Another Attempt to Shred the Constitution

[OKTexas]

It amazes me that people say that States have rights! States are government entities and, like the Federal government, have only responsibilities and the powers needed to execute those responsibilities.

People have rights, not governments. People have a right to equality, States do not.

The current electoral system, while providing some equality between the States, guarantees against equality of the people. It should be abolished, preferably by a Constitutional amendment, however, since the states that benefit the most from the current electoral inequality will never allow such an amendment, the best alternative for insuring equality of the people is the NPV being enacted by the States.

So you think if your state majority votes for A, but B got the majority of the popular vote your votes should go to B, REALLY? Where is the equality, the majority in your state would be told to pound sand their wishes mean nothing. That's not the way a representative republic is supposed to work.

 

[NYcarbineer]

That two, three or four cities can hold more population than the rest of the state mean that the major cities control the vote. This is true in almost every state in the union.
If you wanted a truly fair representation of what each state wanted you would divide each state into 9 equal areas (in square miles) and have each section majority count as one vote. Take those votes and use them to come to a final majority state vote. Each state could place that vote for president. It would change the outcome dramatically because those in the rural areas would have the same power with their vote as the more populated urban centers.
Would it change the outcome? I believe it might but there is only one way to know for sure.

What possesses you people to talk such nonsense with what I assume is a straight face?

 

[Hum Dinger]

It amazes me that people say that States have rights! States are government entities and, like the Federal government, have only responsibilities and the powers needed to execute those responsibilities.

People have rights, not governments. People have a right to equality, States do not.

The current electoral system, while providing some equality between the States, guarantees against equality of the people. It should be abolished, preferably by a Constitutional amendment, however, since the states that benefit the most from the current electoral inequality will never allow such an amendment, the best alternative for insuring equality of the people is the NPV being enacted by the States.

So you think if your state majority votes for A, but B got the majority of the popular vote your votes should go to B, REALLY? Where is the equality, the majority in your state would be told to pound sand their wishes mean nothing. That's not the way a representative republic is supposed to work.

So if the majority of the people of the United States vote for candidate A, but candidate B wins the election because the electoral college gives people in low population states greater voting power per person, where is the equality?

The Presidential election is a NATIONAL election - every Americans should have equal voting power. It should not be determined by the States.

 

[OriginalShroom]

It amazes me that people say that States have rights! States are government entities and, like the Federal government, have only responsibilities and the powers needed to execute those responsibilities.

People have rights, not governments. People have a right to equality, States do not.

The current electoral system, while providing some equality between the States, guarantees against equality of the people. It should be abolished, preferably by a Constitutional amendment, however, since the states that benefit the most from the current electoral inequality will never allow such an amendment, the best alternative for insuring equality of the people is the NPV being enacted by the States.

So you think if your state majority votes for A, but B got the majority of the popular vote your votes should go to B, REALLY? Where is the equality, the majority in your state would be told to pound sand their wishes mean nothing. That's not the way a representative republic is supposed to work.

So if the majority of the people of the United States vote for candidate A, but candidate B wins the election because the electoral college gives people in low population states greater voting power per person, where is the equality?

The Presidential election is a NATIONAL election - every Americans should have equal voting power. It should not be determined by the States.

This is where your and every supporter of the plan is wrong and you are wrong because you have been lied to by those who want to change the system. You have swallowed those lies because you have never been properly taught the Constitution in School.

You do not vote for the President. You vote for State Representatives who will travel to Washington DC to vote for the President and Vice President.

They represent the State.

It goes back to the very basic idea that the States have the bulk of the power, not the Federal Government. Read the Constitution. The powers and authority afforded to the Federal Government is spelled out specifically. Anything and everything else, unless specifically prohibited by the Constitution belongs to the States and the People.

The Founders knew of the tyranny of the strong Federal Government and they didn't want that to happen here. That is why they wrote the Constitution the way they did.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The electoral college is a relic left over from a time when the framers could not envision the presidential race to be as nationalized as it is now; they worried about such things as favorite son candidates each winning overwhelming support from their home states or regions

flooding the race with many candidates none of which would get any significant majority or plurality of the vote.

