Posted on 05/17/2007 1:39:48 PM PDT by SuperSonic
North Carolina moved a big step closer to joining a national movement that could lead to the president of the United States being elected by popular vote. The state Senate, by a 30-18 partisan vote, passed legislation that would direct North Carolina's Electoral College delegates to vote for the presidential candidate with the most votes nationwide -- not the one with the most votes in the state -- if the national movement proves successful. So far, only Maryland has signed on, but more than 40 states are considering legislation that could bring them on board as well.
The movement comes after two close national presidential elections in which Republican George Bush came out the winner. In the 2000 election, the popular vote went to Democrat Al Gore, but Bush won the majority of electoral votes cast by the states. In 2004, the close vote in Ohio -- which Bush ultimately won -- drew lawsuits because if it had swung Democratic, John Kerry would have been elected president even though he hadn't won the popular vote.
A bipartisan group of former U.S. representatives and senators came up with the plan, which would take effect when enough states to create a majority of Electoral College votes had joined a compact to direct those votes to the national popular vote winner. The earliest the compact could take effect would be the 2012 election.
State Sen. Dan Clodfelter, a Charlotte Democrat, urged his colleagues to join the compact, saying the current system cuts most of the country out of the presidential election. In 2004, he said, the majority of campaign money spent by Bush and Kerry was in just two battleground states -- Florida and Ohio.
"We were ignored," Clodfelter said. "In 23 states, not a single TV ad ran for either of the candidates for president. They were ignored."
Republicans argued that a popular vote election would not bring presidential candidates to all corners of the country, just to the major media markets.
"They may come to Charlotte, they may come to Raleigh," said Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican. "But they won't come to Eden, they won't come to Smithfield and they won't come to Wilmington. This is bad policy and bad for the people of North Carolina."
Some argued that the legislation subverted the thinking of the founding fathers when they created the Electoral College, which they said was intended to protect the rights of less populous states. Clodfelter said if North Carolina were following the founders' original plans, then lawmakers would be choosing who their Electoral College delegates stood behind, instead of the voters.
It wasn't until 1876 that North Carolina lawmakers gave state residents the right to vote for president, Clodfelter said.
The legislation now moves to the House.
Staff writer Dan Kane can be reached at 829-4861 or dan.kane@newsobserver.com.
Combine this with the new Shamnesty bill, and you can really grease the skids for the “decline and fall.”
Bad idea....power goes to the big cities.
They’ll dictate policy from then-on. Big cities are usually liberal.
This is utterly ridiculous. How a state legislator could vote to make his state’s electoral votes possibly run COMPLETELY AGAINST the will of his state’s voters is beyond me.
}:-)4
Already have, this is garbage left wing pap, who are these so called “bi-partisan” folks who came up with this trash?
Now it will be interesting to watch what happens when a state votes for candidate X, but the votes go to candidate Y, the peasants may break out the pitch forks at that point.
Each congressional district’s electoral vote would go to the candidate that received the most votes. The two state electoral votes would go to the candidate that received a majority of the votes within that state.
Alternatively, States electoral votes are given 1 to the chief executive of that state (governor) and the other vote is decided by unicameral session of the state legislator.
Wouldn’t this require a change to Article Two, Section One of the United States Constitution?
It would be another nail in the coffin of this once great Republic.
How would this change that?
Candidates will go to the biggest population centers and go to where the votes are thickest.
If you can go to a big city which has almost as many voters as some states, why bother with the little states? Win the majority there, and these fools will hand you all the electoral votes from their state, whether they voted for you or you ever set foot there.
Of course, this is just a way for Democrats to steal rural state electoral votes with big city votes.
The only way this will ever work is by fundamentally changing the Constitution to a full poular vote with no electoral college (which is a self-destructive system, imho).
I believe there is no Federal requirement for exactly how a state selects their electors. So as long as NC sends the proper numbers of electors to Washington in December 2008, how they got picked is not a Federal matter. That’s what I heard, I’m not 100% sure it’s right.
}:-)4
Then I am prepared to stand corrected! Thanks!
Article. II.
Section. 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
In Maryland what it surmounts to is...right now every Marylander’s vote is worth 1 out of 1.5 million to decide where Maryland’s 10 electoral votes go. With the new plan, each Marylander’s vote will be worth 1 out of 30 to 40 million to decide where Maryland’s 10 electoral votes go.
Because it’s questionable if this type of electoral vote scheme with states banding together is constitutional, there will be a court challenge if enough states enact these laws.
A good point that we see in the actual text of the Constitution is that each state legislature decides how to appoint electors. All states currently do so based on the popular vote in their states.
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