Two Bad Presidential Election Ideas Require Rejection
Nix the "national popular vote," and keep states' winner-take-all electoral voting.
September 29, 2011 - 12:19 am
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The frustration of Keystone State residents outside of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metro areas is understandable. Those two blue urban tails in an otherwise red state have wagged the presidential dog for decades. Pennsylvania’s switch to CEV would probably mean about a dozen electoral votes for the 2012 Republican nominee in a state the GOP hasn’t won since 1988.
Though the practice is probably constitutional, the arguments against CEV go to the Founders’ intent and longer-term problems:
- As noted earlier, the Founders wanted the states and not individual congressional districts to decide who should be president.
- States would see concerted attempts by the national parties to influence the shape of already far-too-gerrymandered congressional districts. This could make an intolerable situation (see Illinois; Ohio) even worse.
- An incumbent president could bypass the states and direct disproportionate and highly visible pork and other government goodies to key districts in amounts which would make today’s efforts look like child’s play. At some point, individual district giveaways might become expected as a price of admission. I even wonder if relatively red Cincinnati-area congressional districts could be bought off if President Obama made sure that the replacement for the chronically overcrowded Brent Spence Bridge between Ohio and Kentucky got magically fast-tracked instead of pretending it was, as he did last week. Presidential challengers, instead of campaigning on overall national priorities, would feel compelled to join the bidding, but with far less credibility. Even if we weren’t nearly broke as a nation, this would be a serious problem. Because we are, it could be fatal.
- At the extreme — well, really not so extreme given President Obama’s months of delay in fully reacting to the Texas wildfires — an incumbent could shower swing districts with disaster relief and withhold it from or be stingy with those who oppose him. In a CEV regime, such localized selectivity could have a chilling effect on voter decisions (“If we don’t support him, will he leave us high and dry in the next catastrophe?”).
NPV and CEV should both be DOA — Dead On Arrival. The fact that they aren’t shows how far we have strayed from fundamental constitutional principles and the Founders’ intent.
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Tom, you’re right about the NPV but wrong I think about the what did you call it? CEV. The two reasons why NPV is bad are that (A) it means vote fraud in the darkest, slimiest neighborhoods of Chicago can override legitimate votes made in every other city and state, and (B) that you KNOW the Democrats are going to sue to undo their agreement if the popular vote ever goes to a Republican. What is the “popular vote” anyway, if votes are counted differently or eligibility is different (i.e. do felons vote?) in different states. Seems like a state could “cheat” by having its state legislature choose its candidate, and give “all” the votes to their choice.
CEV on the other hand seems reasonable, and as you mention, my home state of Maine has been doing it for as long as I can remember with no problems. Your argument about pork is weak — every district has its own Congressman and each of them is already hard at work scooping up as much pork as they possibly can. The benefit of the CEV increases as voter fraud increases, and it is currently rampant in the big cities, anywhere Democrats gather. The CEV plan would be a fine way for Pennsylvanians in the rural districts to neutralize the ACORN-type ballot box stuffing that goes on in urban districts. (The urban districts are already a lock for the Democrat, so you’d reduce the impact of voter fraud to a practical zero.)
In terms of what’s best for the states and the people, it makes sense to me that “swing” states would want to vote as a block, so they can maximize their national clout, but states that are a lock for one party or another would be better off switching to a district-by-district system, so that the minority party is not forever exploited. Pennsylvania used to be a swing state, but we know it isn’t anymore.
One more thing: Who needs voter fraud when you can rig the rules in your favor? What’s to stop the California legislature from lowering the voting age to 14 to drum up an extra million votes for democrats?
The United State Consitution, Amendment 26.
Not true. The 26th Amendment states that persons 18 years old or older cannot be denied the right to vote due to age. This means a State cannot set its legal voting age above the age of 18. Nothing in the Amendment precludes a State from setting its voting age to be lower than 18.
This Amendment creates a ceiling, not a floor, for the voting age.
You had better read that again! “The 26th Amendment states that persons 18 years old or older cannot be denied the right to vote due to age.” That sets 18 as the floor, not the ceiling.
@Voice of Reason – the 26th Amendment prohibits a State from setting its voting age above the age of 18. Therefore, a state cannot say you need to be 21 to vote, as it violates the Amendment as that person would be 18 years old or older and having his voting rights abridged.
