Move to Dump Electoral College Defeated in Montana, North Dakota

Newsmax ^ | 2-9-07 | AP via Newsmax

[Alia]

A movement to essentially dump the Electoral College and give the presidency to the winner of the nationwide popular vote has been defeated in North Dakota and Montana, after opponents said it would eliminate any influence states may have in presidential contests.

Thursday's votes represented the first legislative setbacks this year for the National Popular Vote plan, said spokeswoman Breeanna Mierop. It is a proposed agreement among states to cast their electoral votes for the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.

"If you look at the population trends ... if this were to become the law, our presidential elections would be controlled by the vote in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston," said North Dakota state Rep. Lawrence Klemin, a Bismarck Republican. "They would decide who the president was, not the rest of us."

North Dakota's House voted 60-31 Thursday to defeat the plan. In the Montana Senate, it lost 30-20.

[kabar]

At the present time, the Electoral College reflects the voters’ state-by-state choices for President in 48 states, while reflecting the voters’ district-by-district choices in Maine and Nebraska. The United States can have nationwide popular election of the President if the states reform the Electoral College so that it reflects the voters’ nationwide choice. This means changing the state laws that establish the state-level winner-take-all rule (or the district-level winner-take-all rule).

Under the state legislation proposed by National Popular Vote, the popular vote counts from all 50 states and the District of Columbia would be added together to obtain a national grand total for each presidential candidate. That is, state election officials would simply perform, in an official manner, the adding-up of the nationwide vote for President that is now performed by almanacs and news media. Then, state elections officials in all states participating in the plan would award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the largest number of popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Under the proposal, no state would act alone in offering to award its electoral votes to the nationwide winner. Instead, the National Popular Vote plan would take effect only when the plan has been enacted by states collectively possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is 270 of the 538 electoral votes. This threshold guarantees that the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide would win enough electoral votes in the Electoral College to become President. The 270-vote threshold corresponds essentially to states representing a majority of the people of the United States. The result would be that every vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia is equally important in presidential elections.

The National Popular Vote plan is an interstate compact—a type of state law authorized by the U.S. Constitution that enables states to enter into a legally enforceable contractual obligation to undertake agreed joint actions. There are hundreds of interstate compacts, and each state in the United States belongs to dozens of compacts. Examples of interstate compacts include the Colorado River Compact (allocating water among seven western states), the Port Authority (a two-state compact involving New York and New Jersey), and the Multi-State Tax Compact. Some compacts involve all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Interstate compacts are generally subject to congressional consent.

As an additional benefit, National Popular Vote’s plan would eliminate the (unlikely) possibility of faithless presidential electors. The presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia would receive a guaranteed majority of at least 270 electoral votes coming from the states enacting the compact, and the nationwide winner candidate would receive additional electoral votes from whatever non-compacting states happened to be carried by the nationwide winner. Thus, in practice, the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide would end up with about three-quarters of the electoral votes—more than enough to eliminate the remote possibility that an unfaithful elector could affect the outcome.

Because the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide would be guaranteed enough electoral votes in the Electoral College to become President, another benefit of the National Popular Vote plan is that it would eliminate the possibility of a presidential election being decided by the House of Representatives (where each state would have one vote) and the vice-presidential election being decided by the U.S. Senate.

Nationwide election of the President would reduce the possibility of close elections and recounts. The current system regularly manufactures artificial crises even when the nationwide popular vote is not particularly close. Even though President Bush was 3.5 million votes ahead of Kerry in 2004 on election night, the nation had to wait until Wednesday to see if Kerry would dispute Ohio’s all-important 20 electoral votes. A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have given Kerry a majority of the electoral votes, despite President Bush’s 3,500,000-vote lead in the nationwide popular vote. Similarly, the disputed 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created by one candidate’s 537-vote lead in Florida in an election in which the other candidate had a 537,179-vote lead nationwide (1,000 times greater). In the nation’s most controversial presidential election, Tilden’s 3.1%-lead in the popular vote in 1876 was greater than Bush’s substantial 2.8%-lead in 2004; however, a constitutional crisis was created by very small popular-vote margins in four states (889, 922, 1,050, and 1,075). With a single massive pool of 122,000,000 votes, there is less opportunity for a close outcome or recount (and less incentive for fraud) than with 51 separate smaller pools, where a few hundred popular votes can decide the Presidency.

To prevent partisan mischief between the November voting by the people and the mid-December meeting of the Electoral College, the compact contains a six-month blackout period if any state ever wishes to withdraw from the compact. The blackout period starts on July 20 of each presidential election year and runs through the January 20 inauguration. Interstate compacts are contracts. It is settled compact law and settled constitutional law that withdrawal restrictions—very common in interstate compacts—are enforceable because the U.S. Constitution prohibits a state from impairing any obligation of contract.

[kabar]

Hold on now. This would require a constitutional amendment, would it not? Surely it would seeing as the EC is enumerated in the Constitution. It is nearly impossible to amend the constitution. 3/4 of the states will not ratify and surely the 2/3 House and Senate will not ratify.

No, the electoral college will remain intact and operate like it always has.

[katieanna]

Oh, so, is the proposal that each state will decide how their electors will vote?

