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The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting.At the time of the founding the discrepancies in the electoral college were not so stark, that is, there were not such differences in population, The problem isnt the electoral college really its the winner take all that gives all the electoral votes from one state to the winner.
A national popular vote would be subject to real chaos if there was a close vote and the desire for a recount. Plus I think there are legal problems with the National Popular Vote idea.
No recount, much less a nationwide recount, would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 57 presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
“It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg
The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the miniscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida.
Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state by-state winner-take-all methods.
The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount.
Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.
The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination" six days before the Electoral College meets.
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
Instead, by state laws, without changing anything in the Constitution, The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes, and thus the presidency, to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by replacing state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes in the enacting states.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founders. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founders in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
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 every state surveyed recently. In the 39 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-83% range -in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote.com
I think the Electoral College is the poster boy for what the founders got wrong. Its an incredibly anti-democratic system that long outlived it's usefulness when voting was done by sharpened lead instrument and counting was done by people in powdered wigs.
I'm just telling you that the small states will never go for a change in the system and, regardless of what they tell you in some polling, the Democrats love going into the contests with such massive advantages.
It's sort of the karmic outcome of our founders. Today's GOP got the antiquated second Amendment (the founders never envisioned guns that could kill so efficiently) and the Democrats got the Electoral College. Its strange how neither party thought to ensure privacy. Different times I suppose.
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Really? So this is the law in nine states or four states? As far as I know, only two states (NE and ME) use proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Please enlighten me.
Correct: ME and NE do elector-splitting, per law.
Any idea what he was talking about?
No one ever said the EC 'makes' the United States a Constitutional Republic; the United States is a Constitutional Republic because that was the Framers' intent, to wisely eschew a direct democracy and referenda and opt for representative democracy where the people are subject solely to the rule of law, not the tyranny of the majority:Because we're a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy - and thankfully so.The United States is the only country that elects a politically powerful president via an electoral college and the only one in which a candidate can become president without having obtained the highest number of votes in the sole or final round of popular voting.
—George C. Edwards, 2011
Why do we need to stick to outdated legislation when it comes to one of the most important political decisions in the life of the whole country? Why not popular vote? We believe in equality and democracy but for some reason let somebody decide the fate of of this country for us.
Because the Constitution guarantees the states a republican form of government.
Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy. At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island conducted popular elections for Governor. If popular election of a state’s chief executive meant that these four states were not a “republic,” then all four would have been in immediate violation of the Constitution’s Guarantee Clause (“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”). If the states were not “republics,” the delegates from these four states would not have voted for the Constitution at the Convention and these four states would never have ratified the Constitution.
Madison’s definition of a “republic” in Federalist No. 14: “in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.” Also Federalist No. 10.
The United States would be neither more nor less a “republic” if its chief executive is elected under the current state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each separate state), under a district system (such as used by Maine and Nebraska), or under the proposed national popular vote system (in which the winner would be the candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia).
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...” Article VI, Section 4, US Constitution.
The EC, therefore, reflects the Framers' intent to create a Republic, where the EC is consistent with a republican form of government, as guaranteed by the Constitution, ensuring the states equal and full participation when electing a president.
Those who don't get the EC do not understand American history or the Constitution.
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.
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.
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.
States have the responsibility and power to make their voters relevant in every presidential election.
With National Popular Vote, with every voter equal, candidates will truly have to care about the issues and voters in all 50 states and DC. 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.
Wrong it is in the Constitution and the 12th Amendment
The method for selecting the President of the United States is laid out in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.
Two amendments also deal with the Electoral College; the 12th in 1804- the person having the greatest number of votes, which fixed an embarrassing flaw in the original Constitution that had allowed Thomas Jefferson to tie in the College with his running mate, Aaron Burr, and the 23rd Amendment, which gives Washington D.C. electoral votes (three, the same as the least populous state, Wyoming).
Most of the founders was still alive in 1804.
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
Amendment 12 - Choosing the President, Vice-President
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President,
If this is not winner take all then I don't know what is and was done in 1804.
Amendment 12 is NOT describing the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes.
The state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
Amendment 12 is saying the winner of the majority of Electoral College votes, from among all the states, is the winner of the Presidency. That would be the case with the National Popular Vote bill, too.
.....With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only 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!
Correct, but statistically very unlikely:
1.) CA 55
2.) TX 38
3.) NY 29
4.) FL 29 (subtotal: 151)
5.) IL 20
6.) PA 20
7.) OH 18
8.) MI 16
9.)GA 16 (subtotal: 241)
10.) NC 15
11.) NJ 14 (subtotal: 270)
However, this statement would not be true:
"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!"