If a State wanted to set their voting age at 16, 14, or even 12, the Amendment does not prohibit that since the person would not be “18 years of age or older”. A State could set their voting age to 12 without violating this Amendment but could not set it to 21. Hence, it is a ceiling as to the maximum age a person can be and still be prohibited from voting based on age.
“The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.”
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud. A very few people can change the national outcome by changing 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.
Senator Birch Bayh summed up the concerns about possible fraud in a nationwide popular election for by saying in 1979, “one of the things we can do to limit fraud is to limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. Under a direct popular vote system, one fraudulent vote wins one vote in the return. In the electoral college system, one fraudulent vote could mean 45 electoral votes, 28 electoral votes.”
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: “To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .
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, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?”
OK, you’ve persuaded me. I was wrong to conclude that swing states should stay as a block. Instead, every state should go to what the author calls CEV. CEV, as I explained in comment #1, effectively neutralizes voter fraud, isolating it in the districts where Democrats already have a lock on the outcome.
You are wrong to suggest that the national popular vote insulates against fraud. It does exactly the opposite, making it so that voter fraud in Democrat-controlled districts in all fifty states overrides the legitimate vote everywhere else. No, they aren’t going to fake 100,000 votes in *one* district, but across the entire country it’s very possible.
The U.S. Constitution does not require that the election laws of all 50 states are identical in virtually every respect. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment only restricts a given state in the manner it treats persons “within its jurisdiction.” The Equal Protection Clause imposes no obligation on a given state concerning a “person” in another state who is not “within its [the first state's] jurisdiction.” State election laws are not identical now. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution specifically permits diversity of election laws among the states because it explicitly gives the states control over the conduct of presidential elections (article II). The Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution permit states to conduct elections in varied ways. The National Popular Vote compact is patterned directly after existing federal law and preserves state control of elections and requires each state to treat as “conclusive” each other state’s “final determination” of its vote for President.
Current federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the “canvas”) in what is called a “Certificate of Ascertainment.” They list the electors and the number of votes cast for each. The Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes reported in the Certificates of Ascertainment. You can see the Certificates of Ascertainment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia containing the official count of the popular vote at the NARA web site.
The National Popular Vote compact delays the effective date of a withdrawal until after the inauguration of the new President if the withdrawal occurred in the six-month period between July 20 of a presidential election year and the inauguration. Any law attempting to repeal the compact after the people vote in November, but before the Electoral College meets in December would violate the Impairments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and be void.
● Any attempt to appoint presidential electors after the people vote in November would violate existing federal law requiring that presidential electors be appointed on a single designated day in every four-year period, namely the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (i.e., Election Day).
● Any attempt to appoint presidential electors after the people vote in November would invalidate the “conclusiveness” of that state’s results under existing federal law specifying that presidential electors must be appointed under “laws enacted prior” to the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (Election Day).
● Any attempt to appoint presidential electors after the people vote in November would probably not matter anyways under the National Popular Vote compact because the national popular vote winner would typically receive about 75% of electoral votes in the Electoral College, thereby producing a cushion of about 135 electoral votes above the 270 needed to win the Presidency.
● Any attempt to appoint presidential electors after the people vote in November could only be contemplated, as a practical matter, in about three states because of the partisan division of most state governments, the significant time delay before new state laws take effect in most states, quorum requirements; and delays built into the legislative process by state constitutional provisions and legislative rules.
● Any attempt to appoint presidential electors after the people vote in November would be politically implausible in the real world.
You’re assuming here that Democrats respect the rule of law? All it takes is for Anthony Kennedy to wake up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning, and the NPV compact will be “unconstitutional”. Can you imagine if the popular vote in 2012 goes to somebody like Sarah Palin, and the moonbats in Massachusetts are forced to hand her their electoral votes? You really think they or their bought-and-paid-for federal judges will care about the letter of the law? Even if they CAN’T stop the NPV compact in the courts, they’ll spend the next 20 years telling us Palin only became President because the evil conservative Supreme Court handed it to her.
Take note of the word “delay” above and consider that the entire field of selection for judges consists of parasites that have every thing to gain and nothing to lose from any form of delay. Until this malignancy is isolated from big money, only their fear of reprisal totally outside of their game rules of litigation is apt to alter their course. International funds supporting agenda biased selection and election process is a matter of history and can be expected to continue with no apparent improvement in their individual parasitic morality.
