'Hacking the Constitution': States Quietly Plan to Ditch Electoral College

[nodoginnafight]

Lotta words ... lotta speculation about what would happen ....

Bottom line - national popular vote won't make all your dreams come true.

All the apologetics in the world isn't going to change the fact those pushing for this aren't interested in solving America's problems. Just like the GOP wasn't trying to right wrongs when they gerrymandered House districts (just like Democrats do).

The proposal may be advertised as a panacea to all that is wrong with the world, but it's just one more try at gaming the system to shift the balance of power to a particular political party.

 

[mvymvy]

Simple.

Just require Presidents to win BOTH the popular AND the electoral vote.
Then everyone is happy that their criteria are met. Require BOTH
to ENSURE the Candidate(s) represent the people on both counts.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes.

 

[mvymvy]

National Popular Vote will resolve the problems it’s intended to resolve – it will ensure that every voter is equal, and politically relevant to the candidates, everywhere, in every presidential election, and the candidate who received the most popular votes will become president.

From 1932-2008 the combined popular vote for Presidential candidates added up to Democrats: 745,407,082 and Republican: 745,297,123 — a virtual tie. Republicans have done very well in the national popular vote.

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.

On February 12, 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill by a 28–18 margin.

On March 25, in the New York Senate, Republicans supported the bill 27-2; Republicans endorsed by the Conservative Party by 26-2; The Conservative Party of New York endorsed the bill.
In the New York Assembly, Republicans supported the bill 21–18; Republicans endorsed by the Conservative party supported the bill 18–16.

The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former Congressmen John Anderson (R–Illinois and later independent presidential candidate), John Buchanan (R–Alabama), Tom Campbell (R–California), and Tom Downey (D–New York), and former Senators Birch Bayh (D–Indiana), David Durenberger (R–Minnesota), and Jake Garn (R–Utah).

Supporters include former Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN), Governor Jim Edgar (R–IL), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA)

Saul Anuzis, former Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party for five years and a former candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, supports the National Popular Vote plan as the fairest way to make sure every vote matters, and also as a way to help Conservative Republican candidates. This is not a partisan issue and the NPV plan would not help either party over the other.

The Nebraska GOP State Chairman, Mark Fahleson, supports NPV.

Michael Long, chairman of the Conservative Party of New York State

Rich Bolen, a Constitutional scholar, attorney at law, and Republican Party Chairman for Lexington County, South Carolina, wrote:"A Conservative Case for National Popular Vote: Why I support a state-based plan to reform the Electoral College."

Some other supporters who wrote forewords to "Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote" .:: Every Vote Equal ::. include:

Laura Brod served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2003 to 2010 and was the ranking Republican member of the Tax Committee. She was the Minnesota Public Sector Chair for ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and active in the Council of State Governments.

James Brulte the California Republican Party chairman, who served as Republican Leader of the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1996, California State Senator from 1996 to 2004, and Senate Republican leader from 2000 to 2004.

Ray Haynes served as the National Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 2000. He served in the California State Senate from 1994 to 2002 and was elected to the Assembly in 1992 and 2002

Dean Murray was a member of the New York State Assembly. He was a Tea Party organizer before being elected to the Assembly as a Republican, Conservative Party member in February 2010. He was described by Fox News as the first Tea Party candidate elected to office in the United States.

Thomas L. Pearce served as a Michigan State Representative from 2005–2010 and was appointed Dean of the Republican Caucus. He has led several faith-based initiatives in Lansing.

&&&

In May 2011, Jason Cabel Roe, a lifelong conservative activist and professional political consultant wrote in “National Popular Vote is Good for Republicans:” "I strongly support National Popular Vote. It is good for Republicans, it is good for conservatives . . . , and it is good for America. National Popular Vote is not a grand conspiracy hatched by the Left to manipulate the election outcome.
It is a bipartisan effort of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to allow every state – and every voter – to have a say in the selection of our President, and not just the 15 Battle Ground States [that then existed in 2011].

National Popular Vote is not a change that can be easily explained, nor the ramifications thought through in sound bites. It takes a keen political mind to understand just how much it can help . . . Republicans. . . . Opponents either have a knee-jerk reaction to the idea or don’t fully understand it. . . . We believe that the more exposure and discussion the reform has the more support that will build for it."

 

[mvymvy]

The founding fathers set up the electoral college because they believed in states rights. To them the states were countries and something like the EC was obviously essential. All elections, even of federal officials, had to be conducted at the state level.

Those that wish to rid us of the EC want the feds running everything.

And the EC was essential to prevent larger states like VA from determining the outcome of the elections.

Get rid of the EC and CA, TX, NY, FL and IL would determine just about every election as they have about 1/3 of the nations population.

National Popular Vote does not get rid of the Electoral College.

The bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It ensures that every voter 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 voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count.

