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Reform the Electoral College
seattletimes ^ | 08/27/2019 | Seattle Times Editorial Board

Posted on 08/28/2019 7:30:38 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27

The controversial way America elects presidents is barreling toward a crisis point. A federal court ruling has spotlighted the confounding nature of the system, which twice in the last five elections put presidents into office against the wishes of the majority of American voters.

Under the Constitution, the voters who select a president every four years are, in fact, picking a party-chosen slate of electors pledged to that candidate. The presidential candidate who wins a state’s popular vote gets all its electors — except in Nebraska and Maine, which split the electors by Congressional districts. These electors formally select the president after Election Day passes. This mechanism solved two problems of 1789’s America that no longer plague the nation.

Mass, instant communication — of news, commentary and campaign rhetoric — means voters have no need to designate others to make informed choices, which was the argument Alexander Hamilton made in support of the Electoral College. The system also induced southern slave states to join the union by giving them power at a time when the more populous north would have dominated a national popular election.

(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Maine; US: Nebraska; US: Washington; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 2020election; college; constitution; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; electoral; electoralcollege; faithlesselectors; maine; mediawingofthednc; nationalpopularvote; nebraska; no; npv; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; radicalleft; reform; smearmachine; washington
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To: ChicagoConservative27

From the city who can’t figure out how to get human feces off of their streets.


41 posted on 08/28/2019 8:46:56 AM PDT by MarMema (breeding tauntauns in northern Michigan - soon to be for sale!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Eliminate 2A and Electoral College and America as founded is eliminated. That is the goal of the left. They will never give up.


42 posted on 08/28/2019 8:48:23 AM PDT by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

43 posted on 08/28/2019 8:52:10 AM PDT by dead (Liberals ruin everything.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

This whole argument that the rules should be changed because some recent elections would have been different if the rules were different is fallacious. If the rules were different, the campaigns would have been different. Trump would have campaigned heavily in NY and CA, and likely swayed or at least inspired a lot more to vote for him in those states where many simply didn’t vote because they knew it didn’t matter. No one knows what the result would have been under different rules.


44 posted on 08/28/2019 8:53:09 AM PDT by LibertyOh
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To: Jim Noble

A distant cousin (whom I never met) was one of the Missouri electors in 1948. Since he was a lawyer I’m sure that wasn’t his only college experience.


45 posted on 08/28/2019 8:53:59 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: BBQToadRibs

And it had nothing to do with slave states having less population. All the states, save Pa, allowed slavery, and at the time of the Constitutional Convention slavery was waning. It had already been banned north of the Ohio by the NW Ordinance which was passed unanimously by the Confederation Congress. Slavery’s rebirth came from Whitney’s cotton gin and Slater’s textile mill. Both events post convention. As for population, until large scale immigration after 1830 the north and south were roughly equal and contrary to what has long been taught in schools, the Missouri Compromise’s requirement of an equal number of free and slave states came from a fear that slave state populations might outnumber the North. How else is Mass’s wiilingness to allow Maine to separate from it to become a state to keep the balance equal if the House, based on population was supposedly safely in Free state hands.


46 posted on 08/28/2019 8:58:35 AM PDT by xkaydet65
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To: ChicagoConservative27
One way to "change the Electoral College" would be to change the census to only count voting-eligible people and ignore resident aliens as required in the 14th amendment.

That would give the states with fewer non-citizens more power in the Electoral College.

-PJ

47 posted on 08/28/2019 9:03:51 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too (The 1st Amendment gives the People the right to a free press, not CNN the right to the 1st question.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Democrats hate the electoral college it’s to hard to jimmy but keep working at it.


48 posted on 08/28/2019 9:08:05 AM PDT by Vaduz (women and children to be impacIQ of chimpsted the most.)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

So then, that just shows that nobody got a majority of the vote.


49 posted on 08/28/2019 9:08:14 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I live in seattle (well, nearby) and I don’t want SeattLunatics choosing my president either!


50 posted on 08/28/2019 9:16:00 AM PDT by rockrr ( Everything is different now...)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

The states elect the president. This is another attempt to make turn the United States into the Feudal States.

The Federal income tax and the direct election of Senators neutered the States. Now they are trying to finish the job.


51 posted on 08/28/2019 9:16:17 AM PDT by joshua c
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... twice in the last five elections put presidents into office against the wishes of the majority of American voters.

False.

52 posted on 08/28/2019 9:21:45 AM PDT by Mr.Unique (The government, by its very nature, cannot give except what it first takes.)
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To: CommerceComet

I believe that would be the safe bet.


53 posted on 08/28/2019 9:24:43 AM PDT by Howie66 ("...Against All Enemies, Foreign and Democrat.....")
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To: ChicagoConservative27

The only reform we need is to stop counting non-citizens for representational and electoral purposes. If we did this, the blue state cabal would lose 20%-30% of their political and electoral clout.


54 posted on 08/28/2019 9:27:43 AM PDT by yuleeyahoo (The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one. Hamilton)
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To: MplsSteve

There is nothing stopping individual states from awarding their electors in any manner they wish.


55 posted on 08/28/2019 9:30:51 AM PDT by yuleeyahoo (The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one. Hamilton)
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To: ChicagoConservative27
This mechanism solved two problems of 1789’s America that no longer plague the nation.

The disparity of population between states is still a very relevant problem. The Seattle Times is full of sheepdip.

56 posted on 08/28/2019 9:45:07 AM PDT by MortMan (Americans are a people increasingly separated by our connectivity.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27
They've already shredded the "natural born Citizen" mandate in the Constitution (a significant reason why our country is in the mess it is right now)...so they will continue to try and chip away at the foundations of our constitution, and country.

They will likely succeed in the next generation or two, unless there is a literal revival of understanding our history, what is in our constitution and why it's in there and that we must always fight to protect it. There is no time off.

...A republic, if you can keep it.

57 posted on 08/28/2019 9:51:19 AM PDT by rxsid (HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN'S STATUS BE "GOVERNED" BY GREAT BRITAIN? - Leo Donofrio (2009))
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To: Dilbert San Diego
You have to understand that, if the idea of a mythical "national popular vote" ever becomes a reality, California, NY, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland will simply not allow Trump or any other non-castrated Republican on their ballots.

Now we see the harm done by the Supreme Court when it agreed to hear Bush v. Gore, a nonjusticeable political question if ever there was one.

The whole POINT of the Electoral College architecture was to make sure that the national government had no role in choosing their own replacements.

ELECTORS choose the President. Voters have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, except as their State Legislatures allow.

Electors are State officials, appointed by their States. They are not accountable to the Executive Branch. They are not accountable to Congress except as provided in the Constitution. And they are not accountable to Article III courts.

The only way to bringing in some sort of legally binding "national popular vote" is to create a national authority to supervise, tabulate, and authenticate a result, which is EXCATLY what the Electoral College was designed to prevent.

58 posted on 08/28/2019 10:02:38 AM PDT by Jim Noble (There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know)
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To: Freedom4US
the EC is an ingenious system that balances the way a president is elected. The candidate must appeal to a briader cross section of the public

There is no role for the public in the Constitutional system of choosing a President.

59 posted on 08/28/2019 10:03:52 AM PDT by Jim Noble (There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know)
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To: Mr.Unique
twice in the last five elections put presidents into office against the wishes of the majority of American voters

Even if that's true, so what?

"American voters" are not supposed to pick the President.

60 posted on 08/28/2019 10:05:46 AM PDT by Jim Noble (There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know)
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