[brothers4thID]

They'd be in real trouble this time, since the bulk of munitions factories, gunsmiths and gun OWNERS are located in the South and in "flyover country".

[Verginius Rufus]

I don't know how defeating this scheme is racist, other than that some of the small states which get overrepresented in the electoral college have very few black voters. In fact, the current system gives black voters more clout than they would have with a national popular vote system, since they are present in large numbers in states with large numbers of electoral votes.

If this plan had been in place in 1960, would Nixon have won? The figures that are usually quoted show Kennedy winning the popular vote by 118,000 votes, but that's counting all the Democrat votes in Alabama as votes for Kennedy, even though he got only 5 of the 11 electoral votes (the others were cast for Harry F. Byrd of Virginia)--who did the voters in Alabama think they were voting for when they voted for the Democrat electors? If the popular votes on the Democrat side in Alabama were split in the same ratio as the electoral votes, Nixon would have had a national plurality in the popular vote.

[relictele]

Thanks to the spelling of her name, Spokeswoman Breeanna Mierop is easy to Google:

She was a dance major!

She was a KD at SJSU!

She interned for a Congresswoman dealing with "women's issues"

Obviously, sorting mail and brewing coffee qualifies Breeanna the dance major to attempt to subvert the Constitution! Another victim (albeit a minnow) of Potomac Fever attempts to spread the disease nationwide!

[Cheburashka]

I thought that the only way to eliminate the Electoral College was through Constitutional ammendment.
---
This wouldn't eliminate the Electoral College.

Each state would amend its laws to pick the electors of the person who won the NATIONWIDE vote, not the votes within that state. The effect would be to make the winner of the electoral votes of that state the same as winner of the NATIONAL popular vote. Carrying the state would be irrelevant.

For more details go to the link in post 46 above.

Summary: bad idea, but since it's a liberal idea you already knew that.

[OCCASparky]

The Soros Plan fails in two more states.

Face it, the odds of convincing the 38 least populous states to just abandon any and all power they have at the national level is a joke.

They can't assign votes based on NATIONAL popular vote--it wouldn't pass Constitutional muster.

The Founding Fathers had the right idea with this system. Can you imagine Florida 2000 every four years? Can you say, "political gridlock"? (Yes, even worse than now.)

[savedbygrace]

All those words and none of them are directed at the republican form of government argument.

Besides, when you say, "Interstate compacts are generally subject to congressional consent," you are not telling the truth. The Constitution forbids States from entering into compacts UNLESS they have congressional approval.

You could look it up.

Now tell the truth: You didn't write that, did you? You took it off a website without citation, didn't you?

[Cheburashka]

An excellent summary of why the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College and what abolishing the Electoral College would do to the country. Kudos.

[OCCASparky]

ESPN is carefully pointing out how racist this is.

WTF cares what East Coast Sports Propaganda Network thinks? I swear, if the Yankees and Red Sox ceased to exist they'd have nothing to talk about between March and October.

And consider that's the former home of Keith Olberman. Nuff said.

[Sandy]

No, to amend the Constitution (which is what it would take) you need the approval of 38 state legislatures.

They're not talking about amending the Constitution. They're talking about changing state law.

[E Rocc]

If I recall correctly, we don't vote directly for President. We vote for a slate of electors ostensibly committed to vote for a certain Presidential candidate.

So even if a state "agreed" to this compact, a slate of electors committed to a specific candidate could still run.

-Eric

[Cheburashka]

The way it is structured it will bypass any need for amendment of the Constitution. So the Constitution will not be amended, just circumvented.

Go to the link in post #46 and read about this proposition and how it is supposed to work.

[deport]

Question.....

I realize there are numerous compacts between the states on a specific issue/topic/law. But isn't a consent or authorization needed from the Congress to enable the compact? Just googling compacts between the states finds Congressional action on specific compacts.... Thus I would guess without searching much further that Congressional action would be needed to form the National Popular Vote Compact...

Any thoughts on the process, if needed or not by congress, possibility of it being passed, etc?

[ctdonath2]

Of course they defeated it - why vote to reduce their voters' influence? Under the Electoral College, a vote in Montana is worth 159% that of one under the Popular Vote, and a vote in North Dakota is worth 236% of a "one man one vote". Those two states already have enough trouble being heard without voluntarily reducing their influence.

[kabar]

Read chapter 8 of EVERY VOTE EQUAL

[kabar]

Now tell the truth: You didn't write that, did you? You took it off a website without citation, didn't you?

Yes. If you have read my previous posts, you will see that I have provided links. This is a serious movement. I don't agree with it, because it does circumvent the Constitution and violates the concept of our founding, i.e., federalism. If you really want to become informed about the issue, I suggest you look at these two links.

National Popular Vote

EVERY VOTE EQUAL

[SoFloFreeper]

And to think, I had given up on Montana after Testicle got elected. Two 'rats in Montana?? And North Dakota, what is up with YOU? You guys send us two of the biggest norberts in the Senate: Dorgan and Conrad!!

[savedbygrace]

I'm glad you just explained your position on this issue. If you'd made that clear in your previous post, I wouldn't have crossed you like I did.

I don't generally research a FReeper's past posts before replying.