Posted on 04/01/2019 5:24:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Ronald Reagan was reportedly fond of referencing the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Monahan’s admonition, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Today, that would most particularly include opponents of the growing drive to enact the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would award 270 electoral votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Of all the myths conjured up by naysayers to try and torpedo the compact, perhaps the most egregious portray the measure as either unconstitutional or an effort to eliminate the Electoral College. Both are patently false.
The compact isn’t the same thing as the national popular vote that the 2020 presidential candidates are calling for. The compact is 100 percent constitutional and consistent with the intent of the Founding Fathers, who explicitly gave states the authority under the Constitution to form agreements among themselves for any number of reasons. There is no issue with the states usurping the power of the federal government.
Moreover, while some reform advocates argue for elimination of the Electoral College through a long and cumbersome effort to amend the Constitution, the compact preserves the Electoral College intact, exactly as the Constitution specifies. In fact, the compact states that if the Electoral College is done away with, the compact goes away.
Under the Constitution, states are free to award their electors in any way they see fit. There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution either mentioning or mandating the current winner-take-all system by which most states award their electoral votes. The Founding Fathers never approved it. By entering the compact, the states agree to direct their Electoral College votes through a popular vote.
The myths and falsehoods aren’t limited to the Constitution and the Electoral College. Another falsehood imagines the votes of large, populous states running roughshod over smaller, less populated states. This is patently untrue. More people live in rural areas and small towns than in the big cities. If Republicans direct their campaign efforts in the former areas, they should be able to win the popular vote, since they dominate those areas. Right now, they direct their energy at the swing states instead.
Under the current system, we don’t so much elect the president of the United States as we do the president of the battleground states. The 12 states where the candidates spend virtually all of their time — and money — chasing blocks of electoral votes that can swing back and forth every four years. The other 38 states and the District of Columbia — encompassing roughly 70 percent of the population — are ignored because they are so faithful in voting either Republican or Democrat every four years.
In an election fought under the compact, the 12-state election model becomes a 50-state contest in which candidates are compelled to chase down every single voter in every nook and cranny of the nation. The states are essentially working with other states to make their votes more relevant.
Oregon is a great example of why the compact is needed. Over the last eight presidential elections from 1988 to 2016, a total of 5,429,496 Oregonians cast their popular votes for the Republican ticket. And in all of that time, their efforts have failed to produce one single GOP electoral vote. Because eight out of eight times, the Democratic ticket won Oregon’s popular vote and all of its electoral votes.
Under the compact, voters gain a direct voice over the disposition of the 270 electoral votes. No voter in any state would have their vote cancelled out because they didn’t go along with the majority of others in their state. Every voter would have their vote counted directly toward their choice for president. And the presidential candidate who gets the most popular votes would become president.
Florida is gradually becoming more Democratic, as Puerto Ricans move into the state and overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Republicans are going to lose this swing state and will be unable to win presidential elections through the existing system much longer. It’s a good time to switch. The movement in support of the compact is gaining momentum with Delaware and New Mexico having just passed bills joining it for a projected total of 189 of the 270 electoral votes necessary to switch to the compact (a majority of the 538 electoral votes). It has bipartisan support because Democrats erroneously think large cities will end up deciding elections. Republicans need to do their homework on this issue before blindly repeating falsehoods.
APRIL FOOL’S STORY BY Rachel Alexander EVERYONE !!!
Your betters, they used to be called Dukes, Earls......
You don't know who votes in Oregon or who counts them. Oregon is a perfect example of why we don't want the populous states to rule the country. Portland and Eugene rule over the state with an iron hand.
I think the 12A is clear...
It is, but it doesn't prohibit NPV allocation by States.
Electors are to deliberate and make their choice for President and Vice President. These laws binding the electors to vote for the winner of the national popular vote render the term Electors a nullity.
Then, so does requiring them to vote by the state popular vote. Nobody has had a problem with that...
So, if states can form a compact under the Constitution, can the South, excluding Florida because it’s finished, the Midwest and Mountain States, for their own country and kick both coasts to the sea?
