Mass. Legislature approves plan to bypass Electoral College

[American Horse]

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

<SNIP>
National Popular Vote is a bipartisan coalition of legislators, scholars, constitutionalists and grassroots activists committed to preserving the Electoral College, while guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who earns the most votes in all fifty states.

NationalPopularVote.com

That may be what they profess, but the effect of doing that would be the dénouement of the electoral College, preserving it in name only. Before long thereafter, people would be asking "why are we doing this meaningless practice" and it would be done away with completely, and we would become a democracy, and give up our republican principles.

This is just another back-ass-ward POV, meant to destroy yet another of our institutions.

Putting questions of governance to the citizens in the form of plebiscites or referenda is dangerous because doing that takes the responsiblity away from elected officials and puts it in the hands of the citizens, who most often haven't read the question prior to walking into the voting booths. Their vote becomes influenced by the urgency of just taking a stab at what they, at the moment consture the choices to be, and they can be phrased in complicated prose, that mean exactly the opposite of first perceptions.

EDIT; here is a link to another thread regarding a state that has legislated by plebiscites for 40 years,

People Begin Living Without Electricity and Water in California

 

[mvymvy]

The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as obscurely far down in name recognition as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States.

When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all rules, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.

Likewise, under a national popular vote, every vote everywhere will be equally important politically. There will be nothing special about a vote cast in a big city or big state. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.

If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a "big city" approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn't be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.

 

[Avatar4321]

No. When every vote is equal they will go to the areas where they can get the most bang for their buck. Which is which is the bigger urban areas.

What's the point of talking to one or two people in a small town coffee shop when you can be getting thousands of people in Central Park?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

You have utterly failed to even provide a single example of why it is not.

Hmm. Here you go:

... determines what vote our State will cast ...

You really are a dumb ass aren't you? You got nothing. Just admit you are wrong and move on.

 

[Greenbeard]

You really are a dumb ass aren't you? You got nothing. Just admit you are wrong and move on.

I really don't know why this is hard for you, you're really supposed to learn this before they give you a high school diploma. The President is not democratically elected in the United States. He's selected by an Electoral College which is deliberately not made up of elected (federal) public officials. In the present day, you get to have a vote in you state which influences which partisan slate of electors your state selects, which I suppose gives you the illusion that the Electoral College is a democratic system. It's not:

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.​

A democratic system would be that used to choose Representatives:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States...​

If selections made by the Electoral College are a "democratic process," do you consider Senate confirmations of federal judges to be a democratic process? Is the federal judiciary full of, ah, "democratically elected" judges simply because someone that people ultimately did vote for had a role in selecting/confirming them?

 

[zzzz]

You really are a dumb ass aren't you? You got nothing. Just admit you are wrong and move on.

I really don't know why this is hard for you, you're really supposed to learn this before they give you a high school diploma.

Do they really teach kids government in high school anymore?????

 

[SFC Ollie]

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The senatorial confirmations of executive appoints and the Electoral College's selection of the President of the U.S. are not democratic but rather republican procedures. Every graduate from high school should know the difference between the two types of governance as mandated by the Constitution and as directed in the various states.

 

[mvymvy]

No. When every vote is equal they will go to the areas where they can get the most bang for their buck. Which is which is the bigger urban areas.

What's the point of talking to one or two people in a small town coffee shop when you can be getting thousands of people in Central Park?

The main media at the moment, TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. So, if you just looked at TV, candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.

 

[DiveCon]

No. When every vote is equal they will go to the areas where they can get the most bang for their buck. Which is which is the bigger urban areas.

What's the point of talking to one or two people in a small town coffee shop when you can be getting thousands of people in Central Park?

The main media at the moment, TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. So, if you just looked at TV, candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.

but it doesnt cost less per person reached