Posted on 11/06/2024 1:14:38 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
I don’t get it. Why do only partial votes from Nebraska and Maine go toward each candidate instead of winner take all? What makes them special?
Their individual State election laws.
is this a recent thing? if every state changes laws to do that…oh my. 🤦🏻♀️
This isn’t a training forum.
My internal smartass is going to come out so prepare yourself...
Does the expression "Do your own research." mean anything to you?
Maine and Nebraska have laws which allow those states to split their electoral votes.
The Constitution. They can set up their votes however they want.
You can do a quick search to see how that works. To be honest, I think every state should do the same thing Maine and Nebraska do when it comes to allocating electoral votes.
The Nebraska model makes sense...if you understand the construction of the Electoral Vote model.
“To be honest, I think every state should do the same thing Maine and Nebraska do when it comes to allocating electoral votes.”
Hear! Hear!
What made them special, is them.
Each state gets to decide how it will choose electors. Those two have decided to allocate them according to congressional districts.
I respectfully disagree. That would render the electoral college moot.
bttt
How so? There would still be 538 electoral votes among the states. They would just be allocated differently.
They vote by Congressional Districts. The electors go to the winner of the Congressional District plus 2 to the winner of the state.
In like 1800, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina voted that way. At that time most northern states and South Carolina had no popular vote for President, but electors chosen by the legislature. They were chosen by the legislature in South Carolina until the Civil War.
Thanks — I know how it works. The other poster said it would make the electoral college moot, and I don’t see how that is the case.
Look at red states like Alabama (my home state). The blue areas, like our fairly urban areas, would get EC's for Dims. Same with red state Oklahoma (maybe OKC and Tulsa would get Dim EC's and the rest of the state get Republican EC's).
But the purpose of the EC in the Constitution was to keep a few high population centers from controlling the whole country. In the founding of the country, (which was much smaller then than it is now), this meant that the large east cost towns couldn't completely control the smaller population western states (what was "western" 2 and a half centuries ago). Likewise in modern America (expanded geographically westward since the Constitution), the EC system protects less population density middle America (flyover country) from being completely controlled by the coastal elites in the dense population areas.
It's very analogous to why our Congress has the House of Representatives determined by population, while the Senate is determined state by state (each state gets 2 senators regardless of population size). The two houses together gives some weight to what majority wants (House), while keeping the population dense areas from completely controlling the rest of the country (Senate). That's the same mindset that the EC is meant to use for determining the president. That would go away if all states did like Maine and Nebraska and do away with winner-take-all EC votes.
Indeed, and in a few elections some
“faithless electors” cast ballots for
someone else...you see that too
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