With the Electoral College and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interests within the confines of the Constitution. The National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.

The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps for their party’s presidential candidate.

During the course of campaigns, candidates are educated and campaign about the local, regional, and state issues most important to the handful of battleground states they need to win. They take this knowledge and prioritization with them once they are elected. Candidates need to be educated and care about all of our states.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state, ensures that the candidates, after the conventions, in 2012 did not reach out to about 80% of the states and their voters. 10 of the original 13 states are ignored now. Candidates had no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they were safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

80% of the states and people were just spectators to the presidential election. That's more than 85 million voters, more than 200 million Americans.

Policies important to the citizens of non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections

The National Popular Vote bill changes state laws for how electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College.

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, 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 College votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes.

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

Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained 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."

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).

&&&&

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!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826

To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). 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).

 

[mvymvy]

Absolutely. Not to mention, residents in the bigger cities will determine the outcome for the rest of the state. Under this plan, why would a politician even bother to campaijgn in rural areas? To win NY, just campaign in NYC. To win IL, stay in Chicago...and so on.

Yep. The flyover doesn't matter a damn, it never did.

Fine, we'll stop shipping you food, then see how it doesn't matter a damn.

With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn't be about winning states. The winner of the most votes in 50 states and DC would determine the winner of the Electoral College. Residents in the bigger cities of a state will not determine the outcome for the rest of the state. Illinois and New York would award their electors to the winner of the national popular vote.

With National Popular Vote, there will not be distorting and divisive red and blue state maps (flyover states that are iignored now) with pre-determined outcomes. Every popular 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 voter 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.

A nationwide presidential campaign, with every voter 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. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.

Of the Top Ten States by total agricultural receipts (by largest to smallest), which provided over half of the total of the U.S, Total Agricultural Receipts Ranked by State from StuffAboutStates.com which were surveyed recently, support for a national popular vote was CA - 70% (enacted the National Popular Vote), IA - 75%, NE - 67%, MN - 75%, IL (enacted), NC - 74%, WI - 71%, and FL - 78%. - NationalPoplularVote

 

[mvymvy]

It would seem that if all states followed that policy that there would be the same end result - but in actuality the result would be more elections like Bush/Gore in 2000. And a major problem with that happening would be that it would not be able to be resolved in a single state but instead would be fought over country wide.

That will mean that voter fraud would have exponentially greater impact.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, mischief, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.

National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.

The closest popular-vote election count over the last 130+ years of American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.

For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.

Which system offers vote suppressors or fraudulent voters a better shot at success for a smaller effort?

&&&

The current presidential election system makes a repeat of 2000 more likely, not less likely. All you need is a thin and contested margin in a single state with enough electoral votes to make a difference. It's much less likely that the national vote will be close enough that voting irregularities in a single area will swing enough net votes to make a difference. If we'd had National Popular Vote in 2000, a recount in Florida would not have been an issue.

The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting.

No recount would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 57 previous 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.

 

[mvymvy]

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers, in 22 rural, small, medium-small, medium, and large population states, including one house in Arkansas(6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

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

By state (Electoral College votes), by political affiliation, support for a national popular vote in recent polls has been:

Alaska (3) -- 66% among (Republicans), 70% among Nonpartisan voters, 82% among Alaska Independent Party voters
Arkansas (6) -- 71% (R), 79% (Independents).
California (55) – 61% (R), 74% (I)
Colorado (9) -- 56% (R), 70% (I).
Connecticut (7) -- 67% (R)
Delaware (3) -- 69% (R), 76% (I)
DC (3) -- 48% (R), 74% of (I)
Florida (29) -- 68% (R)
Idaho(4) - 75% (R)
Iowa (6) -- 63% (R)
Kentucky (8) -- 71% (R), 70% (I)
Maine (4) - 70% (R)
Massachusetts (11) -- 54% (R)
Michigan (16) -- 68% (R), 73% (I)
Minnesota (10) -- 69% (R)
Montana (3)- 67% (R)
Mississippi (6) -- 75% (R)
Nebraska (5) -- 70% (R)
Nevada (5) -- 66% (R)
New Hampshire (4) -- 57% (R), 69% (I)
New Mexico (5) -- 64% (R), 68% (I)
New York (29) - 66% (R), 78% Independence, 50% Conservative
North Carolina (15) -- 89% liberal (R), 62% moderate (R) , 70% conservative (R), 80% (I)
Ohio (18) -- 65% (R)
Oklahoma (7) -- 75% (R)
Oregon (7) -- 70% (R), 72% (I)
Pennsylvania (20) -- 68% (R), 76% (I)
Rhode Island (4) -- 71% liberal (R), 63% moderate (R), 35% conservative (R), 78% (I),
South Carolina (8) -- 64% (R)
South Dakota (3) -- 67% (R)
Tennessee (11) -- 73% (R)
Utah (6) -- 66% (R)
Vermont (3) -- 61% (R)
Virginia (13) -- 76% liberal (R), 63% moderate (R), 54% conservative (R)
Washington (12) -- 65% (R)
West Virginia (5) -- 75% (R)
Wisconsin (10) -- 63% (R), 67% (I)
Wyoming (3) –66% (R), 72% (I)
NationalPopularVote

 

[mvymvy]

There are a couple of purple states in your list.