For even if this were the scenario, in the 39 states plus DC that that candidate would have lost, he or she would still have gotten votes.
In 2008, Obama won 9 of those 11 states. In 2012, he won 8 of them. He who wins the majority of the big 10 has the far better chances of winning the WH, plain and simple. Win big where the majority of people live.
Well, no.
The small states like colloquially Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, all the way up to Virginia, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Carolina like having the candidates campaign there. It means revenue for their media outlets, hotels, restaurants, etc... and attention for their issues. There is no way they are going to give that up so it's not even worth having the conversation.
.
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
Instead, by state laws, without changing anything in the Constitution, The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes, and thus the presidency, to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by replacing state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes in the enacting states.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founders. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founders in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
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 every state surveyed recently. In the 39 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-83% range -in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote.com
I think the Electoral College is the poster boy for what the founders got wrong. Its an incredibly anti-democratic system that long outlived it's usefulness when voting was done by sharpened lead instrument and counting was done by people in powdered wigs.
I'm just telling you that the small states will never go for a change in the system and, regardless of what they tell you in some polling, the Democrats love going into the contests with such massive advantages.
It's sort of the karmic outcome of our founders. Today's GOP got the antiquated second Amendment (the founders never envisioned guns that could kill so efficiently) and the Democrats got the Electoral College. Its strange how neither party thought to ensure privacy. Different times I suppose.
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Really? So this is the law in nine states or four states? As far as I know, only two states (NE and ME) use proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Please enlighten me.
Correct: ME and NE do elector-splitting, per law.
.....With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only 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!
Correct, but statistically very unlikely:
1.) CA 55
2.) TX 38
3.) NY 29
4.) FL 29 (subtotal: 151)
5.) IL 20
6.) PA 20
7.) OH 18
8.) MI 16
9.)GA 16 (subtotal: 241)
10.) NC 15
11.) NJ 14 (subtotal: 270)
However, this statement would not be true:
"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!"
For even if this were the scenario, in the 39 states plus DC that that candidate would have lost, he or she would still have gotten votes.
In 2008, Obama won 9 of those 11 states. In 2012, he won 8 of them. He who wins the majority of the big 10 has the far better chances of winning the WH, plain and simple. Win big where the majority of people live.
That's the point.
It is a hypothetical.
The current system allows for the possibility.
It isn't political reality.
No one ever said the EC 'makes' the United States a Constitutional Republic; the United States is a Constitutional Republic because that was the Framers' intent, to wisely eschew a direct democracy and referenda and opt for representative democracy where the people are subject solely to the rule of law, not the tyranny of the majority:Because we're a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy - and thankfully so.The United States is the only country that elects a politically powerful president via an electoral college and the only one in which a candidate can become president without having obtained the highest number of votes in the sole or final round of popular voting.
—George C. Edwards, 2011
Why do we need to stick to outdated legislation when it comes to one of the most important political decisions in the life of the whole country? Why not popular vote? We believe in equality and democracy but for some reason let somebody decide the fate of of this country for us.
Because the Constitution guarantees the states a republican form of government.
Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy. At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island conducted popular elections for Governor. If popular election of a state’s chief executive meant that these four states were not a “republic,” then all four would have been in immediate violation of the Constitution’s Guarantee Clause (“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”). If the states were not “republics,” the delegates from these four states would not have voted for the Constitution at the Convention and these four states would never have ratified the Constitution.
Madison’s definition of a “republic” in Federalist No. 14: “in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.” Also Federalist No. 10.
The United States would be neither more nor less a “republic” if its chief executive is elected under the current state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each separate state), under a district system (such as used by Maine and Nebraska), or under the proposed national popular vote system (in which the winner would be the candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia).
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...” Article VI, Section 4, US Constitution.
The EC, therefore, reflects the Framers' intent to create a Republic, where the EC is consistent with a republican form of government, as guaranteed by the Constitution, ensuring the states equal and full participation when electing a president.
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
Instead, by state laws, without changing anything in the Constitution, The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes, and thus the presidency, to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by replacing state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes in the enacting states.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founders. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founders in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
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 every state surveyed recently. In the 39 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-83% range -in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote.com
I think the Electoral College is the poster boy for what the founders got wrong. Its an incredibly anti-democratic system that long outlived it's usefulness when voting was done by sharpened lead instrument and counting was done by people in powdered wigs.