 

[Hum Dinger]

So you think if your state majority votes for A, but B got the majority of the popular vote your votes should go to B, REALLY? Where is the equality, the majority in your state would be told to pound sand their wishes mean nothing. That's not the way a representative republic is supposed to work.

So if the majority of the people of the United States vote for candidate A, but candidate B wins the election because the electoral college gives people in low population states greater voting power per person, where is the equality?

The Presidential election is a NATIONAL election - every Americans should have equal voting power. It should not be determined by the States.

This is where your and every supporter of the plan is wrong and you are wrong because you have been lied to by those who want to change the system. You have swallowed those lies because you have never been properly taught the Constitution in School.

You do not vote for the President. You vote for State Representatives who will travel to Washington DC to vote for the President and Vice President.

They represent the State.

It goes back to the very basic idea that the States have the bulk of the power, not the Federal Government. Read the Constitution. The powers and authority afforded to the Federal Government is spelled out specifically. Anything and everything else, unless specifically prohibited by the Constitution belongs to the States and the People.

The Founders knew of the tyranny of the strong Federal Government and they didn't want that to happen here. That is why they wrote the Constitution the way they did.

I fully understand the Constitution and that the current system is based on the electoral college. What you do not understand is that the Constitution and the State laws are subject to the will of the people. They can be changed. The balance of power between the Federal Government and the States can be changed as well.

At this point in time a majority of Americans feel that the electoral college is unfair, obsolete and defies the principal of equality. We the People have the right to change it. If the only way that we can change it is to create State laws which make the electoral college moot, then that's what we will do. Once that is accomplished, it will only be a matter of time until the Constitution is amended to end the electoral college completely.


As the declaration of Independence States:

"it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it"

 

[Indofred]

Months ago he reported on Benghazi as the United States' office for running guns to the rebels in Syria via Turkey, and the movement of weapons was the motive for the attack on the consulate.

This is the story that is coming out now via CNN, and Drudge.

What; the American embassy was attacked because America too sides in a war that was nothing to do with them but in defence of Israel - again?

Bugger, and there was I thinking it was just filthy Arabs who hated freedom and democracy.

 

[mvymvy]

You do not vote for the President. You vote for State Representatives who will travel to Washington DC to vote for the President and Vice President.

They represent the State.

It goes back to the very basic idea that the States have the bulk of the power, not the Federal Government. Read the Constitution. The powers and authority afforded to the Federal Government is spelled out specifically. Anything and everything else, unless specifically prohibited by the Constitution belongs to the States and the People.

The Founders knew of the tyranny of the strong Federal Government and they didn't want that to happen here. That is why they wrote the Constitution the way they did.

Electors are dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps for presidential candidates. In the current presidential election system, 48 states award all of their electors to the winners of their state. On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 15, 2008), the electors meet in their respective States.

The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.

The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution, and enacting National Popular Vote would not change anything in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.

Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected.

The National Popular Vote bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections.

When states with a combined total of at least 270 Electoral College votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ Electoral College votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.

The National Popular Vote bill would end the disproportionate attention and influence of the "mob" in the current handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, while the "mobs" of the vast majority of states are ignored. 9 states determined the 2012 election. 10 of the original 13 states are politically irrelevant in presidential campaigns now. Four out of five Americans were ignored in the 2012 presidential election. After being nominated, Obama visited just eight closely divided battleground states, and Romney visited only 10. These 10 states accounted for 98% of the $940 million spent on campaign advertising. In 2008, 98% of the campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided "battleground" states. 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive are ignored, in presidential elections.

States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.

Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).

 

[mvymvy]

So you think if your state majority votes for A, but B got the majority of the popular vote your votes should go to B, REALLY? Where is the equality, the majority in your state would be told to pound sand their wishes mean nothing. That's not the way a representative republic is supposed to work.

Most Americans don't care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it's wrong for the candidate with the most popular votes to lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%.

In state polls of voters each with a second question that specifically emphasized that their state's electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states, not necessarily their state's winner, there was only a 4-8% decrease of support.

Question 1: "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?"

Question 2: "Do you think it more important that a state's electoral votes be cast for the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state, or is it more important to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states becomes president?"

