Down with Electoral College, Up with People

[esmith]

The National Popular Vote Compact will effectively eliminate the Electoral College method of electing the President: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/index.php

Given how quickly the compact has already achieved 61% of the electoral votes needed to make it binding, I think it will quite likely be in effect for the 2020 election

Suggest that you read the following before you decided that it is "FAIR". Oh by the way it is Unconstitutional due to the Constitution’s Compact Clause which states.
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress…enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State.

see: http://www.heritage.org/research/re...-anti-federalist-national-popular-vote-scheme
for your reading enjoyment and determination of "Fairness"

 

[totototo]

Suggest that you read the following before you decided that it is "FAIR". Oh by the way it is Unconstitutional due to the Constitution’s Compact Clause which states.
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress…enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State.

see: http://www.heritage.org/research/re...-anti-federalist-national-popular-vote-scheme
for your reading enjoyment and determination of "Fairness"

Of Course, the National Popular Vote bill is fair.

It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

Every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count.

Article I-Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution specifically permits states to enter interstate compacts. In fact, there are hundreds of major compacts currently in force (and thousands of minor ones), as can be seen at
http://tinyurl.com/3ra7elc

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that congressional consent is only necessary for interstate compacts that ‘encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States [U.S. Steel Corporation v. Multistate Tax Commission, 1978].’ Because the choice of method of appointing presidential Electors is an “exclusive” and “plenary” state power, there is no encroachment on federal authority.

· Thus, under established compact jurisprudence, congressional consent would not be necessary for the National Popular Vote compact to become effective.

· Nonetheless, National Popular Vote is working to obtain support for the compact in Congress.

 

[totototo]

No, it wasn't thrown away, I cancelled your vote and my wife cancelled another Obama vote.

Now minority party voters in each state have their votes counted only for the presidential candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate. In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

Now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to presidential candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).

 

[totototo]

Let me ask you a simple question. How many times has a current version of the Electoral College has a candidate won the popular vote and lost? Simple answer 4
1824, John Quincy Adams won the popular vote, Electoral College was tied and the House of Representatives determined the winner Andrew Jackson
1876 Rutherford B. Hays
1888 Benjamin Harris
2000 George W. Bush

Now there were 2 versions of the Electoral College, the first only lasted through four elections. The second version had problems ( Jefferson vs Burr). Then the 12th Amendment (1804) gave rise to the current means of electing a President. Now, to eliminate the Electoral College will require amending the Constitution and that is problematic in itself. I do not see the Electoral College going away for many many years if ever.

Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1:

“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.

In the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 and second election in 1792, the states employed a wide variety of methods for choosing presidential electors, including
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council,
● appointment by both houses of the state legislature,
● popular election using special single-member presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using counties as presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using congressional districts,
● popular election using multi-member regional districts,
● combinations of popular election and legislative choice,
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council combined with the state legislature, and
● statewide popular election.

Just in Massachusetts
● In 1789, Massachusetts had a two-step system in which the voters cast ballots indicating their preference for presidential elector by district, and the legislature chose from the top two vote-getters in each district (with the legislature choosing the state’s remaining two electors).
● In 1792, the voters were allowed to choose presidential electors in four multi-member regional districts (with the legislature choosing the state’s remaining two electors).
● In 1796, the voters elected presidential electors by congressional districts (with the legislature choosing only the state’s remaining two electors).
● In 1800, the legislature took back the power to pick all of the state’s presidential electors (entirely excluding the voters).
● In 1804, the voters were allowed to elect 17 presidential electors by district and two on a statewide basis.
● In 1808, the legislature decided to pick the electors itself.
● In 1812, the voters elected six presidential electors from one district, five electors from another district, four electors from another, three electors from each of two districts, and one elector from a sixth district.
● In 1816, Massachusetts again returned to state legislative choice.
● In 1820, the voters were allowed to elect 13 presidential electors by district and two on a statewide basis.
● Then, in 1824, Massachusetts adopted its 10th method of awarding electoral votes, namely the statewide winner-take-all rule that is in effect today.
● In 2010, Massachusetts enacted the National Popular Vote interstate compact. This change will go into effect when states possessing a majority of the electoral votes (270 out of 538) enact the same compact.

The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.

The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.

As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Maine and Nebraska do not use the winner-take-all method– a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.

The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. After the 2012 election, Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

 

[totototo]

In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states.
In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the then 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country.

In the 2012 presidential election, 1.3 million votes decided the winner in the ten states with the closest margins of victory. But nearly 20 million eligible citizens in those states—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin—are missing from the voter rolls.
Overall, these “missing voters” amount to half, and in some cases more than half, of the total votes cast for president in these states.

Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire (with 86 electoral votes among them) is not a foregone conclusion. So, if the National Popular Vote bill is not in effect, less than a handful of states will continue to dominate and determine the presidential general election.

With National Popular Vote, presidential campaigns would poll, organize, visit, and appeal to more than 7 states. One would reasonably expect that voter turnout would rise in 80%+ of the country that is currently conceded months in advance by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.

 

[totototo]

The National Popular Vote bill would end the disproportionate attention and influence of the "mob" in the current handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, while the "mobs" of the vast majority of states are ignored.

9 states determined the 2012 election.
10 of the original 13 states are politically irrelevant in presidential campaigns now. They aren’t polled or visited.
None of the 10 most rural states matter
24 of the 27 lowest population states, that are non-competitive are ignored, in presidential elections.
4 out of 5 Americans were ignored in the 2012 presidential election. After being nominated, Obama visited just eight closely divided battleground states, and Romney visited only 10. These 10 states accounted for 98% of the $940 million spent on campaign advertising.
Candidates do not bother to advertise or organize in 80% of the states.

The current system does not provide some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,991 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 17 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. 1796 remains the only instance when the elector might have thought, at the time he voted, that his vote might affect the national outcome.
The electors are and will be dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

 

[totototo]

The EC does not have to vote with their state's results. If such an extremist were about to take over the presidency then the EC could vote against him and he would not be elected. This is the beauty of the EC.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).

There is no reason to think that the Electoral College would prevent an extremist from being elected President of the United States, regardless of whether presidential electors are elected on the basis of the state-by-state winner-take-all rule or the nationwide popular vote

 

[Nous]

Toto, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your efforts here. Thank you. You are so much more adroit on this topic than I am. NPV should hire you.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Toto, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your efforts here. Thank you. You are so much more adroit on this topic than I am. NPV should hire you.

I fully agree. Thank you both for this thread.
I also just wanted to use it to point out that, like Gore, Hillary Clinton does appear to have won the popular vote. **sigh**

 

[Nous]

I also just wanted to use it to point out that, like Gore, Hillary Clinton does appear to have won the popular vote. **sigh**

Thank you for making this point. It can't be overemphasized.