Posted on 01/30/2012 8:06:46 AM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) - The state capitol was the scene of two events promoting distinctly different ways of changing the way Pennsylvania’s presidential electoral votes are awarded.
Actor and former Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson is part of a bi-partisan effort to create a compact agreement among states to award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter who wins the state vote for president.
(Excerpt) Read more at philadelphia.cbslocal.com ...
No.
Direct democracy (or pure democracy) is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives.
With National Popular Vote, citizens would not rule directly but, instead, continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
The Electoral College is now the set of dedicated party activists who vote for presidential candidates. In the current presidential election system, 48 states award all of their electors to the winners of their state.
The current system does not provide some kind of check on the “mobs.” There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party. The electors now are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
If a Democratic presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Democratic party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. If a Republican presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Republican party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. The winner of the presidential election is the candidate who collects 270 votes from Electoral College voters from among the winning party’s dedicated activists.
National Popular Vote is NOT direct democracy.
Direct democracy (or pure democracy) is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud. A very few people can change the national outcome by changing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.
National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: “To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election—and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Which, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?”
With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency — that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.
If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.
Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don’t control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn’t have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.
In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.
Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.
There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.
I presume, then, that you would prefer to have the World Series decided by total runs scored, rather than best four-out-of seven.
With Congressional consent.
Has anybody polled Congress on their leanings on this?
-PJ
Dude, you are the cut and paste queen. Joe Biteme Biden would be proud but I don’t think you have any idea of what you are really talking about. It seems to me you are using this classic marxist agenda of getting popular vote (like they managed to achieve (disgracefully so)in the 17th amendment) to give you a forum to post your google searches. I see many here have already got you pegged, but alas, with regular myopathy, you go charging ahead.
I think that's because language about Congressional Consent is missing from the Natioanal Popular Vote bill.
According to their bill, Article IV says:
"This agreement shall take effect when states cumulatively possessing a majority of the electoral votes have enacted this agreement in substantially the same form and the enactments by such states have taken effect in each state...The chief executive of each member state shall promptly notify the chief executive of all other states of when this agreement has been enacted and has taken effect in that official’s state..."
There is no provision for Congressional consent. Until enough states pass the compact such as to bring it into force, the issue is moot. Congress should not vote to consent to a compact that has no force and is just a desire.
It seems to me that the interstate compact has to first meet its own requirements to be in force, and then second, attain Congressional consent before it can be enforced on the nation.
-PJ
Personally, I'd rather see a system based on winners in congressional districts with the extra two votes going to the majority winner.
If we have a tie, or a winner with less total votes, so what?. It's happened before and we survived.
Take it to total votes nation-wide, and we become another 3rd world cleptrocracy --- not that we are not close now.
Every time people try to outwit the Framers, they just screw thing up. Leave it alone. It works.
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).
BS. If states have no say in selecting the Chief Executive of the States, they have no power. That statement itself is contradictory. Take an example. Mining Coal. We get some eco freak running for president who spreads horror stories on coal across the nation and promises to shut them down on day 1. He wins a majority of 50%+1 vote nation wide with his scare tactics.
Even though the States of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Montana voted against him by 100%, they must give him their electoral votes? Are you kidding? You are asking for nothing but pandering, media driven, demagogues. They will win every time.
That is killing the states, and they will become nothing but provinces answering to Washington on every issue.
What's next? The Senate? Why should little Wyoming have two Senators and great big California only have two. Kill the senate too while you are at it. It's not democratic... right?
Just rip up the rest of the Constitution and throw it away and forget about freedom from the Washington beast.
If Fred Thompson is into this (or a paid spokesmen for it like he is for insurance companies) perhaps the anti-federalists back in 1788 were correct... they were just 200 years off on their time line for when the central government would seize all power and impose their will on all.
I would think the very persuasive arguments against the 17th amendment and how it has resulted in LESS representative government would be enough for these clowns to see they are pushing something that will harm them. But I think they are really just tools of a more nefarious Cloward–Piven cabal. The notion they are gaining some sort of identity by hitching their carts to the philosophy that has caused so much death and misery is beyond me. But it is the popular culture these days (at least for now) so I guess they are the product of it. Not something to be proud of in my opinion.
If one wanted to achieve the above, one should pass a Constitutional Amendment specifying that if any candidate receives a majority of the votes cast in N Congressional districts within a state, at least N Electoral Votes from that state must be cast for that candidate; state legislatures shall retain the authority to decide how the remaining votes should be cast (e.g. a state with two Congressional districts could decide to proportionally allocate its Electoral Votes, or allocate them according to half-district regions, or allocate two to the winner of each district, or allocate one to each district winner and two to the overall winner). Such a system would be closer to the overall populace than the present system, while being more protected against the effects of corruption in areas that are dominated by a single party.
A MAJOR problem with the NPV [amongst a lot of others] is the fact that [IF it is ever enacted by a number of states totalling 270 electoral votes], utter chaos could ensue.
