Posted on 02/05/2018 9:04:48 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Article II of the Constitution gives states broad authority to decide how their electoral votes are selected and divided among the candidates. In 48 states, the candidate who gets the most votes wins all of the state’s electoral votes. But the Constitution doesn’t require that rule. Maine and Nebraska have implemented district- by-district voting. One electoral vote goes to the winner in each congressional district, and the remaining two electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote.
Assume, however, that a state enacts a law giving all its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. And assume further that the law says it will not be effective unless enough other states pass the same law to yield a total of at least 270 electoral votes. That would be perfectly valid under Article II. It would force a majority of electoral votes to be cast for the national popular vote winner -- without amending the Constitution.
But is it a good idea? The Framers meticulously crafted an electoral model that reduced sectionalism and reinforced minority rights. Instead, popular voting would favor regions with high voter density and large states over small. "One man, one vote" may be the rallying cry of a democracy; but that is not our form of governance. We are a constitutional republic; political outcomes are not always determined by majority rule. For example, it takes two-thirds of Congress to override presidential vetoes, approve treaties, impeach a president, or expel a member of Congress. Imagine if NPVIC had been operative in 2004: George W. Bush would have received all of California’s electoral votes even though John Kerry trounced Bush statewide by 10 percentage points.
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
Sure. Each State should only get 2 electoral votes, same as the number of Senators.
If the Blue states want to go that way, they'll be building a wall to Demwit presidencies as insurmountable as the border wall we will be building with Mexico.
I really like the electoral college. Take it away and suddenly a LOT of states would not matter, nor would they even be on the campaign trail. And they are all flyover states.
Without the EC, just a few states would select our president every time.
This is the problem King County WA has. It is part Seattle, and part rural. Since the whole county votes on every county council member, Seattle selects them all. Practically speaking, the rural area isn’t even being represented.
This is why they have laws like requiring a permit to clear your blackberries if you have more than 5 acres.
This would be a catastrophe on a national level and you could kiss the US goodbye. It would not be a gradual thing, either. It would be a one or two, at the most, election cycle thing.
No. Nothing closer to perfect has ever been developed by man
I wouldn’t have a problem with district by district voting and one electoral vote per district. But the fact that districts are shaped in various forms with an agenda to get a vote count done a certain way....well, that makes the idea non-legit. You’d have to fix gerrymandering first, before forming a district by district vote gimmick.
Sure, electors are assigned by who receives the majority of votes in that district. If no majority, a run off election is held 30 days later between the top two candidates. Should the run off also result in a tie, the sitting governor at the time of the election decides.
The remaining two votes are assigned 1 to the candidate that receives the most votes in the state and the other one to the candidate that wins the most districts in that state.
In the event of either of those 2 being a tie, the sitting governor at the time of the election assigns the electoral vote
NO!
The electoral college IS a brilliant solution to make sure every state counts.
Just as the natural born citizen clause WAS a brilliant way to prevent foreign influence on the office of President by excluding the children of foreign nationals.
No. And we should also ban “cloture” whereby 60 votes are needed to do much of anything in the Senate. Why have cloture rules when we celebrate the enfranchisement of the power of each vote - regardless of venue?
Great idea! Let’s let Cali pick our presidents. /s
The only reason the smaller nation/colonies chose to become separate states within the United States was because they made a deal balancing the power of the more populous states.
They didn’t want the big states to vote, for example, that Rhode Island would be best utilized as a national park.
So, why would Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky want to be run by CA, NY, and IL? I’d rather be a separate nation.
Five states would rule the country if no EC.
It gets reformed every 10 years by the National Census. 2020 is the next one.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
I mentioned that California could give a Republican a presidential victory. That may not be as remote as thought. Consider:
In 2012 President Obama received 61 percent of the electoral votes, while garnering 52 percent of the popular vote. The actual vote differential amounted to only 3.5 million out of more than 120 million cast, less than 3 percent.
Other recent elections have been either close, or won, not with a majority, but with a plurality, as Clinton did twice. The obvious conclusion must be that it is not always how many votes a candidate gets, but in which states those votes are attained.
That being the case, the possibility of a Republican getting 50.1 percent of the national popular vote total — but losing in California — may not be far-fetched. If the popular vote winner did not have the required 270 electoral votes, California, as a result of joining the NPV, would have to cast its 55 votes for a Republican, which would likely tip the scale in favor of the Republican. Would the 60 percent of California voters who vote Democrat tolerate that occurrence?
If it appeared that California was in fact the determinate in a Republican victory despite having voted for the Democrat candidate, would the state’s residents demand a withdrawal from the agreement? Doing so could set up a very ugly legal fight, but considering the visceral reaction to 2000, would anyone expect less?
There is a constitutional alternative to the NPV plan: Congressional District Distribution.
Taking California as an example, if fairness and attracting presidential campaign dollars to the state are the true reasons for favoring the NPV pact, then distributing the EV’s to the winner of each district would accomplish both goals.
In the 2000 election 19 of California’s 52 Congressional districts voted for George Bush. Those 19 EV’s would have ranked California’s Republican districts between Michigan (18) and Ohio (21) in terms of value toward the final goal of 270. This would then greatly increase California’s importance as a target for presidential campaigning.
However, if preventing a reoccurrence of 2000 is the primary goal, that too might be accomplished, yet the result may very well not be in alignment with a majority of California voters, as demonstrated above.
The men who wrote the Constitution did not pretend to think they were writing a perfect document, indeed they laid out methodologies to modify the document to reflect changing needs or existent weaknesses. Thwarting the Constitution, via the NPV, an agreement made between a minority of states based on either desire for campaign spending or retribution, was not one of them.
Let’s hope common sense prevails and the National Popular Vote movement comes to a slow and well deserved end.
only if you want liberal sh*tholes like CA, NY, IL, and NJ to single-handledly elect the president.
I just wish states would award electoral votes like Maine and Nebraska do. The electoral vote for that congressional district goes to the winner of that district.
Bump
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.There is no Constitutional requirement that there even BE a popular vote. If a state decided there would be no popular presidential vote, and instead the state legislature would decide who the electoral votes went to, then that would be entirely constitutional.
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