Senator Thompson is concerned about the precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system as highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008). A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.
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.
The National Popular Vote bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded by states in the Electoral College, instead of the current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states). It assures that every vote is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.
Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country.
That's called direct democracy.. and in case you're totally unschooled, which it seems you are in democratic theory (Aristotle), it leads to totalitarianism. That's why the Founding Father's (those who you work to subvert) created a Constitutional Republic. And it's the reason you are still free to peddle your nonsense. The folks here on Free Republic want to preserve our magnificent heritage not replace it with some hair brained fad.
Completely unworkable and mistaken.
Every vote would not count. All the left would have to do is increase turnout (or cheating) in the most populous left wing states like CA, NY, IL, etc.
Then they just have to go into certain cities in “red states” like TX (pad Houston, Austin and Dallas), or GA (increase voters in Atlanta) and the popular vote will always go to the left.
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.
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.