AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine will join an interstate compact aiming to nullify the Electoral College and elect presidents by a national popular vote under a proposal that became law Monday without Gov. Janet Mills’ signature.
After the Senate gave the proposal final passage April 3, Mills had 10 days — including Saturdays but not Sundays — to either sign, veto or let it become law without her signature. The Democratic governor chose that last option Monday, according to her office.
Mills said she recognized “there is merit to both sides of the argument” and “would like this important nationwide debate to continue.”
“While I recognize concerns about presidential candidates spending less time in Maine, it is also quite possible that candidates will spend more time in every state when every vote counts equally, and I struggle to reconcile the fact that a candidate who has fewer actual votes than their opponent can still become president of the United States,” Mills said in a statement. “Absent a ranked choice voting circumstance, it seems to me that the person who wins the most votes should become the president. To do otherwise seemingly runs counter to the democratic foundations of our country.”
The decision from Mills effectively lets her avoid taking a stronger position on the national popular vote effort that the Democratic-led Legislature had defeated in previous years. It nearly failed to receive final passage this year in the House, which approved it this month in a narrow 73-72 vote, while it cleared the Senate more easily.
The proposal from Rep. Arthur Bell, D-Yarmouth, will see Maine join 16 states and Washington, D.C., in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The agreement will take effect if states accounting for at least 270 electors — the minimum number needed to win the presidency outright — adopt it. With Maine, the compact will now have 209 votes accounted for among its members that include Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and Connecticut.
With his bill now law, Bell said it is “an important step in the right direction that will strengthen our democracy by ensuring that the candidate selected by a majority of Americans will become president.”
Since 1972, Maine has split two of its four Electoral College votes by congressional district, with two at-large votes going to the statewide popular vote winner. Nebraska is the other state with a similar system, but its Republican governor and former President Donald Trump have signaled support for switching to the winner-take-all system.
Trump, a Republican seeking the White House again in November’s election, has twice carried Maine’s 2nd District, while President Joe Biden won the state overall in 2020 behind a wide margin in the reliably blue 1st District. Trump’s victory in 2016 over former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the fifth time in history the winning candidate lost the popular vote.
Supporters have argued the Electoral College is antiquated and dilutes the influence of a large chunk of voters by making presidential candidates only focus on a few battleground states. Opponents have called it an “end-run” around the Constitution that would actually result in candidates caring less about Maine and more about densely populated cities.
Trent England, executive director of Save Our States, a national group opposing the popular vote legislation, said it was “unfortunate” Mills was allowing the Maine bill to become law and “revealing that she doesn’t want her fingerprints on it.”
“In the real world, NPV [national popular vote] would lead to election crises far worse than anything seen after the 2020 election,” England said.
Stand Up America, a New York-based progressive advocacy group, viewed Monday as “an important victory for Maine voters and our democracy,” according to Sunwoo Oh, its senior associate of policy and political affairs.
“The candidate who wins the most votes on Election Day should be the person who walks into the White House on Inauguration Day,” Oh said.