A bill that passed the state Senate last year and is awaiting action in the House would add North Carolina to a coalition of states that pledge to elect the president by national popular vote instead of the current state-by-state system.
The legislation doesn't take effect until it is passed by enough states to total 270 electoral votes, the number needed to elect a president. Once they reach that number, all of those states will award their electors as a bloc to the winner of the national popular vote.
North Carolina would no longer be a safe Republican state that both parties' presidential campaigns typically ignore in the November election, said Barry Fadem, president of National Popular Vote. He was lobbying several House members this week as the General Assembly convened for this year's session.
Republican leaders countered that the proposal would flip the election on its head. A presidential candidate could lose North Carolina by a wide margin but receive all 15 of the state's electoral votes.
House Speaker Joe Hackney, a Chapel Hill Democrat, said no decisions have been made on whether the popular-vote bill will come up for a vote. Last year national Democratic Party officials privately urged N.C. Democrats to put the brakes on the legislation, facing the prospect of having to suddenly fight for big states such as California and New York. It's unclear if the national party's objections persist.
Fadem's most powerful ammunition this week was the spike in voter registration, turnout and volunteer involvement driven by this year's competitive Democratic presidential race. Candidates or their staff showed up in towns that had never seen a presidential campaign.
He doesn't guarantee candidates will fly into every state. Campaigns will still prioritize their spending, but even the least populous state is likely to see some volunteer canvassing or advertising, Fadem said.
Currently, each state essentially holds its own presidential election. Each state has a certain number of electors and awards them to candidates based in some fashion on the popular vote. The electors gather for the Electoral College several weeks later and elect the president.
Twice, including President Bush's election in 2000, the candidate who won the necessary electoral votes and became president actually lost the popular vote. Some Republicans see the popular-vote movement as the pet cause of bitter Democrats.
North Carolina hasn't seen a competitive presidential election since 1992 because Republicans consistently have won the state. Democrats haven't put up a fight. Under the legislation, though, the state would transform from a statewide contest into a collection of up to nearly 6 million votes that count toward a national total. Candidates would have to fight for as many as they could get, Fadem said.
"Why is a vote in Ohio worth more than a vote in North Carolina?" Fadem said, referring to how campaigns typically focus on fewer than 20 battleground states. "If every vote counts," Fadem said, "no president can afford to write off a state."
Four states -- Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii -- have enacted the popular-vote plan. It passed the legislature in California and Vermont, where it was vetoed and is expected to be vetoed respectively. North Carolina and Massachusetts are considering the legislation this year.
Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, of Apex and the N.C. House Republican leader, said he can't imagine a single GOP House member supporting the idea because the loser of the state's popular vote, usually the Democrat, could still win its electoral votes.
"That thing tells our voters that the state would support the very candidate they repudiated," Stam said.
Fadem, a Democrat, said voters take a broader look.
"The voter, when he or she wakes up the morning after the election, does not jump up and down and say, `Oh, my candidate won North Carolina,' " he said. "Their focus is whether their candidate won the presidency."
Advocates say they are not usurping the Constitution because it says only that the states may determine how they award electors.
Veteran campaign strategists said a popular-vote approach would dramatically alter campaigns, decreasing the emphasis on issues specific within certain states and notching up the focus on issues crucial to certain groups of voters.
"You back into it," said Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, a veteran of Al Gore's 2000 campaign. "`This is how I get to 51 percent. These are the demographic groups that help me get there,' and you go to the states where they exist."
