...an extraordinarily close presidential election, mirrored national sentiment about scrapping an electoral system that allowed a candidate to win the presidency even while losing the popular vote.
That's odd, I don't recall any big stink about it in 1960, ya mealy-mouthed NY Slimes shill.
Sounds like a bunch of bs.
Yup.
Nixon won electoral votes by 301- 191-46
Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace being the two he run against.
Popular vote went 43.4% 42.7% 13.5%
What is it with Dems not trusting electors?!
“... the Senate came five votes shy of breaking the filibuster...”
And then there were and are states that probably not ratify for the selfish reason that they don’t want the larger states deciding who will be President forever.
The wisdome of the founders when they created the Electoral College may be proven once and for all this year. The Democrats are doing their best to cripple our election system and foment chaos. Fortunately, their ham handed effort has to undermine the Electoral College which they cannot do, at least not this time.
The election of the President consists of 51 contests, one in each of the States and one in the District of Columbia. Even with the blatent voter fraud that we will see this year, these shennanigans have no chance of undoing the majority of those contests. Calfornia, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, and perhaps New York will see rampant voter fraud, but those states will vote for the Democrat no matter what, so the Electoral College may well save the Republic.
No offense intended, but I’m pretty skeptical of the source as well. But all that aside.... the Dems had better watch what they wish for. I love the electoral college for the usual reasons...keeping the less populated states from being disenfranchised, etc. But I will say this. If the electoral college were done away with, we might not have another democrat president for decades. Think about the 55-point headstart the Dems have at the beginning of each election in CA. If we were to do away with the electoral college, we’d get 42% of CA instead of 0%. Brand new strategy. GOP could narrow its resources to 6 or 8 big cities that we now ignore. Dems would have to broaden their resources to 1,000 or so counties. Awfully hard to swing votes in that great big red map of the U.S.
As soon as democrats lose an election, they start looking for ways to fix it so they can’t lose the next time. If popular vote gives them the win, that’s what they want. If electoral vote gives them the win, that’s what they want. If mail in voting and ballot harvesting allow them to cheat to a victory, that’s what they want. It’s all situational, never principled.
Nearly abolished? So a proposal passed both the House and the Senate and then was approved by 36 state legislatures???
This is idiocy. This requires ratification by 3/4 of the states. All it takes is for 13 states to decide that NY and California should not control the election of the President and it is dead.
I think it is a dead cinch cert that this would never pass.
They just keep pushing and pushing until they get what they want. Our folks don’t do that.
Mathematical proof of the merits of the Electoral College - “Math Against Tyranny”:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/from-the-archive-math-against-tyranny
I was a kid at the time, but I don’t recall this.
I cannot see enough “small” states approving this. But who knows?
Of course the House voted to end the Electoral College. The House is the branch of government that represents the people. And, of course the Senate killed the proposal. The Senate is the branch of government that represents the states. Our system, while awkward, nevertheless involves checks and balances.
Direct election with a 40 percent threshold to avoid a runoff is ridiculous. Most larger countries that directly elect their head of government have a 50 percent threshold. France, the example cited in the article, has a 50 percent threshold. It is not a valid sample.
Some countries that directly elect their head of government have a lower threshold provided the first place finisher has a big lead over the second place finisher. This is to avoid the expense and bother of another election when the result is obvious. For example, Bolivia avoids a run-off election if the first place finisher has at least 40 percent and is at least 10 points ahead of the second place finisher.
The thing is, there is no reason to worry about run-off elections anymore. You can have instant run-off. With this system, voters indicate all acceptable candidates in order of preference. If the first place finisher has less than 50 percent, check the “second preferences” of candidates that finished out of the money. This system works well in Ireland and Australia.
As to why the New York Times wants a 40 percent threshold, probably it’s because they still haven’t accepted the fact that Abraham Lincoln was elected with 39.8 percent of the vote, but a majority in the electoral college. Not only do they suffer Trump Derangement Syndrome, they also suffer Lincoln Derangement Syndrome.
This is a bunch of BS lauded by an incompetent shill. First, the Electoral College appears in the Constitution. Second, the House and Senate can pass an Amendment (not a bill) in Congress but it would take the States to ratify it. Since the States never got a chance to vote on ratification of the Amendment, the Electoral College never even got close to being destroyed.
Too bad, so sad.