FEINSTEIN WILL MOVE TO ABOLISH ELECTORAL COLLEGE - (They'll never give in or give UP!)

USGOV.INFO.COM ^ | DECEMBER 27, 2004 | ROBERT LONGLEY

[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.”

[William Tell]

LibSnubber said: "Because she knows it's next to impossible to steal the electoral votes the same way they try to steal popular votes,..."

This is an excellent point about the value of electoral votes being awarded as winner-take-all in each state.

Stealing votes in Kalifornia or New York, once the electoral votes are awarded, cannot offset majorities in the red states. The potential for fraud is reduced, although not eliminated.

This is an excellent reason to oppose proportional awarding of votes, such as was suggested in Colorado and as is done, I believe, in Maine.

[Dat Mon]

"A true democracy is something that is achievable with todays technology."

True democracy is an abstraction. It can be achieved only in small tightly knit homogeneous communities who have chosen it...much like the old hippie communes.

In most cases, democracy leads inevitably to power struggles, then mob rule, and then to tyranny. Our founding fathers recognized this, and designated our country to be a democratic republic.

We are the United STATES of America, not the United PEOPLES of America.

[Chuzzlewit]

yep.. total joke.. never happen...

yep all the red state senators are really going to go for this... bawahhhhh !!!!!

[carl in alaska]

This proposal will go nowhere, absolutely nowhere. Even the most simple-minded state legislators know that a Presidential election by pure popular vote is an invitation for massive vote fraud in the big urban centers. If you think they're stuffing the ballot box now in Philly and LA, that is nothing compared to what will happened if the EC is abolished--you'd see ballot factories run by corrupt DemocRAT officials manufacturing votes for millions of illegal immigrants, non-residents, and the non-living. This is pure political grandstanding by Feinstein, who knows this is a bad idea and knows it will go nowhere.

(She's a real nowhere woman, living in her nowhere land.)

[Cobra64]

I hope the next time she gets her face lifted, her boobs will cover her face.

In retrospect, shame on me, what a pathetic thought.

Sorry folks.

Series, she and her ilk are pathetic exucses for Americans. Their objective is to undermine the Constitution of the United States.

With their filibustering W's Judges, just twists my shorts.

Hopefully W, will put on his cowboy boots and kick these slick sonz'a beetches in the buttocks.

[AndyTheBear]

Sooner or later we will have a situation where there is a great disparity between the electoral vote winner and the popular vote winner

I very much doubt this. The difference in the "popular" vote always seems to be just about the same as the difference between the crucial swing states. For instance this last election Ohio difference was 2% advantage for Bush, vs 3% "popular". In 2000 Florida and the "popular" were both within 1%.

[airborne]

FEINSTEIN WILL MOVE TO ABOLISH ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Let her move. Move to Europe!

[ILS21R]

It will be interesting to see who joins her in this nonsense.

[carl in alaska]

Good posts. Although I don't think the founding fathers were thinking about vote fraud, the prevention of vote fraud is now the best reason to maintain the EC and the constitution in its present form. The state legislators, who would have to approve a constitutional amendment, are well aware of this issue and therefore Feinstein's proprosal is going nowhere.

[maddawg99]

The abolition of the electoral college would, I think, have consequences Diane Feinstein, and the others who favor abolishment of the electoral college, have never considered.

We have never had a national election. The election of the president and the vice-president are state elections to chose a slate of electors in a manner designated by the respective state legislatures.

The abolishment of the electoral college would bring about a national election of the president and a national election would require a national standard for voter registration, for presidential ballots, for the method of voting. It would mean that the election officals for the presidential election, and only the presidential election, would be Federal officials. It would mean that we might have to have two different election date for president and for senators and representives.

There's more but I think everyone gets the idea.

[syriacus]

#2 reason

What if Dean didn't need those Iowa votes?

What if Dean got to concentrate on the East Coast, the West Coast, and the Internet, for gaining votes?

[Dave Burns]

We need to go back to what the founders wanted. Originally, the size of the house was a lot closer to the size of the senate. I would propose that each state have three senators and we have one congressman for a million in population. Regardless of which party this favored, it would make the federal government run a lot smoother. Or we could propose one electoral vote per state.

[jwalsh07]

As long as she moves to the defunct Soviet Union where she belongs, I'm OK with the move.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

The Electoral College was created to give smaller, less populated states a voice in the democratic process. So Diane Frankenstien would deny a state like Maine or Montana a say in the election process?

[AndyTheBear]

The best thing about the electoral college is that it limits the effect of the fraud that any one area of the country can perpetrate.

Under the "popular" vote system, a "blue" state can give its self a louder voice by allowing more and more vote fraud.

[JudyinCanada]

I thought for sure there would be something about abolishing Feinstein.

[PMCarey]

If Feinstein is so concerned with non-proportional representation maybe she should start by resigning from her job.

[Ready4Freddy]

Probably the amendment proposed most frequently over the last ~205 years. It's failed to get out of Congress every time.

[libs_kma]

Another very stupid idea that was defeated this November was Colorado's vote to split their EV's. Talk about voting to make themselves completely irrelevant.

If a candidate sees Colorado sitting there with 9 E votes... 5 go to the winner, 4 go to the loser (percentage depending, but it would be close to a split like that), well any candidate is going to call that a wash and pay attetntion to a state with bigger fish to fry. Colorado dims tried, but the people there were too smart to be taken in by the demwit proposition.