If the results of 2008 and success of ramrodded economic suicide committed by one party with less than total objection by the other haven’t already grabbed your attention, you can expect the use of all available old means and more new dirty tricks for your consideration in 2012 while both parties avoid initiation of well documented constitutional violations named as cause for impeachment. Requiring court order for FIA information from the DOJ and fifth amendment abuse before congressional investigators has now become as common as insider trading info.
It would seem that both parties are complicit in corruption and using TV media whitewash and omission for cover. It should be obvious that one party provides the slander of the tea party movement while the other provides little defense and the media promotes party above patriotism.
Timely uncontested vote count can not to be expected to prevail with more soulless parasite barristers waiting for political opportunity to delay both criminal discovery and democratic electoral process for foreign financial gain limited only by daring.
OBAMA’S IMPOSSIBLE TITANIC STRUGGLE
Just before Barack Obama defeated John McCain for the presidency he confidently told his followers at a political rally in Virginia, “I feel that righteous winds are at our backs.” And sure enough less than one month later he was blown into office by an economic hurricane. Now three years later with the hurricane returning and picking up strength “the winds,” says David Axelrod, are blowing smack into Obama’s “face,” and that he [the titanic failure] has a “titanic struggle” ahead.
For a sitting president to surmount a “titanic struggle” for reelection he must have titanic moral strength and leadership abilities-which are sorely lacking in this ineffective, mendacious, blundering, incompetent president. Obama’s reelection doesn’t have a prayer, and it would be best if he withdrew from the race as there are nothing but killer icebergs ahead.
Apart from his mental and moral deficiencies, and the miserably underperforming, overregulated, overtaxed economy, there are two good reasons why Obama is unreelectable:
Click my name to read the rest of this widely linked piece at my TOP Townhall.com blog.
You say “this ineffective, mendacious, blundering, incompetent president”. I respectfully disagree. He is far more dangerous than simply being an incompetent boob. If only it was as simple as that. He is a very effective and very dedicated socialist/Marxist. We should recognize who the enemy really is since total victory will never be accomplished unless we do.
I agree with you wholeheartedly! I’m really sick of people mislabelling him as an incompetant. His executive orders alone show this. Everytime there is a sign of recovery in the economy he writes an executive order to kill it.
Seriously – if his stated goal was to destroy the United States of America (HIS stated goal is to fundamentally CHANGE it) what in the world would he do differently?
Obama himself IS incompetent when it comes to normal adult behavior in public. He cannot even call his dog without a teleprompter, and he cannot even read the thing fluently.
That said, his HANDLERS (Soros, Valerie Jarrett, and others) are the ones calling the shots. Whenever THEY spot anything that could help the economy, THEY have Obama do something to kill it immediately.
It will never happen, even though it would be the right thing to do. But that really does define his presidency, doesn’t it?
“The frustration of Keystone State residents outside of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metro areas is understandable.”
This NPV nonsense always brings this de Tocqueville quote to mind.
“There is, in fact a manly and lawful passion for equality that incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
According to the history I remember (If I’m wrong please correct me) Senators originally chose the president based on the states votes. Why did that get changed?
Another point was made about gerrymandering and I think a plan should be put in place to abolish gerrymandering totally. All districts should be based on an equation requiring minimum perimeter for maximum area to allow equal population of those living in adjacent districts. No more basing it on who lives where. The only caveat is that caused by state lines or national borders.
I’d adjust that to preclude fractional counties.
@4 Chris – No, Senators never elected the President as a result of the election itself. That task belongs to the Electoral College. The official ballots of the Electoral College are counted in the Senate and certified by the Senate, if there is a winner. However, in the event of a tie, the House elects the President. See the 12 Amendment for the procedure.
Agree that NPV is a disaster in the making, but if you live in a Blue state like me, the CEV is at least a hope that my vote counts. As it is now, mine has absolutely no impact on the election process. And the winner take all electoral college does dis-enfranchise every republican in the NE and the west coast.
Dividing Pennsylvania’s electoral votes by district would magnify the worst features of the system and not reflect the diversity of Pennsylvania.
The district approach would provide less incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in all Pennsylvania districts and would not focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the whole state. Candidates would have no reason to campaign in districts where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind.
Due to gerrymandering, in 2008, only 4 Pennsylvania districts were competitive.
In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine’s 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored)
In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska’s reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant.