Support for a National Popular Vote:
South Dakota -- 75% for Question 1, 67% for Question 2.

Connecticut -- 74% for Question 1, 68% for Question 2.

Utah -- 70% for Question 1, 66% for Question 2.

NationalPopularVote

 

[mvymvy]

That two, three or four cities can hold more population than the rest of the state mean that the major cities control the vote. This is true in almost every state in the union.

If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.

A nationwide presidential campaign, with every vote equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.

The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every vote is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

With National Popular Vote, when every vote is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.

Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don't campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don't control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn't have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.

In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.

Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.

There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.

 

[mvymvy]

The Founding Fathers firmly rejected a purely popular vote to elect the president

The founders intended that women NOT vote.
The founders intended that black people NOT vote.
The founders intended that native Americans NOT vote.
The founders intended that only white men with money could vote.
.

Care to back that up?

A majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation's first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.

In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote.

As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.

 

[mvymvy]

You do know there is no such thing as a nationwide vote. All votes cast even in presidential elections are for citizens of each state. This concept of pure democracy was not the intent of the founders because they recognized it as the rule of the mob. That's why we are a republic and not a democracy. The whole concept behind this yielding to the popular vote was thought up by the democrats because they want the presidential elections decided by the major metropolitan areas which tend to have greater numbers from their party. Talk about votes not being equal, the more conservative sparsely populated rural areas may as well stay home.

National Popular Vote has NOTHING TO DO with pure democracy. Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly. With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.

In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and various members of Congress who later ran for Vice President and President such as then-Congressman George H.W. Bush, and then-Senator Bob Dole.

With National Popular Vote, big cities would not get all of candidates’ attention, much less control the outcome.
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 far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.

Any candidate who ignored, for example, the 16% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a “big city” approach would not likely win the national popular vote.

If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.

None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states, and they are ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.

Support for a national popular vote in rural states: VT–75%, ME–77%, WV–81%, MS–77%, SD–75%, AR–80%, MT–72%, KY–80%, NH–69%, IA–75%,SC–71%, NC–74%, TN–83%, WY–69%, OK–81%, AK–70%, ID–77%, WI–71%, MO–70%, and NE–74%.

Vermont has enacted the National Popular Vote bill. The Maine Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill.

The bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It ensures that every vote is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. When states with a combined total of at least 270 electoral votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate. In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).

With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.

Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country.

When and where voters matter, then so do the issues they care about most.

FYI . . . With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

 

[OriginalShroom]

The founders intended that women NOT vote.
The founders intended that black people NOT vote.
The founders intended that native Americans NOT vote.
The founders intended that only white men with money could vote.
.

Care to back that up?

A majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation's first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.

In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote.

As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.

You still haven't backed up your claim.

 

[OKTexas]

It amazes me that people say that States have rights! States are government entities and, like the Federal government, have only responsibilities and the powers needed to execute those responsibilities.

People have rights, not governments. People have a right to equality, States do not.

The current electoral system, while providing some equality between the States, guarantees against equality of the people. It should be abolished, preferably by a Constitutional amendment, however, since the states that benefit the most from the current electoral inequality will never allow such an amendment, the best alternative for insuring equality of the people is the NPV being enacted by the States.

So you think if your state majority votes for A, but B got the majority of the popular vote your votes should go to B, REALLY? Where is the equality, the majority in your state would be told to pound sand their wishes mean nothing. That's not the way a representative republic is supposed to work.

So if the majority of the people of the United States vote for candidate A, but candidate B wins the election because the electoral college gives people in low population states greater voting power per person, where is the equality?

The Presidential election is a NATIONAL election - every Americans should have equal voting power. It should not be determined by the States.

Wrong answer, you vote for electors for president, technically those electors could elect someone who isn't even on the ballot. You don't like that fact, see Article 5 of the Constitution.

 

[OriginalShroom]

So you think if your state majority votes for A, but B got the majority of the popular vote your votes should go to B, REALLY? Where is the equality, the majority in your state would be told to pound sand their wishes mean nothing. That's not the way a representative republic is supposed to work.

