Posted on 06/23/2010 9:12:23 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
You won’t hear about it in the mainstream media, but the Electoral College is on the verge of being eliminated. One important legislative vote could occur Thursday. Two others could occur in the upcoming days and weeks.
A California-based group, National Popular Vote, is lobbying hard for a dangerous piece of anti-Electoral College legislation. My NRO article on the mechanics of the legislation is here. Five states have already approved NPV, but now three additional states are dangerously close to joining them: Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York. Another trio of state legislatures approved the scheme, but their governors vetoed the plan. These latter states remain important; a reasonable argument can be made that the gubernatorial vetoes are irrelevant.
If each of these states is counted, NPV could have as many as 169 electoral votes in favor of its plan. It needs 270. NPV has come startlingly close to success even as most Americans remain completely unaware that the presidential-election process is so close to being turned on its head.
The American presidential-election system is a unique blend of federalism and democracy, combining purely democratic state-level elections with a national election among the states. The practical effect of this system is that a candidate can’t win unless he appeals to a wide variety of voters around the nation. NPV’s plan tries to keep the democratic portions of the election, even as it strips the system of its federalist aspects. It fails, instead managing to lose both.
(Excerpt) Read more at corner.nationalreview.com ...
“We’re on the precipice where the parasites outnumber the producers.”
That is so true, I think we may have reached that point all ready. It seems like the Bush years were spent fighting the war, and while we weren’t watching our country was taken over by lazy, commie dorks. The 2010 election will be very interesting because most parasites only pay attention during the big elections. I think if the Republicans can only come up with a -5 to + 5 margin in the house, this country is lost forever. I really believe that! My kids will live in a country 20 years from now that is only slightly better than South Africa. Republicans must take the house by a solid margin and force Obama to stop the invasion on our southern border.
You’ll need an amendment.
Unless of course, you want to ignore the Constitution which seems to be the way our government is currently going....
You are correct that a state can choose its OWN method of selecting electors.
However, the COMPACT that says that the state's method is contingent on other states in the COMPACT also agreeing to abide by the rules constitutes a compact among states that is in violation of Article I Section 10.
States can act individually. They cannot gang up on other states.
-PJ
If we don't remind people that we are a Republic, they may forget. When people say Gore won the popular vote, I have a puzzled look on my face and say,... "So?" That has nothing to do with who will be president.
angry ping
come on ... how did this obama guy get “ elected “ ? ... is he really in charge ? and who the frig is he ? this is just a joke ... right ?
That from the author's link to her previous article on this subject:
I think that scheme is clearly unconstitutional. The Electoral College gives each state a presidential vote for each senator and house member they have. A main purpose, or probably the main purpose, of the EC is to preserve the philosophy that underlies the allocation of seats in Congress: that representation should be part based on population, and part based on location/regional/state interests. The House is based on population, and the Senate is based on unique state interests.
The EC was intended to reflect that same weighting of interests and power as is reflected in the allocation of seats in Congress. Any scheme to get around that and make presidential elections purely a popular vote should definitely be unconstitutional. Their scheme eliminates the constitutionally mandated weighting of power.
If they wanted to cast two electoral votes for the winner of their state's popular vote, then allocate the rest based on how many votes each candidate got in their state, that would probably be constitutional. But casting a state's votes based on how the national popular vote went is nonsense, and is clearly intended to skirt the weighting requirement in the constitution. If every state did that, then the candidate with the most popular votes would receive 100% of the electoral votes.
I think it would require an amendment, as I discussed in #47. And if this from the author's link to another of her articles is accurate, then the whole thing seems like a flimsy and amateurish attempt to subvert the constitution. But that doesn't mean there aren't enough political hacks in black robes to approve it:
If enacted, the NPV bill would create an interstate compact among consenting states. Each participating state would agree to allocate its entire slate of electors to the winner of the national popular vote.
That's nonsense, and is clearly intended to eliminate the weighting of power among the total population and the states mandated by the constitution for both Congress and the EC.
I'm not sure it would necessarily give anyone a particular advantage. In almost 240 years, we've only had a person win the popular vote (allegedly) and lose the Electoral College vote. That's not necessarily why I'm so opposed to it.
I think the Constitution matters. If these people want the national vote to be the controlling (and sole) vote to elect presidents, then let them do it the way the Constitution was intended to be amended and not this clearly extra-constitutional circus that they're attempting.
Lastly, and more to your direct point, I do think that this would lead to even more corruption and ballot box stuffing in the larger cities, than even we see now. With the exception of TX, the states with the biggest cities almost always vote Democrat - NY, CA, IL, MA. The union thugs are strongest in these cities, and as you might expect, election fraud is worst in these cities. If this was enacted, I think it's possible that you would see more votes cast in those cities, than there are people who actually live there. It's a recipe for fraud and unscrupulous behavior.
Very true.
300,000,000/50 = 6,000,000 average population per state.
And no state with much less the 6,000,000 population would go for it, and that is a big bunch of states. Probably more than half, if someone wants to do the research.