When votes matter, presidential candidates vigorously solicit those voters. When votes don’t matter, they ignore those areas.
Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. 88% of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
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 becomes President.
You (or rather the NPV propaganda piece you copied and pasted) neglects to consider the 2 at-large electors in each state. Thus, a vote will be significant if either the district or the state is competitive. Furthermore, why should Texas have to play by California’s rules, or vice versa, or else be subject to having their votes canceled out by people who are eligible to vote in the state they live in, but would not be eligible to vote if they lived in a different state? Without uniform, national standards on voter eligibility, NPV is fraud masquerading as democracy. I already brought up the matter of states lowering the voting age unilaterally in order to gain more votes; they would also be able to allow non-citizens to vote, or even non-residents if it were convenient to do so.
The U.S. Constitution does not require that the election laws of all 50 states are identical in virtually every respect. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment only restricts a given state in the manner it treats persons “within its jurisdiction.” The Equal Protection Clause imposes no obligation on a given state concerning a “person” in another state who is not “within its [the first state's] jurisdiction.” State election laws are not identical now. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution specifically permits diversity of election laws among the states because it explicitly gives the states control over the conduct of presidential elections (article II). The Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution permit states to conduct elections in varied ways. The National Popular Vote compact is patterned directly after existing federal law and preserves state control of elections and requires each state to treat as “conclusive” each other state’s “final determination” of its vote for President.
The National Popular Vote bill does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
When did I say it was unconstitutional? You don’t even bother to think; you just copy and paste. I never said the compact was unconstitutional; I only said that it would be contrary to the basic idea of federalism and basic notions of fairness. Sure, the states can enter the compact if they want to (assuming it is ratified by Congress), but I find the idea abhorrent without uniform standards for eligibility and enforcement across the country. I am opposed to the NPV plan, but that doesn’t mean I think it would be illegal to enforce (unless improperly ratified).
No, but it violates Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution:
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, . . ., enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, . . .
Unless Congress has consented, the Compact itself is unconstitutional, and that calls into question any laws derived from it.
Assuming Congress would actually consent to such a plan, you may as well just have them propose an Amendment if so many states are so eager to switch to a direct vote for the President.
Congressional consent is not required for the National Popular Vote compact under prevailing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. However, because there would undoubtedly be time-consuming litigation about this aspect of the compact, National Popular Vote is working to introduce a bill in Congress for congressional consent.
The U.S. Constitution provides:
“No state shall, without the consent of Congress,… enter into any agreement or compact with another state….”
Although this language may seem straight forward, the U.S. Supreme Court has method, in 1893 and again in 1978, that the Compacts Clause can “not be read literally.” In deciding the 1978 case of U.S. Steel Corporation v. Multistate Tax Commission, the Court wrote:
“Read literally, the Compact Clause would require the States to obtain congressional approval before entering into any agreement among themselves, irrespective of form, subject, duration, or interest to the United States.
“The difficulties with such an interpretation were identified by Mr. Justice Field in his opinion for the Court in [the 1893 case] Virginia v. Tennessee. His conclusion [was] that the Clause could not be read literally [and this 1893 conclusion has been] approved in subsequent dicta.”
Specifically, the Court’s 1893 ruling in Virginia v. Tennessee stated:
“Looking at the clause in which the terms ‘compact’ or ‘agreement’ appear, it is evident that the prohibition is directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States.”
The state power involved in the National Popular Vote compact is specified in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 the U.S. Constitution:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
In the 1892 case of McPherson v. Blacker (146 U.S. 1), the Court wrote:
“The appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States”
The National Popular Vote compact would not “encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States” because there is simply no federal power — much less federal supremacy — in the area of awarding of electoral votes in the first place.
As things stand now, there is not even any Constitutional requirement that an elector must vote for the candidate who got a plurality of the popular vote. (Yes, all that it takes is a plurality, not even a true majority.)
So-called “faithless electors” have voted for whoever they damn well pleased, throughout American history. Some 24 states now have laws punishing faithless electors–but in the other states, an elector can vote cockeyed just for the heck of it.
How democratic is that?
And in 2000, that could have happened. The FL election recount was so close and so uncertain that there was a real possibility that some electors could just ignore the whole thing and vote for whoever they wanted.
