Posted on 09/14/2008 12:32:43 PM PDT by goldstategop
This may the sleeper issue of the election. The MSM and the Democrats have forgotten all about it. A number of Blue States passed laws requiring the state's electoral votes to be awarded to the nationwide popular vote winner REGARDLESS of who actually wins the statewide popular vote. Please list them here in this thread!
I think it’s a stoopid idea, too, and I’m with goldstategop on this, the dems think it’ll benefit them.
Yes, NJ did this to go with the popular vote after the Gore mess. Not that we voters got a chance to vote on this concept, however. Infuriating.
Here in NJ the law only goes into effect when enough states have passed similar laws that they constitute a majority of the electoral college. So this election cycle NJ’s electors will vote for the winner of the NJ vote, not the winner of the nation-at-large vote.
Which I don't see ever happening.
The idea sounds absurd anyway, and unfair to the voters in those states. Suppose NJ were to go 60% for Obama, but McCain wins the national vote by a small margin. Then all of NJ’s electors would vote for McCain, even though a large majority of voters there chose the other guy?? Seems like it is disenfranchising the voters of that state.
It could have bit them in 2004 also. Suppose Kerry had taken Ohio but Bush still got a majority of the vote nationally. Under the existing system Kerry would have had 272 votes, and victory. But under this new proposal, NY would then have had to give all their EV’s to Bush, and he would have won! Am I wrong? Hmm, maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all....
When they enacted this law they must have figured the Dems would be winning the next election. Not so fast.
Read the constitution, something the democrats should do before they do idiotic things to try and fool people with their BS antics. No states, as of now, can actually award their EC votes to the popular vote winner.
However, the electors can choose to give their votes to which ever candidate they want but are usually pledged to give them to the candidate that wins the state. Now some states have a split EC vote, the votes are split according to vote tally. I think only two states do that now but in the past most of them did instead of the winner take all system most states use now.
So, don't worry business as usual as far as EC votes go.
Actually you read the fine print, the legislation does not kick in unless states representing a majority of the electoral college votes pass identical legislation. Of course this is a compact between states which the US constitution prohibits unless approved by congress.
It does bring to mind that only three people would have to vote to elect a president.
I notice a number of you posting this. You are all wrong. It won't go into effect until the federal congress(both houses)approve any agreement of a majority(270 EC) with a 2/3 vote. This is in the constitution, it goes with the fact states cannot enter into pacts among themselves without congressional approval. Unconstitutional. This is just BS done by the Dems to protest the fact that they lost the election in 2000 but won the popular vote. Business as usual this year as far as EC votes are concerned.
Where does it say a 2/3'rds majority is needed? The constitution only mentions the "Consent of Congress".
Article 1.
Section 10...............
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
As this would have to be a constitutional amendment, if memory serves, 270 Electoral College votes won't do it anyway - you need 3/4 or currently 38 state legislatures for it to pass. I don't see it happening. Otherwise, it's doubtful that any such scheme could pass a challenge.
This is one of the scariest schemes yet by the left. Look at the blue states and their populations. This is a scheme that will hand elections over to just a few states with large populations and we all know which way they lean. If that happens you can forget any representation for the smaller populated states.
Scary is right. A sure prescription for civil war. If the left think that the south and the midwest (flyover country) will take this lying down they are sadly mistaken.
bttt
Mark
You got that right... The men who came up with our form of government did so after analyzing why governments fail. Which is why they decided on a republican form of government, broken into thirds. And only one half, of one third (the House of Representatives), of that government was ever to be selected by popular vote. I honestly believe that the 17th Amendment was a HUGE mistake. It made the Senate sensitive to the political winds. I believe that this is why the Senate was given control over treaties and approving political appointments, while the House was given the strings to the pocketbook. The Senate was supposed to be immune to politics, which is why the state legislatures originally appointed Senators, and the members of the House would be more directly responsible to the voters, i.e. the tax payers. At least, that was the original intent.
Mark
“If a state wants to have its legislature pick the electors, they may do so”
The constitution might say that, but when the people have been voting for their state’s electors for a long period, what do you think would happen if a state decided it would no longer allow its citizens to vote for the electors to the electoral college?
Legislators once appointed their state’s US senators, but that was changed to a vote of the people with the XVII Amendment. If the people’s vote for presidential electors were taken away and given to a state legislature, it would be challenged and the case would probably be used to overturn that provision, just as other provisions of the constitution have been overturned.
Technically, a state might be able to take that vote from the its citizens, but the political realities and our judicial system would not allow that to happen. The legislature that passed such laws and the governors that signed it would be voted out at the first opportunity, but no state will pass such laws in this day and time.
There might also be case law over the past 230 or so years that affects what states can and cannot do in relation to the electoral college.
One person noted that he or she wished that SCOTUS had not ruled in the 2000 Florida vote dispute, but rather had left it to the Florida legislature. But SCOTUS did rule. So, it’s not so crystal clear that all decisions concerning a state’s electors are left to the states as some here contend.
And SCOTUS was right to end that circus being staged by the Democrat hacks on the Florida Supreme Court. They’d ordered one recount, but didn’t get the answer they wanted. So, they ordered a second recount. That one didn’t come out right, either, so they were about to order a third recount, and that’s when SCOTUS properly reviewed the case and put an end to the nonsense being carried on by the Florida court.
And, several news and other organizations did their own recounts after the fact and none showed that Gore should have won.
“No states, as of now, can actually award their EC votes to the popular vote winner.”
And that is a scheme designed to defeat the original intent of the framers, which was to provide a senate and electoral college that gave some additional weight to the smaller states (colonies).
And they certainly anticipated the situation where a candidate could win the popular vote, but lose in the electoral college. It’s what they intended, and anything that tried to defeat that would probably be ruled unconstitutional.
The states formed the union, and not the other way around. And those compromises to give additional weight to the less populous states was necessary to form the union in the first place.
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