Fred Thompson is pimping that crap these days.
However I do think we need to fix our primary system but that doesn’t have anything to do with NPV.
Gore’s alleged popular vote “win” was error prone.
Consider that it was 0.51% of the vote.
Consider that it excluded absentee ballots in states that weren’t going to be affected by those votes.
Consider that it excluded the 3,000 disputed military ballots in Florida even though the Supremes ruled those votes valid (Katherine Harris held to her original tally).
IF you had the election decided by popular vote, you’d have to do a precinct by precinct recount nationwide and wait until all absentee ballots had been received (or at least until that waiting window closed).
Deciding the president by popular vote is a flawed idea
Not if it’s an informed electorate, with skin in the game. If we all paid 10-20% (and I mean ALL) there woudn’t be the farting around with the money, three years without a budget and no accountability. Make it enough to make people pay attention. Half of them don’t care now because the other half of us dumbbells are paying the freight.
And NEVER allow government average wage be higher than private sector. NEVER, ever.
Depends on whether CNN gets to count the votes or not.
Democracy is killing our republic. The 17th was a terrible mistake. To go full popular vote for the President will only hasten our doom.
I look at it like this: The World Series goes to the team that wins the most ~games~ in the series, not the total number of ~runs~ in the series.
Bundling the votes into “games” by states effectively decentralizes the vote and gives rural America a voice that they otherwise would lose, submerged by the big cities. It forces candidates to get out and win the states, not just set up a national campaign broadcast center and do it all on TV.
I like it this way. :-)
I have a problem with some of their polling results...
Consider my state, South Carolina:
A survey of 800 South Carolina voters conducted on January 17–19, 2011 showed 71% overall support for the idea that the President of the United States should be the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states.
Voters were asked "How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current Electoral College system?"
By political affiliation, support for a national popular vote was 64% among Republicans, 81% among Democrats, and 68% among others. By gender, support was 81% among women and 59% among men. By age, support was 81% among 18-29 year olds, 71% among 30-45 year olds, 72% among 46-65 year olds, and 63% for those older than 65. By race, support was 68% among whites, 77% among African-Americans, and 74% among others (representing 4% of respondents).
The survey was conducted by Public Policy Polling, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 1/2%.
Check your state's poll the NPV home page (scroll down a little, polls are on the right). Do the polling results jibe with what you know about your state?
“Deciding the president” by national popular vote ignores the role of the states. The Constitution and thus the Federal Government and thus the Presidency were not established by national popular vote, but by the States, with the people’s participation being within each State.
The electoral college system was intended from the start to give every state a certain amount of say in who the president would be, based simply on the fact that it is a state. The rest of the say is based on the population of the state (no matter what the voter turnout was in that state). This is true “federalism.” A pure popular vote would not only move recount issues into all 50 states, it would essentially enslave the “flyovers” to the big cities.
If you change to popular vote, it makes the potential to steal an election by fraud far easier. Someone in, say, Los Angeles or New York would simply stuff the ballot box by any means necessary with no regard to the other 49 states.
The Electoral College turns the election into 51 elections which changes the race into fighting over the tossup states. If you went to popular vote, the election would be fought in the major metropolitan areas exclusively.