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To: Jacquerie

The Electoral College has 538 electors.

Some of the states that reliably vote Democrat include:

California: 55
New York: 23
Illinois: 20
New Jersey: 14
Washington: 12
Massachusetts: 11
Maryland: 10

Total: 145

Number to elect president: 269
Percent of electoral votes of the above states = 145/269 = 53%.

Percent of electoral votes to elect a president represented by California and New York: 78/269 = 28.9%.

Should the States hold a convention to consider amendments to the Constitution as proposed by Mark Levin, the present Constitution requires 2/3 (66.67%) of the states to ratify such amendments.

Number of states required to ratify any amendments proposed by a Constitutional Convention: 34. Number of States required to block an amendment: 16 (33%)

Now compare the disproportion here. The mathematical reality that I want to point out is that in the setting of ratification of any proposed amendment to the Constitution, each state only has one vote irrespective of its size, population or the percent of voters who reliably vote for Democrats.

Since it is the states who have fewer electoral votes who tend to vote Republican, they suffer in the weighting scheme of the Electoral College, but that advantage is reversed when it comes to ratifying a Constitutional amendment.

In short, it now may be far easier to pass a well-debated amendment than to elect a Republican for president.


5 posted on 02/01/2014 4:31:25 AM PST by theBuckwheat
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To: theBuckwheat
. . .each state only has one vote irrespective of its size, population or the percent of voters who reliably vote for Democrats.

By your logic, the Senate should be reliably controlled by conservatives. I see no reason to believe that a Constitutional Convention would have a makeup significantly different than that of the Senate. Yes, the 17th Amendment made the Senators wholly dependent on federal power for their own power, but those representing the states would include those who would seek to consolidate power at the federal level as well as those who seek to disperse it. Who - which specific people - would represent the states? Do you think they will select 'man on the street' average people, or politicians?

We are an intensely polarized country (no longer really a nation), but the split is within a few points of 50:50 overall. Even state by state, you'd have a hard time getting 2/3 to agree to anything.

The basic fallacy in this whole idea is that the Constitution only matters to conservatives. What makes anyone think that the statists would abide by a new, amended Constitution any more than the current one?

If all we did was get true compliance with the one we have, we'd 'win' on all the other issues. For example, we wouldn't need a balanced budget amendment because if the federal government truly limited itself to the enumerated powers, about 60% of current spending would go away.

A Constitutional Convention is a distraction. The problems we face are not because the current Constitution is so badly flawed it needs to be thrown out and replaced. The problems we face are because we don't comply with the one we have. Writing a new document won't fix that.
23 posted on 02/01/2014 7:09:47 AM PST by Phlyer
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To: theBuckwheat

Great analysis


36 posted on 02/01/2014 9:29:46 AM PST by dontreadthis
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