And as others have already pointed out, the “winner take all” rule–which is not a Constitutional requirement but just happens to be the way states do things–totally disenfranchises voters who are living in states which routinely vote the other way. I live in MA, so I might as well not bother to vote for President. Obama is going to win MA in 2012, barring some total electoral catastrophe. Conversely, a Democrat living in Idaho or Utah might as well not bother to vote for Obama–those states’ electors aren’t going to go for Obama.
Please go ahead and vote. The O may get the catastrophe you’re looking for.
Your vote would matter under National Popular Vote. Massachusetts has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state and district (in ME and NE). Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn’t be about winning states or districts (in ME and NE). No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast.
There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges. Faithless electors are not a practical problem, and most states have complete authority to remedy any problem there could be, by means of state law.
“Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election”
That’s a problem. Why should my vote in California be offset by someone who’s been dead for a hundred years in Illinois?
1) Who started this crap?
If it was the Left, then immediately reject it all.
2) The Electoral College is a reminder that the USA is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. (Thank God!)
The States count, too, not just the citizens.
3) You can always come up with a scenario where someone yells, “Hey, that’s not fair!”
This is a sure sign the system is working well.
this is a scheme by the left to target large urban voting blocs of supposed “d” votes and nullify the red state but low population (r) strongholds
Anyone concerned about the relative power of big states and small states should realize that the current system shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in the current handful of big states.
Under National Popular Vote, when every vote counts equally, successful candidates will find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Ohio and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support. Elections wouldn’t be about winning states.
Now political clout comes from being a battleground state.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are almost invariably non-competitive, and ignored, in presidential elections. Six regularly vote Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota), and six regularly vote Democratic (Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC) in presidential elections.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska — 70%, DC — 76%, Delaware –75%, Idaho – 77%, Maine — 77%, Montana – 72%, Nebraska — 74%, New Hampshire –69%, Nevada — 72%, New Mexico — 76%, Oklahoma – 81%, Rhode Island — 74%, South Dakota – 71%, Utah – 70%, Vermont — 75%, and West Virginia – 81%, and Wyoming – 69%.
Nine state legislative chambers in the lowest population states have passed the National Popular Vote bill. It has been enacted by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Vermont.
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.
The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as obscurely far down as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States.
Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.
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.
Evidence as to how a nationwide presidential campaign would be run, can be found by examining the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Because every vote is equal inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns. 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 in Ohio and Florida already knows–namely that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the state.
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. It is certainly true that the biggest cities in those states typically vote Democratic. However, the suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and rural parts of the states often voted Republican. 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.
Under a national popular vote, every vote everywhere will be equally important politically. There will be nothing special about a vote cast in a big city or big state. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.
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). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground States: CO– 68%, 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%, ME — 77%, NE — 74%, NH –69%, NV — 72%, NM — 76%, RI — 74%, and VT — 75%; in Southern and Border states: AR –80%, KY — 80%, MS –77%, MO — 70%, NC — 74%, and VA — 74%; and in other states polled: CA — 70%, CT — 74% , MA — 73%, MN – 75%, NY — 79%, WA — 77%, and WV- 81%.
2/3rds of the states and people have been just spectators to the presidential elections. That’s more than 85 million voters.
States have the responsibility and power to make their voters relevant in every presidential election.
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.”
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).
The Republic is not in any danger from National Popular Vote. It has nothing to do with direct democracy.
Supporters of National Popular Vote find it hard to believe the Founding Fathers would endorse an electoral system where 2/3rds of the states and voters now are completely politically irrelevant. 9 of the original 13 states are ignored now. Presidential campaigns spend 98% of their resources in just 15 battleground states, where they aren’t hopelessly behind or safely ahead, and can 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 (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) 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. Once the primaries are over, presidential candidates don’t visit or spend resources in 2/3rds 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. More than 85 million voters have been just spectators to the general election. States have the responsibility and power to make their voters relevant in every presidential election.
Under a national popular vote, with every vote equal, candidates will truly have to care about the issues and voters in all 50 states. 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, 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.
