HB35

Report Title:

Presidential Elections; Electoral College

Description:

Honors James V. Hall by amending the law by which Hawaii's electoral votes are allocated to a presidential candidate from a winner-takes-all system to a proportional one.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	35
TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2005
STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO pRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. This Act shall be known as the "James V. Hall Hawaii Presidential Elector Election Reform Act of 2005" and may be cited as the "Hall Act."

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey during the Great Depression, James V. Hall attended the University of Virginia, where he studied engineering, the Iowa State University, where he earned a degree in journalism, and the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii, where he received a Master's degree in foreign affairs. Mr. Hall served in the United States Navy and later enlisted in the United States Air Force at the time of the Korean War.

Mr. Hall worked in Korea and was later employed with the United States Agency for International Development, holding positions in Thailand and then in Vietnam during the war there. He was the Associate Director for Training at the Asia Training Center in Honolulu, after which he was appointed by President Gerald R. Ford to serve as Press Officer to the High Commissioner of the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands. Mr. Hall later received an appointment from President George H. W. Bush to serve as Director of Public Affairs for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in Washington, D.C.

In Hawaii, Mr. Hall served as a member of the state constitutional convention and the state reapportionment commission and has held a variety of research and writing positions in the legislature and with the city and county of Honolulu. In 1998, he was one of four Republican electors elected to vote for President Bush but didn't get to cast his vote because all of Hawaii's electoral votes went to the Democratic candidate, Walter F. Mondale. Mr. Hall has also taught at the University of Hawaii and frequently contributes commentary to Honolulu's daily newspaper.

A frequent subject of Mr. Hall's commentary has been the Electoral College. In connection with his election as a presidential elector, he learned that the United States Congress was constituted as a bicameral legislature in a compromise between states with large populations and those with small ones. Membership in the House of Representatives is accorded to each state based on the size of its population, while each state is accorded two seats in the Senate regardless of the size of its population. Mr. Hall also learned that the Electoral College mirrors the same compromise, with each state receiving a number of votes equal to the size of its entire congressional delegation.

Mr. Hall wrote that the compromise in constituting both Congress and the Electoral College afforded at least some protection to the states with smaller populations in their relationship with the states with larger populations. He also wrote that, because it takes three-quarters of the states to ratify any amendment to the United States Constitution, it is unlikely that enough of the less populated states would give up even this small protection to change the electoral college system to one that allocates electors in direct proportion to population. However, Mr. Hall noted that individual states, such as Maine and Nebraska, have effected change by amending their laws to allocate electoral votes in a manner more closely approximating the popular vote.

The legislature finds that there are forty-eight states that have a winner-takes-all rule for election of presidential electors to the Electoral College. In these states, whichever presidential candidate receives either a majority or plurality of the popular vote (less than fifty per cent but more than any other candidate) takes all of the state's electoral votes. Under this system, one candidate gets all of the state's votes even if that candidate did not win a majority of the votes cast in that state. In addition, some citizens eligible to vote do not bother to participate in the election because they believe their vote will have no impact on the outcome, especially those citizens not affiliated with a major political party.

The legislature also finds that two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule but rather use a district system to proportionally allocate their electoral votes. For example, Maine, like Hawaii, has four electoral votes, a number equal to its two congressional districts and two United States senators. It awards one electoral vote to the presidential candidate that gets the most popular votes in each congressional district and two to the winner of the statewide, "at-large" vote.

The legislature further finds that proportional allocation makes the composition of a state's electoral votes more accurately reflect the statewide popular vote and awards those electoral votes to candidates with widespread support, not just the one candidate who may happen to get as few as one more vote than another. This system also increases voter turnout and the representation of all parties in a state and encourages candidates to campaign in all states where they can win a portion of the electoral votes, not just those in which they have a competitive chance to win them all. Finally, while the majority will still win the most electoral votes, the minority may win some as well, instead of seeing all of their state's electoral votes go to a candidate they do not support.

The purpose of this Act is to acknowledge the many contributions made by James V. Hall to the civic well-being of Hawaii by adopting the district system of proportional allocation of electoral votes in Hawaii and thereby to make presidential candidates pay attention to issues of concern to Hawaii's citizens, to increase voter turnout, and to ensure that voters' choices are represented in a meaningful way in the election of presidential electors.

SECTION 2. Section 11-113, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

"(a) In presidential elections, the names of the candidates for president and vice president shall be used on the ballot in lieu of the names of the presidential electors, and the votes cast for president and vice president of each political party shall be counted for the presidential electors and alternates nominated by each political party. One presidential elector shall be chosen in each congressional district and two at large based upon which party's presidential candidate received the most votes in each district and statewide, respectively."

SECTION 3. Section 14-23, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§14-23 Time for election, number to be chosen. In each presidential election year there shall be elected [at large], at the general election, by the voters of the State, [as many] electors and alternates of president and vice president of the United States [as the State is then entitled to elect], in the manner provided under section 11-113. The electors and the alternates must be registered voters of the State. The election shall be conducted and the results thereof determined in conformity with the laws governing general elections except as otherwise provided."

SECTION 4. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________