Consider this:
In a future election, let us assume that 15 states with a total of 270 votes participate in the NPV and that the OTHER 35 states DO NOT. FURTHERMORE, assume that the popular vote is EXTREMELY close with a differential of say 500,000 votes [maybe 1/2 of 1% of the total].
VALID QUESTIONS:
Could the “loser” demand a NATIONWIDE recount of votes since EACH AND EVERY one of the popular votes of the “winner” contributed to the awarding of the 270 electoral votes? Even the states that DO NOT participate in the NPV?
Could states with a 60+% popular vote [one way or the other] be forced to recount? AND, states CURRENTLY pay for their own recounts - would these states with WIDE MAJORITIES be forced to bear the expense?
AND, how do you ensure a UNIFORM recount? Chads vs. electronic vs. paper, etc.
THIS IS A FRIGGIN’ NIGHTMARE! It is an impractical attempt at an end-run around the Constitution and would be an UTTER DISASTER!
You can’t mix elections for state offices within the state to national elections.
Without the electoral college it’s all about getting 50% plus 1 of around 135-140 million votes. Demographics and resources change. Why would a national candidate for president waste any money in areas where it just won’t matter? Of the blue states of CA, NY, IL, MA, OR, WA, PA, NJ, WI, and CT they alone have 48 million registered voters. Large red states and the south have about the same. Toss ups are MO, OH, FL, CO, etc.
The Dems and libs would just concentrate on big cities with large minority populations. When you are just trying to get the majority of the whole why bother in districts where you can’t win or there aren’t enough votes to bother? And as you can see from the stats, just a small increase in turnout (or stealing) in those huge cities with Dem-friendly demographics and they crush the opposition.
They’ll concentrate their resources on those places and spend more on registration and turnout. Why bother spending a dime in Georgia other that Atlanta? How much can you save when you know where you won’t win since you don’t need to win the state to get it’s electoral votes? Millions!
They would only need the average 35-40% of Dems in red states to win nationwide. And they’ll only have to spend token money in the blue cities in those red states. They already have huge machines for that. Again, more concentrated resources instead of spreading them out trying to win a state they might before have just written off.
Look at Oklahoma for example. Every county votes red as a majority. The GOP usually wins it’s electoral votes. Without that all you need is 45% of the state that you can get in OK City and Norman. In Missouri all you need is enough votes out of St. Louis and Kansas City to add to the national total. And MO is considered a “swing” state.
They can also just not bother in states like New Mexico when the total vote is just too small to worry about. The left will always get the left vote no matter what. You really think people in Wyoming will ever see a presidential candidate in person?
I’ll stick with the Founders. The EC keeps equality among the states when it comes to electing the president.
The Dems don’t even allow this in their primaries.
That’s how Hillary won the popular vote in Texas but Obama got more delegates in the state.
Well, closer to 120-125 million votes.
READ my post #113. It shows a GLARING flaw with the NPV.
The CURRENT problem with the 48 state winner-take-all [except ME and NE] is the TOTAL allocation of electoral votes based on the POPULAR VOTE within a given state. The NPV MERELY eliminates the problem at the STATE level and boosts it to the NATIONAL level by NOT eliminating the TOTAL allocation of electoral votes based on the total NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE.
There are two more inherently BETTER methods: Proportionality and Congressional District.
The Proportionality Method awards electoral votes based on the proportion of a given STATE’S popular vote to a particular candidate. A state with a total of 10 electoral votes and a 60%-40% split would award 6-4.
There ARE problems with this such as how do you allocate based on partial percentages [ie: 50.3%]. ALSO, candidates would concentrate on the MOST HEAVILY POPULATED areas of the state. This leaves LESS POPULATED areas out in the cold to some extent.
The FAIREST method is the Congressional District Method [CDM]. Win a District, win the electoral vote allocated to it. The two REMAINING electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the overall popular vote within the state as a “BONUS”.
Using the CDM, a state with 10 electoral votes [8 electoral Districts, 2 votes representing Senate seats] and a 5-3 District split in a election, would then go 7-3.
The CDM puts EACH AND EVERY District on an EQUAL footing and REDUCES the importance of the MOST populated areas within a state. It encourages citizens in a HEAVILY MINORITY party within a state to vote since their canddidate can ACTUALLY WIN their District’s electoral vote.
For example, I live in MD. Obama won it 10-0 in 2008. If NPV had been in effect [MD is a signatory], it STILL would have been 10-0. No matter that Obama ONLY won 5 of the 8 Districts.
If Proportionality had been in effect, Obama woulda won 6-4 [he had about 60% of the vote], and IF CDM had been in effect - he woulda won 7-3.
Thanks for the information. If it is such a clearly superior system then I would prefer that the case be made for a constitutional amendment rather than the compact.
Fred, I supported you in 2008, with cash, and you are a complete idiot on this issue.
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