Good. We should get rid of the Electoral College anyway. An utter and complete anachronism. And getting rid of it is about the ONLY chance we will have of ever winning the WH again.
Isn’t this unconstitutional? The electoral college is Hamilton’s legacy in the Constitution. Better than what these uninformed OK senators have done is to based it on congressional district votes, as PA could haved done a few years ago but then backed down. And each state can go to the congressional district model on its own, no congressional oversight needed.
Here’s a question. If regional interests, goals and desires aren’t important and worth keeping on a level playing field with other hugely populated, concentrated (geographically) areas, then why succumb to the interest of a National Popular vote?
Why have two Senators from each state? Just base it on population. And so on. Just let each little state and sparsely populated area get beat up by the big dog. I mean, what does it matter?
The fact is, the Democrats want everything to be ‘popular’ vote where LA, NYC, Chicago and all those other cities of massive infestation can lord over every good and decent area with just as much claim on this country as they have.
Allowing this serves only to make the job of Democrat cheating confined to just a few locales.
There is a reason the founders set up a two per state Senatorship, there is a reason the Electoral College forces country wide prominence. Changing this just resigns us all to the despotic whims of Democrats forever.
This gives the mega metropolitan area political machines the ability to deliver the candidate the national machine wants.
Aristotle said that slavery can exist best in a democracy.
Oklahoma, what are you doing!? That just hands your Electoral College delegation to the huge ‘Rat cities like NY, Chicago, LA, Philadelphia, etc. What happened to representing Oklahoma?
Until I saw this I would have said no way.
Checking local media, I'm not seeing any report of this.
Not saying it ain't so, but "it seems highly improbable to me." Plus no reporting of it local media - I even gave the Tulsa World a hit to go see if they were reporting this.
Please post a link. Otherwise... "Color me skeptical."
The fact that the writer explains that this is complicated, indicates a dearth of problems with basic US history and social sciences. The EC should be understood by everyone with a fifth grade education.
I am sure that this bill is DOA in the House. Also Senators who voted for it are receiving a lot of flak here. My Senator is the author of the bill, but is not running for reelection so he deserted his voters. He plans on becoming a lobbyist, so I wonder that he did this to help his new career.
consider the power of Article V in that each state has 1 vote, regardless of population
Direct election of the POTUS remembering the 2000 election could make the election uncertain. Imagine the endless recalls we saw in Florida being repeated in all 50 states in a close election.
Considering it came from deep-red OK, this a stunner. What in the hell are these OK senators imagining is the greater interest to be served by blowing off the will of the people to be accurately represented in the EC?
The EC is in place to stand as a bulwark against the very thing we’re seeing in the country now... inordinate power shifting to thickly populated metro areas.
This country is completely unhinged.
The Electoral College should be scrapped because the population shift to the large, liberal, urban areas is leading the college to the same point that just electing the President by popular vote would have. Right now if the right combination of just 11 or 12 states came together in the college they would determine the election result. If we can not keep Texas red, and occasionally win Ohio, conservatives will never elect another president.
The answer is to push through a Constitutional Amendment which gives the each state one vote in determining the president. The vote would be cast every four years by the governors of each state. The governors would have the authority to yearly review the president’s performance and remove that president with a vote of 34 minimum votes in favor. No person would be allowed to serve more than 12 years as president. A simple majority would be all that is necessary for the governors to hire the president. Candidates would apply for the position, and campaigning would be prohibited. This is more like a decision to hire or fire someone than the electing of a politician.
Currently there are 30 Republican governors. Think about it.
How the hell do you determine the true “national popular vote”?
Al Gore Junior got 0.51% of the so-called popular vote. That does not include the 3,000 military ballots that the Florida Supremes approved (yet were not in Katherine Harris’ certified total as she held to her original figure).
There are states that never tabulate all of the absentee ballots because they “won’t make a difference” in determining which candidate would win the office in that state.
But if you are going to hold it to NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE, you are holding it to a different standard that makes every one of those absentee ballots (and every stolen vote in other precincts) count so much more than they did in the past.
Get ready for never knowing the results of an election until 2 weeks after election day and countless challenges for recounts (as Rats can ballot stuff inner city votes in Philly and Chicago to sway the Kansas electoral college vote).
Amendment XIV, Section 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
If a state's electoral votes are effectively chosen by voters from other states, then the voting power of the citizens of that state have been severely diluted, or "abridged" according to Amendment XIV. Thus, their representation in the House will be reduced to a very small fraction of what it was originally. For example, a state with a voting population of 13 million, representing 5% of a national voting population of 260 milion will have their number of representatives reduced to 5% of what it is currently since the voting power of its voters have now been reduced to 5% of what it once was.
I hate to see Oklahoma go this route, but I would love to see California do it.
So Joaklahoma no longer wishes to be a factor in any presidential election?
Bizzare!
Why should they bother to vote at all then?