Under National Popular Vote, citizens would not rule directly but, instead, continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes, to represent them and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
People and states that want a popular vote to prevail should simply go for a constitutional amendment. If they don’t get it, too bad. That’s the way our constitution works. And if there was only a popular vote, then whoever won the larger states would win the election. The smaller states would not matter at all and nobody would probably even see a candidate there. That is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind, nor should that be the way we do it. What we have has served us well for well over 200 years. I don’t think it’s time to change at all.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are almost invariably non-competitive, and ignored, in presidential elections. Six regularly vote Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota), and six regularly vote Democratic (Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC) in presidential elections.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska — 70%, DC — 76%, Delaware –75%, Idaho – 77%, Maine — 77%, Montana – 72%, Nebraska — 74%, New Hampshire –69%, Nevada — 72%, New Mexico — 76%, Oklahoma – 81%, Rhode Island — 74%, South Dakota – 71%, Utah – 70%, Vermont — 75%, and West Virginia – 81%, and Wyoming – 69%.
Nine state legislative chambers in the lowest population states have passed the National Popular Vote bill. It has been enacted by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Vermont.
Under the current system, the 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States, and a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in just these 11 biggest states — that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.
With National Popular Vote, big states that are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country, would not get all of the candidates’ attention. In recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have been split — five “red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six “blue” states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). 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. 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).
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.”
The constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, 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.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
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, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current 48 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 a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
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. Maine and Nebraska do not use the winner-take-all method– a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes.
If you think of CEV as the counter-reaction to NPV, it makes sense in the same way the “Mutually Assured Destruction” made sense for the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War. If the Democrats are hell-bent on pushing through their law, realizing that not only can’t they get an immediate majority, but that the counter-plan on a state-by-state basis can be implemented far more quickly (and in fact already exists for electoral votes in Maine and Nebraska) might actually make a few of them think twice on whether or not continuing this effort it really all that hot an idea.
Republican legislators seem quite “confused” about the merits and fairness of the congressional district method. The leadership committee of the Nebraska Republican Party just adopted a resolution requiring all GOP elected officials to favor overturning their district method for awarding electoral votes or lose the party’s support.
And up in Maine, the only other state beside Nebraska to use the district method, earlier this year, Republican leaders proposed and passed a constitutional amendment that, if passed at referendum, will require a 2/3rds vote in all future redistricting decisions. Now they want to pass a majority-only plan to make redistricting in their favor even easier.
These obvious unprincipled partisan attempts to make the current system even less fair, makes the case for the National Popular Vote plan all the stronger.
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). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground States: CO– 68%, 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%, ME — 77%, NE — 74%, NH –69%, NV — 72%, NM — 76%, RI — 74%, and VT — 75%; in Southern and Border states: AR –80%, KY — 80%, MS –77%, MO — 70%, NC — 74%, and VA — 74%; and in other states polled: CA — 70%, CT — 74% , MA — 73%, MN – 75%, NY — 79%, WA — 77%, and WV- 81%.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC (3), HI (4), IL (19), NJ (14), MD (11), MA (10), CA (55), VT (3), and WA (13). These 9 jurisdictions possess 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
If your numbers are accurate, then it should be a no brainer to put forth an amendment using Article V and abolish the Electoral College in a constitutional manner. In fact, it would likely occur if the idea had such overwhelming support. So I don’t for a minute buy the reported numbers. This movement is sour grapes of liberals for loosing in 2000.
Other commenters have made the point that the argument for the compact is moot anyhow, i.e. the compact is unconstitional under Article I, Section 10, paragraph 3. So I assume you’re trying to drum up support for the amendment route? If so, good luck there.
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.
What the current U.S. Constitution says is “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 normal way of changing the method of electing the President is not a federal constitutional amendment, but changes in state law. The U.S. Constitution gives “exclusive” and “plenary” control to the states over the appointment of presidential electors.
Historically, virtually all of the previous major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation’s first election in 1789. However, nowadays, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.
In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state’s electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all method is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.
In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.
Well I, for one, like CEV. Without CEV, your vote only really matters if you’re in a swing state. With CEV, your vote matters if you live in a swing state OR A SWING DISTRICT.
When votes matter, presidential candidates vigorously solicit those voters. When votes don’t matter, they ignore those areas.
Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. 88% of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
The whole “districts will be ignored” thing is a fallacy to begin with. If you’re a Democrat (and clearly you are), then corruption is a feature and not a bug for you. You want a President who will steal money from your neighbors and lade out the pork to your district. You are really upset at the idea that the candidates might “pay attention to” the next town down the street, but “ignore” your town.
The Presidency is a national office and ideally we (conservatives) want the President to act on our principles of government, NOT pay us back for our votes. A system like CEV that neutralizes electoral fraud and enfranchises the often-rural often-conservative districts beats your NPV on both counts.
