It’s a bad idea for anyone who supports states rights. Even though this would help Republicans, doing away with “winner takes all” is a step toward popular vote election.
actually it a big step for states rights. The state, not the feds have the say so in how the votes are divided. In fact it supports the 10th amendment in that the constitution does not mention the means of distribution of electoral votes, only the means of determining the number. As for elimination of the electoral college,that would take an amendment to do and is unlikely as this has been the subject for debate for decades and no majority against has ever occurred.
Well as long as they don’t force it upon other states-let california do what it wants if they want to keep it the same-fine, if they want to go a congressional district aportionment-fine..
It IS states’ rights. The Constitution mandates only an electoral college with seats apportioned between the states, with each state choosing how those votes are cast.
Actually it's not. It would make the electoral college function closer to the way it originally worked before 19th century big city machine bosses got the legislatures to switch to the winner take all format to enhance the power of big cities in national politics. What scares the hell out of the DemocRATs is that much of their national electorate is concentrated in congressional districts designed to elect radical leftist congressmen with 80% or 90%+ proportions of the vote. They would have to abandon much of their agenda to appeal to the marginal congressional district.
It's not surprising that the former mayor of San Francisco is upset that radical left wing big cities would have less national clout. But this was intended by design. Alexander Hamilton understood this perfectly. You should read the federalist papers, especially #68.
Well, two states already do partial apportionment of their electoral votes. And I don’t think adopting this rule would really hurt the smaller states, or states rights.
I do agree that unless a good number of states adopt it at once, a single state doing so could really throw things off.
Remember, Colorado tried to do this in 2004, but the voters rejected it. In the end it wouldn’t have mattered, but it would have cost Bush 4 electoral votes.
On the other hand, if Florida had this rule in 2000, Gore wouldn’t have been compelled to fight so hard for the few hundred extra votes, because it wouldn’t have changed the results (no district would have switched, and the two extra “senate” electoral votes wouldn’t have been enough to change the outcome).
The beauty of the electoral college is that it does allow disputes over votes to be confined to small areas. A popular vote for President would mean that in a close race a candidate would have to fight for recounts in all 50 states, with the EC they only have to contest close states.
With a district-by-district apportionment, they’d only have to fight over close districts.
On the other hand, there might be a lot more close districts than there are close states, so maybe there would be more fighting, not less.
It doesn’t do away with the “winner take all” approach. It just divides the regions into finer granularity.
The concept that helps our Republic is the fact that at some point, and with some granularity, getting 51% of the vote is all the good you can get from that group of people. You have to move on and garner support elsewhere, which causes the President to have broader appeal.
I'm thinking the same thing. After all, the state itself no longer would be choosing their candidate, each district would.
Even though this would help Republicans, doing away with “winner takes all” is a step toward popular vote election.
It also could represent a move to Regional, vs. State, Governance.