nebraska to a winner-take-all system and LB583<\/a>, introduced by Malcolm Sen. Ken Haar<\/a>, would adopt the National Popular Vote interstate compact.<\/p>\n McCoy said Nebraska\u2019s district system has not encouraged greater engagement by presidential candidates with rural areas of the state. Visits by presidential and vice-presidential candidates in 2008 were confined to the 2nd Congressional District, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that presidential candidates should have to campaign for all of Nebraska,\u201d McCoy said.<\/p>\n Mark Quandahl of Omaha testified in support of the measure, saying the potential to split Nebraska\u2019s electoral votes weakens the state\u2019s influence on presidential campaigns.<\/p>\n \u201cThis bill would strengthen Nebraska\u2019s voice in national politics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln testified against LB21, saying the current system encourages grassroots activity because citizens believe their vote counts. Under the previous system, she said, neither political party focused a great deal of energy on presidential electoral politics in Nebraska.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Democrats because they didn\u2019t see any hope and the Republicans because they didn\u2019t see any need,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ben Gray of Omaha also testified against LB21, saying Nebraska\u2019s district plan encourages voter participation. Returning to a winner-take-all system would discourage voter registration efforts among marginalized populations in Omaha, he said.<\/p>\n A second proposal for altering the electoral system was outlined in LB583.<\/p>\n Under Haar\u2019s bill, Nebraska would adopt the National Popular Vote interstate compact. The compact would require the state\u2019s presidential electors to pledge their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national presidential popular vote.<\/p>\n The compact would take effect once it is enacted by states possessing a majority of the nation\u2019s electoral votes. States representing 28 percent of the necessary 270 electoral votes already have enacted the compact, Haar said.<\/p>\n He said the current system encourages presidential candidates to concentrate their efforts on battleground states \u2013 those with many electoral votes and a history of alternating between parties. Laura Brod of National Popular Vote testified in support of the bill, saying 98 percent of all presidential campaign spending is concentrated on 15 battleground states. The result is public policy that is skewed toward those states, she said.<\/p>\n \u201c[Candidates] ignore a majority of the people in this country,\u201d Brod said.<\/p>\n Adam Morfeld of Nebraskans for Civic Reform also testified in support. Polls show overwhelming support for a national popular vote system, he said, and changing to such a system would increase voter engagement in the political process.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current system lowers citizens\u2019 confidence and potentially suppresses voter turnout,\u201d Morfeld said.<\/p>\n No opposition testimony was given on LB583 and the committee took no immediate action on either bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee heard testimony Feb. 23 on two bills that would alter how Nebraska\u2019s five<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[111],"class_list":["post-3539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-beau-mccoy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3539"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10475,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions\/10475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cThat\u2019s the way campaigns are run,\u201d Haar said.<\/p>\n