In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine’s 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored)
In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska’s reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant.
When votes matter, presidential candidates vigorously solicit those voters. When votes don’t matter, they ignore those areas.
The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all method (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since 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.
Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only the current handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters. There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win. 9 of the original 13 states are considered “fly-over” now. In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree already, that, at most, only 14 states and their voters will matter. None of the 10 most rural states will matter, as usual. Almost 75% of the country will be ignored –including 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. This will be more obscene than the 2008 campaign, when candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
2/3rds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election. That’s more than 85 million voters ignored.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
I would suggest that the admins or moderators give some thought to suspending this guy’s account. It’s not merely that he’s copy-pasting long blocks of text from some outside source — it’s that he’s copy-pasting the SAME block of text in several different responses. Here’s a case where it’s irrelevant to the commment it responds to.
I believe that your CEV approach is racist!! Under winner takes all, black voters in major cities such as Philadelphia appear to be able to made good money voting multiple times for the dem candidates. Doesn’t Philadelphia have data on the number of voters in a given election being 120% of the actual population?
Thus, the CEV would take a proven earning opportunity away from a vulnerable population at the time that they are being most hurt by the evil Tea Party and their refusal to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires (except show business people, labor lords, politicians, plaintiffs’ attorneys, black athletes, all their relatives and anyone else who the administration believes is worthy of a waiver).
The one called CEV might help Republicans in 2012 in Pennsylvania, but it still activates my conservative radar. Somehow every change that happens pushes the country toward marxism.
Leave well enough alone.
The problem with either of these “solutions” is the recounts that would ensue. Think Bush/Gore, or worse, Franken/Coleman. The election counting would last 6 months or more… in every single district in the country. It would be a battle of attrition. Once one side finally lost, there would still be cries of cheating and illegitimacy. We would never have election results to which people would acquiesce. Such chaos would lead directly to fighting. Throw in proven election fraud after the fact, and the guns would come out. “When the ballot box fails, all that is left is the ammo box.”
These ideas would be the destruction of our Republic in an attempt to make it a Democracy. The worst thing is, it wouldn’t be about making it a Democracy at all, because this is machine politics at its worst.
This would lead to blood in the streets.
These ideas would be the destruction of our Republic in an attempt to make it a Democracy. The worst thing is, it wouldn’t be about making it a Democracy at all, because this is machine politics at its worst.
Bingo. Majority rule (i.e. ‘democracy’) would eliminate representation of any minority concern and put us one step closer to tyranny.
Save the republic.
The congressional district method would make recounts far more likely than in the already recount-prone current system of state-by-state winner-take-all methods.
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 less likely under National Popular Vote.
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 so frequently creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
A nationwide recount would not happen. We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and recount. The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
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 under the National Popular Vote approach. 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.
No recount would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 56 previous presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
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. Under both the current system and the National Popular Vote approach, 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.
State-by-state most certainly is a firewall, because it requires that for fraud to have any impact whatsoever on the outcome, it must occur in parts of the country where the voters are nearly split, and therefore, where both parties will have lookouts for fraud and voter suppression. If, however, NPV were used, fraud could occur “behind friendly lines” and still impact the outcome. If Illinois and California stuff the ballot boxes with the blessing of the administrations there, what can the Republican candidate do about it? Would there be some procedure for having an entire state’s votes disqualified because of flagrant corruption?
The incentives for fraud and mischief are magnified under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system. Now, one vote can determine the plurality of the vote in each state, and up to 55 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. National Popular Vote limits the benefits to be gained by fraud and mischief. Under National Popular Vote, votes are equal in all states, and counted among the total pool of 130 million votes in the country. One person is only one popular vote.
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: “To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .
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, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?”
Neither the current system nor the National Popular Vote compact permits any state to get involved in judging the election returns of other states. Existing federal law (the “safe harbor” provision in section 5 of title 3 of the United States Code) specifies that a state’s “final determination” of its presidential election returns is “conclusive”(if done in a timely manner and in accordance with laws that existed prior to Election Day).
The National Popular Vote compact is patterned directly after existing federal law and requires each state to treat as “conclusive” each other state’s “final determination” of its vote for President. No state has any power to examine or judge the presidential election returns of any other state under the National Popular Vote compact.