But it's simple mathematics, winner-take-all and the proportional over-representation enhances the rural vote.

State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaigns and to presidents once in office.

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions.- including not a single dollar in presidential campaign ad money after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee on April 11. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 10 of the most rural states. Voters in states that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

 

[nodoginnafight]

The electoral college is an integral part of a system that has produced a peaceful transition of power (save one) for about 225 years. A record that is the envy of most of the world.

Tread very carefully when you propose dicking with it.

 

[Navy1960]

The idea that a majority vote only would decide the outcome of the President would in fact go against the principles as stated above. It would lead to an election where a candidate would only have to campaign and and focus on the issues for specific areas of the country and neglect large parts of the nation as a whole simply based on the population.

The indefensible reality is that more than 99% of campaign attention was showered on voters in just ten states in 2012. Two-thirds of the general-election campaign events (176 of 253) were in just 4 states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).

1. Florida - $117.4 million2. Ohio - $112.1 million3. Virginia - $85.7 million4. North Carolina - $56.5 million5. Colorado - $54.2 million6. Iowa - $46.6 million7. Nevada - $38.2 million8. New Hampshire - $25.3 million9. Pennsylvania - $19.3 million10. Wisconsin - $8.1 million11. Michigan - $8 million12. Minnesota - $3.2 million13. New Mexico - $49,000

State By State Breakdown Of Presidential Campaign Spending Reveals Surprises

Interesting how those states that would be in play with the largest populations, California, New York, Texas, which would most likely decide the outcome of pretty much every popular vote President are low on this list. I will however concede Florida, and perhaps Ohio. Just a thought here though , do you think that if we were to switch to a popular vote only, that states like New Mexico, Nevada, or for that matter North Carolina would even matter to a potential Presidential candidate both in terms of policy and having to campaign in those states? I will also concede that the current system can stand some review, perhaps applying the same term limits on Congress and Federal Judges we apply to the President would be a good place to start. I am all in favor of a system where where the winner in each state gets the percentage of those electors his or her popular vote suggests they get rather than a winner take all.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

He said the “plan is to subvert the will of the Constitution and the founders.”

Yeah the Founders thought the masses uneducated and unable to vote for their leaders....how elitist of them...

They felt that about the presidency only and I agree with them.

 

[DiamondDave]

The president being elected by a popular vote is stupid? Interesting...

Yes, it is a stupid idea, because it completely ends the concept of soverign states. A concept that modern/liberal socialists have never really understood. We are not a nation with 50 political sub-divisions, we are 50 soverign states united to form a union that benefits all.

We fight wars as one nation, we bury our dead soldiers under one flag, we travel the world using one passport, we think of our people killed or imprisoned in foreign lands as Americans above all else, and we elected one President to lead the nation. There's a not a reason in the world why the President shouldn't be elected by popular vote.

The states are united for only certain responsibilities.. one of those being national defense... the states are indeed supposed to be sovereign...

And the reason to have the 3 branches chosen in 3 differing ways is obvious... to ensure it is not all tyranny of the masses... it is a balance to power and it is very important that the states (as stated SO many times) who actually give the power to the fed, have a say in the process as the individual entities that they are

 

[DiamondDave]

He has a point. Bush being elected by the Supreme Court once and the people a second time still pisses me off.

If you were not so ignorant about the Constitution, you would know that Bush was going to become the President regardless of how the Supreme Court ruled.

BTW, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2, that the Florida recount was unconstitutional. That stopped the patently illegal recount. Then the Court ruled 5 to 4, that time had run out and the Florida Supreme Court did not have time to conduct a legal recount.

Yes I know, the court gave him the election. He lost the Popular vote.

President is not to be and should not be chosen by popular vote.. you have the legislative branch that already is chosen by popular vote

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

The states are free to award their electoral votes in any way they see fit. There is nothing unconstitutional or illegal about this, but I think it's a bad idea.

 

[rightwinger]

If you were not so ignorant about the Constitution, you would know that Bush was going to become the President regardless of how the Supreme Court ruled.

BTW, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2, that the Florida recount was unconstitutional. That stopped the patently illegal recount. Then the Court ruled 5 to 4, that time had run out and the Florida Supreme Court did not have time to conduct a legal recount.

Yes I know, the court gave him the election. He lost the Popular vote.

