Posted on 02/07/2007 10:37:01 AM PST by mtairycitizen
Lawmakers hoping to propel Maryland into a more prominent role in presidential campaigns have introduced bills that would award the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide.
The aim is to prevent a repeat of the 2000 presidential election, in which Democratic nominee Al Gore won the popular vote but lost to Republican George W. Bush in the contest for electoral votes.
Advertisement <A TARGET="_blank" HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/34f2/3/0/%2a/n%3B70524412%3B0-0%3B0%3B12924986%3B4307-300/250%3B19890320/19908214/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://freetopay.provbank.com"><IMG SRC="http://m1.2mdn.net/1214273/300_250_0129.gif" BORDER=0></A> The Electoral College, which dates to the nation's founding and whose members are elected on a winner-take-all basis in most states, chooses the president weeks after the election.
The idea of awarding a state's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote is being discussed in more than 45 state legislatures this winter and is being promoted in Maryland by a leader of a key House committee.
If adopted by enough states, the change would make the Electoral College meaningless without amending the Constitution.
Critics of the idea - thought up by a Stanford University computer scientist - contend that bypassing the Electoral College could increase the influence of third parties and shift the focus of campaigns to large cities at the expense of rural areas.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
They are trying this is 45 states contingent on enough states doing it to go into effect. This is another consequence of the last election. Dims took over many state legislatures along with the other shifts. They want mob rule as they own the mob and the media.
I would prefer that the within a congressional district the electoral vote for that district be given to the candidate that received the majority 50+ percent from within that district.
If there is no majority, a run off election is held between the two candidates that received the most votes from within the district.
The two state electoral votes would go to the candidate who received the most votes from the state as a whole.
We lost the Republic when we began direct election of Senators. Poor dumb Maryland. A beautiful state taken over by the socialists/nanny staters. Ironically, it used to be called "The Free State".
They haven't figured that out yet. Notice how they think it will make Maryland MORE important. These people are clueless.
Excellent idea - it further reduces the influence of vote fraud.
The Formerly Great State of Maryland.
Truly great until Marxist thinking took over, especially the Democrat party. And especially since we are MOBBED by "foreigners" working for THE Government - who naturally tend to be....Marxist!
You may have a good point there!
But it won't work if all 45 proposals go through.....! That includes too many "red" states (formerly, blue, before the Media realized they were always using Commie Red for Dems before and better start dissociating with that).
Libs must have figured that this would help them. It's a stupid idea, but that won't stop libs.
The first time they award votes to a candidate that the people of the state don't like and didn't vote for the legislators who pushed this will be voted out and the law will be changed back.
The reality, on the other hand, would be that Maryland would NO LONGER MATTER in presidential campaigns, which is quite the opposite of giving it a more prominent role.
It will help liberalism. Modern liberalism is essentially medi-driven populism, which would do well in a direct democracy.
Those of us who happen to be conservative Republicans in Maryland are used to it :-(
I don't think this would stand a scrutiny by the SC.
However, when to bring it before? Certainly after the fact when someone has standing would be waaaaayyy to late.
It would be really interesting to see how they felt once a Republican takes the cake in national numbers - then I would bet they try to go back to the Electoral College, especially if it was so close that their state could sway the election.
I would hope that a winning argument could be made to the USSC that this violates the Constitutionally promise of a republican form of government to all States.
LOL!
Very interesting numbers. Do you know what the methodology was behind them?
Tell you what will happen...they go for this idea; the Pub candidate gets slightly more votes over all but the Dem would have won a majority of electorals under the old system. The Dem cadidate sues stating these "impromptu" compacts were unconstitutional under the old system!
Yes. I calculated it.
Each state gets a fraction of the total number of electoral votes nationally. Divide that number of Electoral Votes for the state by the population of the state to get a voter's value under the EC system in that state.
Under the Direct Election (DE) system, everyone gets a voter value of 1 / (US population).
Divide the former by the latter to get the relative vote value per state, and express as a percentage.
Yes, not everyone votes (age, apathy, registered), but I presume each state's voter / nonvoter ratio is about the same.
Yes, populations change with various effects. I used 2006 population numbers, and assume that any changes average out to generally negligible.
The result is a ballpark view of the relative value of a vote for POTUS in each state. Differences of a very few percentage points are presumed equivalent, at the statistical noise level. It's the >10% differences that are interesting to the discussion.
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