Posted on 12/29/2004 5:15:20 PM PST by CHARLITE
Amendment would provide for direct popular election
Dateline: December 27, 2004
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) has announced that she will introduce legislation to abolish the Electoral College system and provide for direct popular election of the President and Vice President when the Senate convenes for the 109th Congress in January.
“The Electoral College is an anachronism and the time has come to bring our democracy into the 21st Century,” Sen. Feinstein said in a press release. “During the founding years of the Republic, the Electoral College may have been a suitable system, but today it is flawed and amounts to national elections being decided in several battleground states.
“We need to have a serious, comprehensive debate on reforming the Electoral College.
"I will press for hearings in the Judiciary Committee on which I sit and ultimately a vote on the Senate floor, as occurred 25 years ago on this subject. My goal is simply to allow the popular will of the American people to be expressed every four years when we elect our President. Right now, that is not happening.”
In further denouncing the Electoral College system, Sen. Feinstein pointed out that under the current system for electing the President of the United States:
Candidates focus only on a handful of contested states and ignore the concerns of tens of millions of Americans living in other states.
A candidate can lose in 39 states, but still win the Presidency.
A candidate can lose the popular vote by more than 10 million votes, but still win the Presidency.
A candidate can win 20 million votes in the general election, but win zero electoral votes, as happened to Ross Perot in 1992.
In most states, the candidate who wins a state’s election, wins all of that state’s electoral votes, no matter the winning margin, which can disenfranchise those who supported the losing candidate.
A candidate can win a state’s vote, but an elector can refuse to represent the will of a majority of the voters in that state by voting arbitrarily for the losing candidate (this has reportedly happened 9 times since 1820).
Smaller states have a disproportionate advantage over larger states because of the two “constant” or “senatorial” electors assigned to each state.
A tie in the Electoral College is decided by a single vote from each state’s delegation in the House of Representatives, which would unfairly grant California’s 36 million residents equal status with Wyoming’s 500,000 residents.
In case of such a tie, House members are not bound to support the candidate who won their state’s election, which has the potential to further distort the will of the majority. “Sooner or later we will have a situation where there is a great disparity between the electoral vote winner and the popular vote winner. If the President and Vice President are elected by a direct popular vote of the American people, then every American’s vote will count the same regardless of whether they live in California, Maine, Ohio or Florida,” Sen. Feinstein said.
In the history of the country, there have been four instances of disputed elections where the President who was elected won the electoral vote, but lost the popular vote – John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000. According to some estimates there have been at least 22 instances where a similar scenario could have occurred in close elections.
“Our system is not undemocratic, but it is imperfect, and we have the power to do something about it,” Sen. Feinstein said. “It is no small feat to amend the Constitution as it has only been done only 27 times in the history of our great nation.”
No, to the small states, it is most certainly an important distinction. They wield significantly more power at the presidential level than their population alone would suggest.
No, it does not vote the popular vote. Each state casts its own electoral votes based for the winner of the popular vote in that state alone.
Another way to alter the dynamics of the Electoral College is to change the limit on the number of Representatives in the House. Originally, there was a formula for determining the number of representatives based on population per district. The early sessions of Congress had far fewer representatives, thus fewer Electoral College votes, thus a smaller target number to win the Presidency. At some point, the number of Representatives in the House was locked in at 435 (creating the 270 EV threshold), but the nation's population continues to grow.
Maybe we should rethink the 435 limit. How would increasing the size of the House of Representatives affect the Electoral College?
-PJ
Because a state where there is a huge number of "dead voters" will have the impact of those voters limited to that state.
Say CA has an extra 50000K fraudulent votes many of which I'm assuming go Dem - dead voters, illegal aliens, duplicated registration etc (I have NO idea if that's a rational number or not I just picked a number).
CA doesn't even need all those votes since it's going Dem anyway...if it were a "national popular vote" think of the impact that would have on a tiny state of say Wyoming. Those 50000 invalid votes are now not confined to CA and dilute the vote of tiny states.
Might there be voter fraud in Wyoming too? sure. But not likely to the same degree as in a more populus state. The numbers wouldn't support it.
As mentioned above, also consider a very close popular vote. Instead of recounting only the close states where it might swing the EC vote we'd be recounting in all states looking for an extra couple of hundred votes. Trust me - I'm living through this in WA state right now and it's a mess. Partsain canvassing boards allowing "christina rossi" votes, whiting out marks on original ballots, adding more votes after initial counts....the nation does NOT want to go there.
read my post #78
Because its harder to steal votes in a state which voted a majority for your opponent. Their is a likelihood that the opposition controls the voting process and will act to prevent fraud. Whereas, in Kalifornia there would be little to prevent fraud to help Kerry, there would be much to prevent such fraud in Texas. The winner-take-all system eliminates the effect of fraud beyond a majority vote in a state which is won.
I outlined above how the EC would still vote for Bush even if Kalifornia supplied an additional five million fraudulent votes. Imagine how hard it would be for the Demoncrats to generate such fraudulent votes in Texas or Alaska or Utah.
Because the EC vote is not proportional to the popular vote.
If a million fraudulent votes are cast in North Dakota, for instance, the winner will still only get 3 EC votes. If the president were determined by the popular vote, those million fraudulent votes would make a big difference.
I know my example is absurd because there aren't a million people in North Dakota, but you get the idea. If a million fraudulent votes are cast in California or New York, the winner will still only get about 50 EC votes. Even if the winner wins by only 1 vote, he/she still gets only the 50 EC votes.
-PJ
Old Ed Rendell is skating all around the blather that he and other dems spewed about algore being the real winner with his 500,000 votes over what GWB.
But now Rendell cites, "if only that 100,000 votes in Ohio would have gone to Kerry" completely ignoring the nearly 4 million votes Bush won over Kerry. Also ignoring the nearly year long yammering from the rats that algore really won with his 500,000 vote margin that American citizens had to hear ad nauseam.
Children aka democrats try to grasp this simple concept, rules are rules, you can't change the rules when you don't like the out come. Didn't you mother teach you this valuable lesson Ed?
These dems could benefit from Midnight Basketball by learning about RULES and sportsmanship. And they're little teenie bopper brains will fit right in with the other misguided youts.
The Electoral College also serves the purpose of isolating fraud in elections, so that a place like New York City or Los Angeles cannot swing the national election by stuffing their own ballot boxes. With the EC, the worst that can be done by those cities is to swing their state. Without the EC, every city and county would likely feel that they would have to protect their own interests through their own approaches to election fraud. Yes, the Founding Fathers were very wise.
That's what I was trying to say in 144 but you said it better:)
>A true democracy is something that is achievable with todays technology.>
The US is a republic, not a democracy. Do you really think people in states like North Dakota or Rhode Island want to be dragged along by the whims of the masses in Los Angeles and New York City?
If this country was run as a true democracy, all a candidate would have to do to win would be to campaign in NY, LA, Chicago, etc. To heck with the little people in Podunk Idaho. Who would care what they think, or about their needs?
An excellent point, well made.
"Its a sure way that they can enshrine their party as nothing but a party of the city."
Interesting analysis and prediction. Seems reasonable and logical to me.
Oh goodie. I want to play to. How about we amend the Constitution to say we don't need two liberal nuts from California proposing amendments to the Constitution?
Do you think We The People will let the Big Cities like Chicago and Philadelphia pick our Presidents???
If so .. YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND!
Because the Electoral College limits the extent of fraud to the state in which it occurs. The most you can achieve from fraud in a state is that state's electoral votes; the margin of victory is irrelevant. But in a purely national election, the effects of the fraud would be felt nationwide in the total popular vote count.
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