I'm just telling you that the small states will never go for a change in the system and, regardless of what they tell you in some polling, the Democrats love going into the contests with such massive advantages.
It's sort of the karmic outcome of our founders. Today's GOP got the antiquated second Amendment (the founders never envisioned guns that could kill so efficiently) and the Democrats got the Electoral College. Its strange how neither party thought to ensure privacy. Different times I suppose.
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Really? So this is the law in nine states or four states? As far as I know, only two states (NE and ME) use proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Please enlighten me.
Correct: ME and NE do elector-splitting, per law.
The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
It would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
No state uses proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.
No one ever said the EC 'makes' the United States a Constitutional Republic; the United States is a Constitutional Republic because that was the Framers' intent, to wisely eschew a direct democracy and referenda and opt for representative democracy where the people are subject solely to the rule of law, not the tyranny of the majority:Because we're a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy - and thankfully so.The United States is the only country that elects a politically powerful president via an electoral college and the only one in which a candidate can become president without having obtained the highest number of votes in the sole or final round of popular voting.
—George C. Edwards, 2011
Why do we need to stick to outdated legislation when it comes to one of the most important political decisions in the life of the whole country? Why not popular vote? We believe in equality and democracy but for some reason let somebody decide the fate of of this country for us.
Because the Constitution guarantees the states a republican form of government.
Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy. At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island conducted popular elections for Governor. If popular election of a state’s chief executive meant that these four states were not a “republic,” then all four would have been in immediate violation of the Constitution’s Guarantee Clause (“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”). If the states were not “republics,” the delegates from these four states would not have voted for the Constitution at the Convention and these four states would never have ratified the Constitution.
Madison’s definition of a “republic” in Federalist No. 14: “in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.” Also Federalist No. 10.
The United States would be neither more nor less a “republic” if its chief executive is elected under the current state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each separate state), under a district system (such as used by Maine and Nebraska), or under the proposed national popular vote system (in which the winner would be the candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia).
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...” Article VI, Section 4, US Constitution.
The EC, therefore, reflects the Framers' intent to create a Republic, where the EC is consistent with a republican form of government, as guaranteed by the Constitution, ensuring the states equal and full participation when electing a president.
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.
The Electoral College never has ensured states equal and full participation when electing a president.
The indefensible reality is that more than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just ten states in 2012.
California has 55 electoral votes. Delaware 3.
Duel when there is a tie?The United States is the only country that elects a politically powerful president via an electoral college and the only one in which a candidate can become president without having obtained the highest number of votes in the sole or final round of popular voting.
—George C. Edwards, 2011
Why do we need to stick to outdated legislation when it comes to one of the most important political decisions in the life of the whole country? Why not popular vote? We believe in equality and democracy but for some reason let somebody decide the fate of of this country for us.
Well, it's a pipe dream that the small states would ever agree to give up their power in the Electoral college. Outside of denying their citizens of water or oxygen, there is no stick big enough to cajole them into giving it up.
So the next best thing would be to get a constitutional amendment forcing the President Elect to BOTH win the majority of the Electoral College (currently at 270 votes) and the plurality of the popular vote.
What do you think about that?
No, the 12th Amenment takes over; House decides the President, Senate decides the Vice President.
The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting.At the time of the founding the discrepancies in the electoral college were not so stark, that is, there were not such differences in population, The problem isnt the electoral college really its the winner take all that gives all the electoral votes from one state to the winner.
A national popular vote would be subject to real chaos if there was a close vote and the desire for a recount. Plus I think there are legal problems with the National Popular Vote idea.
No recount, much less a nationwide recount, would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 57 presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
“It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg
The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the miniscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida.
Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state by-state winner-take-all methods.
The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount.
Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.
The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination" six days before the Electoral College meets.
I grant you some of that argument.....but the campaigns are focused on state campaigns now and are very sophisticated....in the system u propose,...I can see greater chances that there would be closer campaigns nation-wide.
I also like the idea of occasional recounts...at a statewide level...to keep them honest (perhaps)...especially with these new computerized ballot counters., computerized voting booths and computerized registration systems.
I think the Electoral College is the poster boy for what the founders got wrong. Its an incredibly anti-democratic system that long outlived it's usefulness when voting was done by sharpened lead instrument and counting was done by people in powdered wigs.
I'm just telling you that the small states will never go for a change in the system and, regardless of what they tell you in some polling, the Democrats love going into the contests with such massive advantages.