President is not to be and should not be chosen by popular vote.. you have the legislative branch that already is chosen by popular vote

The legislative branch represents the states.......the president represents the people of the United States

 

[mvymvy]

The idea that a majority vote only would decide the outcome of the President would in fact go against the principles as stated above. It would lead to an election where a candidate would only have to campaign and and focus on the issues for specific areas of the country and neglect large parts of the nation as a whole simply based on the population.

The indefensible reality is that more than 99% of campaign attention was showered on voters in just ten states in 2012. Two-thirds of the general-election campaign events (176 of 253) were in just 4 states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).

1. Florida - $117.4 million2. Ohio - $112.1 million3. Virginia - $85.7 million4. North Carolina - $56.5 million5. Colorado - $54.2 million6. Iowa - $46.6 million7. Nevada - $38.2 million8. New Hampshire - $25.3 million9. Pennsylvania - $19.3 million10. Wisconsin - $8.1 million11. Michigan - $8 million12. Minnesota - $3.2 million13. New Mexico - $49,000

State By State Breakdown Of Presidential Campaign Spending Reveals Surprises

Interesting how those states that would be in play with the largest populations, California, New York, Texas, which would most likely decide the outcome of pretty much every popular vote President are low on this list. I will however concede Florida, and perhaps Ohio. Just a thought here though , do you think that if we were to switch to a popular vote only, that states like New Mexico, Nevada, or for that matter North Carolina would even matter to a potential Presidential candidate both in terms of policy and having to campaign in those states? . . . I am all in favor of a system where where the winner in each state gets the percentage of those electors his or her popular vote suggests they get rather than a winner take all.

A nationwide presidential campaign, with every voter 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. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.

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 voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

With National Popular Vote, when every voter 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.

&&&
The Founding Fathers left the choice of method of awarding electoral votes 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."

Any state that enacts the proportional approach on its own would reduce its own influence. This was the most telling argument that caused Colorado voters to agree with Republican Governor Owens and to reject this proposal in November 2004 by a two-to-one margin.

If the proportional approach were implemented by a state, on its own, it would have to allocate its electoral votes in whole numbers. If a current battleground state were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.

If states were to ever start adopting the whole-number proportional approach on a piecemeal basis, each additional state adopting the approach would increase the influence of the remaining states and thereby would decrease the incentive of the remaining states to adopt it. Thus, a state-by-state process of adopting the whole-number proportional approach would quickly bring itself to a halt, leaving the states that adopted it with only minimal influence in presidential elections.

The proportional method also could result in no candidate winning the needed majority of electoral votes. That would throw the process into Congress to decide.

If the whole-number proportional approach, the only proportional option available to an individual state on its own, had been in use throughout the country in the nation’s closest recent presidential election (2000), it would not have awarded the most electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide. Instead, the result would have been a tie of 269–269 in the electoral vote, even though Al Gore led by 537,179 popular votes across the nation. The presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide and resulted in the election of the second-place candidate in terms of the national popular vote.

A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every voter equal.

It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).

Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach, which would require a constitutional amendment, does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.

A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.

 

[AvgGuyIA]

States Quietly Sign Onto Plan to Change Election System | Fox News Insider


Guess which party rules these states.

To his credit, the last democrat governor of Iowa, Villsack, told his democrat caucus of senators he will veto that legislation. The electoral College is the only way small states will have any say in the government and choosing the President.

Calls for choosing a president by majority vote is like saying "Eat shit! 50 million flies can't be wrong."

 

[AvgGuyIA]

The need for the Electoral College is over folks. It's the 21st century. We are capable, in the 21st century, of electing our President by popular vote. People living in bumfuck don't get their news by wagon train anymore. The hicks in bumfuck can be as educated as the folks in the "inner cities" are.

10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem

Our Electoral College system is weird — and not in a good way

That isn't the reason for the electoral college. Never was and still isn't..

 

[AvgGuyIA]

And the libs are accusing republicans of wanting to disenfranchise voters. This plan could disenfranchise whole states, not just individuals.

Absolutely. Not to mention, residents in the bigger cities will determine the outcome for the rest of the state. Under this plan, why would a politician even bother to campaijgn in rural areas? To win NY, just campaign in NYC. To win IL, stay in Chicago...and so on.

Isn't that the way Electoral votes work now?

Win NYC and you will win NY State and all the Electoral votes

Yes and it's totally fair. Larger states should have proportionally larger say in the outcome, but it shouldn't be the only say.

 

[AvgGuyIA]

And the libs are accusing republicans of wanting to disenfranchise voters. This plan could disenfranchise whole states, not just individuals.

It has nothing to do with distrust for the masses.

The electoral college gives more weight to rural voters because throughout American history, rural Americans have feared that urban voters would railroad them.

That still holds true today.

Rural voters have more power per capita than Urban voters. That is how Bush got elected

States choose the President, as it should be.