Every state with less than the average population is, to varying degrees, overrepresented in the Senate and the Electoral College, just as the founders intended, and this was a necessary compromise to form the union in the first place.
People forget that. That states formed the union, not the other way around.
I suspect lots of ACORN mediated vote fraud. There
was lots of fraud used to put Al Franken in the
Senate. Ditto for Gregoire as governor of WA.
Each participating state would agree to allocate its entire slate of electors to the winner of the national popular vote.
Link to Tara Ross's referenced column
(The second sentence, fourth paragraph)
Some are discussing this plan as if all that is intended is to allocate the states' electoral votes based on how many popular votes a candidate received within that state. That's very different from what this group proposes, and is probably constitutional.
Maine and Nebraska have for years allocated their votes by congressional district, rather than by statewide vote, with the two from their Senate seats going to the winner by congressional district:
Those methods of allocating the electoral votes within a state are probably constitutional. This scheme to allocate votes within a state based on the national popular vote is probably unconstitutional. And it's clear their intend is to make the presidential election, indirectly, based entirely on the national popular vote, which is clearly unconstitutional. (But who knows what some judges might rule.)
The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates do not reach out to all of the states. Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just six states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states, and candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections.
Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. The National Popular Vote bill does not try to abolish the Electoral College, which would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President (for example, ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote) have come about without federal constitutional amendments, by state legislative action.
On June 14, 2010, after a detailed study of the issue in 2009 involving over 6,500 League members from over 200 local Leagues, the League of Women Voters endorsed the National Popular Vote bill at their annual convention in Atlanta.. “We support the use of the National Popular Vote Compact as one acceptable way to achieve the goal of the direct popular vote for election of the president until the abolition of the Electoral College is accomplished”
The bill has been endorsed by the New York Times (NY), Chicago Sun-Times (IL), Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN), Los Angeles Times (CA), Boston Globe (MA), Sacramento Bee (CA), Anderson Herald Bulletin (IN), Fayetteville Observer(NC), Hartford Courant (CT), The Tennessean (TN), Daily Astorian (OR), Sarasota Herald Tribune (FL), Miami Herald (FL), Connecticut Post (CT), Wichita Falls Times Record News (TX), Cape Cod Times (MA), The Daily News, Milford Daily News (MA), Patriot Ledger(MA), Denver Post (CO), Westport News and Fairfield Citizen News (CT), The Baxter Bulletin(AR), Frederick News Post (MD), Kent County Times(RI), Enterprise News(MA), and The Columbian (WA).
The bill has been endorsed or voted for by 1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado— 68%, Iowa —75%, Michigan— 73%, Missouri— 70%, New Hampshire— 69%, Nevada— 72%, New Mexico— 76%, North Carolina— 74%, Ohio— 70%, Pennsylvania — 78%, Virginia — 74%, and Wisconsin — 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska — 70%, DC — 76%, Delaware —75%, Maine — 77%, Nebraska — 74%, New Hampshire —69%, Nevada — 72%, New Mexico — 76%, Rhode Island — 74%, and Vermont — 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas —80%, Kentucky — 80%, Mississippi —77%, Missouri — 70%, North Carolina — 74%, and Virginia — 74%; and in other states polled: California — 70%, Connecticut — 74% , Massachusetts — 73%, Minnesota — 75%, New York — 79%, Washington — 77%, and West Virginia- 81%.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 30 state legislative chambers, in 20 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and Oregon, and both houses in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes — 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Responses to all of the many myths posted here can be found at http://nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php
But the laws where they are predicating the change based on other states adopting similar laws. That actually could be argued to be an interstate compact and thus illegal / invalid under the Constitution.
Rather than posting a link to a very large website, why don't you address a few specific "myths" that have been posted here. How about answering a couple of questions:
1. Why is representation in the House of Representatives based on population, and representation in the Senate based upon two senators per state, regardless of population?
2. Why does the constitution specify a number of electors to the Electoral College equal to their total of representatives plus their two senators?
Why does the constitution contain those two provisions. Don't tell us that it does contain them. Tell us why they are there?
Lastly, if you want to recognize the popular vote and abolish the electoral college, then I would suggest beginning a campaign to amend the Constitution. To conservatives, the Constitution is the most important document in the country. It shouldn't be subverted, which is EXACTLY what NPV is attempting to do. If you're advocating on behalf of this organization, I don't know what you are, but I do know what your aren't - a conservative.
Look through this guy's posting history. This is the only topic he talks about, and he's started several vanities on the subject. Interesting behavior for a "conservative". Just saying.
The uneducated voters to whom this sounds like a good idea need to take PolySci 101.
If a state chose to do that on their own with no other conditions, then it would be constitutional. It's the fact that they are making it contingent on other states totalling 270 EV also agreeing to do it that makes it an unconstitutional compact.
I would ask the further question: once passed and once enough states join it to make it effective, if a state subsequently drops out of the compact making the total EV less than 270, does the compact end and the remaining states revert back to individual allocation of EV's?
-PJ
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