So if the majority of the people of the United States vote for candidate A, but candidate B wins the election because the electoral college gives people in low population states greater voting power per person, where is the equality?

The Presidential election is a NATIONAL election - every Americans should have equal voting power. It should not be determined by the States.

Wrong answer, you vote for electors for president, technically those electors could elect someone who isn't even on the ballot. You don't like that fact, see Article 5 of the Constitution.

OKTexas,

Isn't it simply amazing the amount of ignorance that is shown when it comes to the very basic facts of the Constitution and the founding of the Nation?

It has to be the fault of the Schools who never taught it, but felt the need to make sure that National Hispanic Month, Nation Black History Month, National Women Month, etc.. all got plenty of exposure in the classes.

 

[JoeBlam]

Maybe it's time to remind you leftist pinheads that if Gore had carried HIS HOME STATE of Tennessee, Floriduh wouldn't have had to divine hanging-chads. That's when their hatred of the electoral college really took root...yes Gore won the popular vote but not enough states to become the 43rd president. That's the Founder's brilliance at play...something the leftist pinheads were too busy studying "diversity" in the public schools to learn about.

 

[mvymvy]

Wrong answer, you vote for electors for president, technically those electors could elect someone who isn't even on the ballot. You don't like that fact, see Article 5 of the Constitution.

There have been 22,991 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 17 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. 1796 remains the only instance when the elector might have thought, at the time he voted, that his vote might affect the national outcome. Since 1796, the Electoral College has had the form, but not the substance, of the deliberative body envisioned by the Founders. The electors now are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.

If a Democratic presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state's dedicated Democratic party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. If a Republican presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state's dedicated Republican party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. The winner of the presidential election is the candidate who collects 270 votes from Electoral College voters from among the winning party's dedicated activists.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).

The Founding Fathers left the choice of method of awarding electors exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected.

The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.

 

[mvymvy]

Maybe it's time to remind you leftist pinheads that if Gore had carried HIS HOME STATE of Tennessee, Floriduh wouldn't have had to divine hanging-chads. That's when their hatred of the electoral college really took root...yes Gore won the popular vote but not enough states to become the 43rd president. That's the Founder's brilliance at play...something the leftist pinheads were too busy studying "diversity" in the public schools to learn about.

Anyone who supports the current presidential election system, believing it is what the Founders intended and that it is in the Constitution, is mistaken. The current presidential election system does not function, at all, the way that the Founders thought that it would.

Supporters of National Popular Vote find it hard to believe the Founding Fathers would endorse the current electoral system where 80% of the states and voters now are completely politically irrelevant. 10 of the original 13 states are ignored now. Four out of five Americans were ignored in the 2012 presidential election. After being nominated, Obama visited just eight closely divided battleground states, and Romney visited only 10. These 10 states accounted for 98% of the $940 million spent on campaign advertising. In 2008, presidential campaigns spent 98% of their resources in just 15 battleground states, where they were not hopelessly behind or safely ahead, and could win the bare plurality of the vote to win all of the state’s electoral votes. Now the majority of Americans, in small, medium-small, average, and large states are ignored. Virtually none of the small states receive any attention. None of the 10 most rural states is a battleground state. 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX are ignored. That’s over 85 million voters, 200 million Americans. Once the conventions are over, presidential candidates now don’t visit or spend resources in 80% of the states. Candidates know the Republican is going to win in safe red states, and the Democrat will win in safe blue states, so they are ignored. States have the responsibility and power to make their voters relevant in every presidential election.

With National Popular Vote, with every vote equal, candidates will truly have to care about the issues and voters in all 50 states and DC. A vote in any state will be as sought after as a vote in Florida. Part of the genius of the Founding Fathers was allowing for change as needed. When they wrote the Constitution, they didn’t give us the right to vote, or establish state-by-state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes, or establish any method, for how states should award electoral votes. Fortunately, the Constitution allowed state legislatures to enact laws allowing people to vote and how to award electoral votes.

The Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The National Popular Vote bill would change current state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), to a system guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.

The bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It ensures that every vote is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count.

When states with a combined total of at least 270 ELECTORAL COLLEGE votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ ELECTORAL COLLEGE votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!