It's sort of the karmic outcome of our founders. Today's GOP got the antiquated second Amendment (the founders never envisioned guns that could kill so efficiently) and the Democrats got the Electoral College. Its strange how neither party thought to ensure privacy. Different times I suppose.
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Really? So this is the law in nine states or four states? As far as I know, only two states (NE and ME) use proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Please enlighten me.
Correct: ME and NE do elector-splitting, per law.
The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
It would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
No state uses proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.
The venacular for what you described vis a vis ME and NE is "elector splitting".
The Electoral College protects minorities and reflects demography and geography.
No change at all.
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Really? So this is the law in nine states or four states? As far as I know, only two states (NE and ME) use proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Please enlighten me.
Correct: ME and NE do elector-splitting, per law.
The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
It would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
No state uses proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.
The venacular for what you described vis a vis ME and NE is "elector splitting".
One needs to be precise in word use.
There are many kinds of "splitting" possible.
There has never been a proportional split by a state.
Proportional is very different than the congressional district method, and is not subject to gerrymandered districts.
Maine has never actually "split" their electoral votes.
Nebraska has only "split" once, with one vote.
.....With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only 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!
Correct, but statistically very unlikely:
1.) CA 55
2.) TX 38
3.) NY 29
4.) FL 29 (subtotal: 151)
5.) IL 20
6.) PA 20
7.) OH 18
8.) MI 16
9.)GA 16 (subtotal: 241)
10.) NC 15
11.) NJ 14 (subtotal: 270)
However, this statement would not be true:
"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!"
For even if this were the scenario, in the 39 states plus DC that that candidate would have lost, he or she would still have gotten votes.
In 2008, Obama won 9 of those 11 states. In 2012, he won 8 of them. He who wins the majority of the big 10 has the far better chances of winning the WH, plain and simple. Win big where the majority of people live.
That's the point.
It is a hypothetical.
The current system allows for the possibility.
It isn't political reality.
Indeed.
But history shows us that the of the 4 electoral backfires we have had since 1856, excluding 1876 (which was a 3 point race), the race usually needs to be excruciatingly close to allow for a backfire. So, even in a 50% +1 vote scenario in the 11 states that could get blob a over blob b, it's would will probably be like a 50-50 race nationally.
I am, however, impressed that you are in command of these details. It appears I may have found an electoral statistics comrade-in-arms, here!
Cheers!
Really? So this is the law in nine states or four states? As far as I know, only two states (NE and ME) use proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Please enlighten me.
Correct: ME and NE do elector-splitting, per law.
The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
It would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
No state uses proportional awarding of electoral votes.
Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.
The venacular for what you described vis a vis ME and NE is "elector splitting".
One needs to be precise in word use.
There are many kinds of "splitting" possible.
There has never been a proportional split by a state.
Proportional is very different than the congressional district method, and is not subject to gerrymandered districts.
Maine has never actually "split" their electoral votes.
Nebraska has only "split" once, with one vote.
Indeed. And there is a reason why NE has not undone it's elector-splitting law.
Ask me, I'll throw you a link or two, if that interests you.
.....With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only 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!
Correct, but statistically very unlikely:
1.) CA 55
2.) TX 38
3.) NY 29
4.) FL 29 (subtotal: 151)
5.) IL 20
6.) PA 20
7.) OH 18
8.) MI 16
9.)GA 16 (subtotal: 241)
10.) NC 15
11.) NJ 14 (subtotal: 270)
However, this statement would not be true:
"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!"
For even if this were the scenario, in the 39 states plus DC that that candidate would have lost, he or she would still have gotten votes.
In 2008, Obama won 9 of those 11 states. In 2012, he won 8 of them. He who wins the majority of the big 10 has the far better chances of winning the WH, plain and simple. Win big where the majority of people live.
That's the point.
It is a hypothetical.
The current system allows for the possibility.
It isn't political reality.
Indeed.
But history shows us that the of the 4 electoral backfires we have had since 1856, excluding 1876 (which was a 3 point race), the race usually needs to be excruciatingly close to allow for a backfire. So, even in a 50% +1 vote scenario in the 11 states that could get blob a over blob b, it's would will probably be like a 50-50 race nationally.
I am, however, impressed that you are in command of these details. It appears I may have found an electoral statistics comrade-in-arms, here!
Cheers!
The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. In 2012, a shift of 214,733 popular votes in four states would have elected Mitt Romney, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of 4,966,945 votes.
After the 2012 election, Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."