If that happened, I predict the following:
Eastern Washington and Oregon secede and merge with Idaho .... Western Pennsylvania, the western part of Virginia and North Carolina merge with the south ... the southern halves(or more) of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio merge with whoever they can ... most of Michigan bounces to the new country leaving ‘Troit and Dearborn to their own devices ... only wild cards I see are Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona ... outside of the cities, it appears they’re pretty RED.
Let the West coast, East coast and the Northeast fend for themselves. I doubt they last long.
If only that was realy true! But... in the 2nd sentence of her article ("Today, that would most particularly include opponents of the growing drive to enact the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact...") she links to he Dec 11, 2017 Townhall article titled:
"Surprisingly, Republicans and Conservatives Shouldn’t Fear a National Popular Vote"
Another Democrat patsy or mole calling herself a "conservative" feeding real conservatives the enemy's lies.
“links to he” = “links to her”
OH C-RAP, YOU’RE CORRECT!
First, the people vote in their local districts for their Assemblyman. Then, the party that controls the Assembly gets to choose the Electors to the Electoral College.
Now, this could work as a winner-takes-all if the Assembly wants to do that, but if they have to vote on a slate of Electors, it's likely that if the Assembly is closely split that a compromise slate might be offered where the losing side still gets a few Electors, so that the whole slate can pass.
One possible problem to sort out is what happens if the winning Assembly party was the minority party before the election? In this case, the winning side won't take over until January of the next year, but the Electors are due to vote in December before the winning party takes control of the chamber.
In that case, I'm back to the idea that the Assembly doesn't vote on a slate, the party that wins simply announces a slate. However, they can still compromise with the other party if they want, knowing how "compromise" works in the long run with Democrats.
-PJ
I know who counts them in my county...it’s NOT the counting...it’s the Registration. ..you live here too?
Yep. I get a ballot in the mail, fill it out and put it in a box after that I know nothing about whether a ballot is counted or not. Of course I don't think we have had honest elections since Chicago installed the first voting machines.
Just think about how disenfranchised upstate NY voters & Norther California voters feel because they have no voice, overwhelmed at the ballot box by the big cities.
Having the less populous states be swamped by the voting populations of the large liberal cities that control the liberal states would also be disenfranchisement, even more extreme because of the rampant voter fraud & illegal alien votes cast in those cities.
This is silly. You actually think state legislators can pas laws discriminating on the basis of race or gender? Did you sleep through the civil rights era of the 1960?
My citations are the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Yes, I do. It has already happened more than once. See "Affirmative Action" policies for some worked examples. See almost anything related to "Title IX" regulations. This is on a Federal level. The States can be even worse.
A number of Municipal Governments have explicit laws which require racial quotas in hiring for anyone that does business with the cities (Hartford, CT for example) and those laws have been validated by the States.
No, I do not approve of such things. But there are no real limits to what a Democrat legislature may attempt. And Democrat-packed courts generally uphold all such infringements, inevitably finding mysterious "penumbras" in the Constitution to justify them. Voting does not appear to fix these problems.
"No man's life or property are safe while the legislature is in session" (Mark Twain)
I want to find a way to blow up the whole illegals voting...before 2020...even if we have to hire PIs
Shouldn’t the title have included either a “satire” or “April fool” warning?
Constitutional or unconstitutional, any state other than New York, Texas or California that goes along with this scheme is really abandoning the right of its residents to ever again have a significant say in the election of the president, and to have their concerns considered and addressed by candidates for the presidency......
You do hear support for this monstrosity from allegedly conservative sources.
I would like them to answer this: Unless you impose national minimum eligibility requirements for voters, how does this not turn into an arms race between states to see who can enfranchise the most voters? California would immediately allow non-citizens, including illegals, to vote, along with incarcerated felons, the mentally incapacitated, and children down to birth. The latter two could vote by proxy through their parents or legal guardians, including the state itself for wards of the state. Texas would have to follow suit, or be swamped.
There would also be a turnout arms race. Unlimited absentee voting would be allowed, including over the internet, and voters would be fined for failing to vote. Voter ID laws would go straight out the window, as would any other law that could depress a state’s turnout. The name of the game for every state would be maximizing the number of popular votes counted.
Rachel appears to be an idiot with an agenda.
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