National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has goal One person, one vote
Organization and advocacy
Building on the work of Bennett and the Amar brothers, in 2006, John Koza, a computer scientist, former elector, and "longtime critic of the Electoral College", created the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), a formal interstate compact that linked and unified individual states' pledges to commit their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. NPVIC offered "a framework for building support one state at a time as well as a legal mechanism for enforcing states' commitments after the threshold of 270 had been reached." Compacts of this type had long existed to regulate interstate issues such as water rights, ports, and nuclear waste.Koza, who had earned "substantial wealth" by co-inventing the scratchcard, had worked on lottery compacts such as the Tri-State Lottery with an election lawyer, Barry Fadem. To promote NPVIC, Koza, Fadem, and a group of former Democratic and Republican Senators and Representatives, formed a California 501(c)(4) non-profit, National Popular Vote Inc. (NPV, Inc.). NPV, Inc. published Every Vote Equal, a detailed, "600-page tome" explaining and advocating for NPVIC, and a regular newsletter reporting on activities and encouraging readers to petition their governors and state legislators to pass NPVIC. NPV, Inc. also commissioned statewide opinion polls, organized educational seminars for legislators and "opinion makers", and hired lobbyists in almost every state seriously considering NPVIC legislation.NPVIC was announced at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on February 23, 2006, with the endorsement of former US Senator Birch Bayh; Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause; Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote; and former US Representatives John Anderson and John Buchanan. NPV, Inc. announced it planned to introduce legislation in all 50 states and had already done so in Illinois. "To many observers, the NPVIC looked initially to be an implausible, long-shot approach to reform", but within months of the campaign's launch, several major newspapers including The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, published favorable editorials. Shortly after the press conference, NPVIC legislation was introduced in five additional state legislatures, "most with bipartisan support". It passed in the Colorado Senate, and in both houses of the California legislature before being vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.