NPV makes it easier by several orders of magnitude. Why? Because if the local government is colluding in the fraud (and this the exact scenario I am concerned about) who will be willing and able to intervene? If Chicago stuffs the ballot box, could Pennsylvania challenge those results? Coming up with a million phantom votes is not hard at all if you have a large city and a corrupt city and state government. Under the current system, there is no point in Chicago stuffing the ballot box for democrats if the statewide election isn’t even close, but under NPV, they would have that incentive to run up the score because each fraudulent vote they tally cancels out a legitimate one somewhere else in the country.
Bush would have campaigned differently under a winner take all system and might have won that way as well. A handful of visits to New York and California might have been enough to do it.
The founders put the system in place for a reason. One of the two changes discussed in the article is constitutional because it is already done in a couple of states. The other, and winner take all approach require constitutional amendments. The last amendment that dealt with the electoral process gave us Senators who are cater more to their party than their state. How’s that working out for ya?
I vote for CEV. It’s the only way my vote will count in California.
No. Your vote would count in CA under National Popular Vote. California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states wins the presidency.
The congressional district method of awarding electoral votes (currently used in Maine and Nebraska) would not help make every vote matter. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state’s 53 districts, that would be close enough to get any attention from presidential candidates. A smaller fraction of the country’s population lives in competitive congressional districts (about 12%) than in the current battleground states (about 30%) that now get overwhelming attention, while two-thirds of the states are ignored Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state and district (in ME and NE). Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate. With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn’t be about winning states or districts (in ME and NE). No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast.
Read the constitution. The president is ‘selected’ by the Senate and House sitting as a combined body. They are guided by, but not wedded to, the votes of the Electoral College as certified by the Secretary of State of each state. A single Congressman joined by a single Senator can raise an objection to a state’s electors, wherein a vote is taken – one vote counted per state – to accept or reject that state’s results. If the Supreme Court (which has NO say in the process) had been unanimous for Gore, Bush would still have become president.
Existing federal law (the “safe harbor” provision in section 5 of title 3 of the United States Code) specifies that a state’s “final determination” of its presidential election returns is “conclusive”(if done in a timely manner and in accordance with laws that existed prior to Election Day).
On January 6, 2005 Senator Barbara Boxer submitted an official challenge to the certification of the Ohio Electors for President. The challenge was defeated 267-31 by the House and 74-1 by the Senate, clearing the way for the joint session to count the votes from the remaining states. It was not up to one vote per state.
If and when Texas becomes overrun by Mexican immigrants and paints that state blue, it will be very difficult for a Republican to win the presidency with the electoral vote system we have today.
One of the reasons this country is a Republic is that the founders wisely foresaw the issue of urban voters dominating rural ones in a straight democracy. What is wrong with individual states behaving like republics in the Electoral College for exactly the same reason? Pork? Really?
Anyone who has lived in a state with a large city with a political machine will understand why the popular vote cannot be trusted. It is doubtful that any city that votes Democrat has as many citizens as are on the voting rolls. If a city is voting Democrat there is almost no state that the virtual voters will not overwhelm the actual vote.
When Missouri is close to going Republican St. Louis will have a surge of late voters and a judge ordering that the polls are kept open. The same happen in Illinois with Chicago and Connecticut with Bridgeport, Seattle in Washington State, Minneapolis in Minnesota, California and any city over a million. Occasionally in census years like Chicago in 1960 the vote in the city will exceed that number of eligible adults in the cities.
In California this is sometime the results of votes of people who are registered to live in in Mexico City or Hanoi voting in California but in Pennsylvania it is always the result of virtual voting of virtual citizens in Philadelphia.
OBAMA AND HILLARY WISH JEWS A HAPPY NEW YEAR BY DECLARING JERUSALEM THE ILLIGITIMATE CAPITAL OF ISRAEL.
You heard me. In what is an outrageous reversal from candidate Obama’s disingenuous AIPAC speech three years ago (where he boldly declared Jerusalem “the indivisible capital of Israel”), and Hillary Clinton’s support of Israeli ownership of Jerusalem as Senator, now these two perfidious
snakes have gone to the opposite extreme stating in a State Department brief filed with the Supreme Court that Israel has got it all wrong; that it has no sovereignty or territorial rights over Jerusalem; that Jerusalem is a city belonging to no state or people; that it’s a city state unto itself; that the people of Jerusalem aren’t Israeli citizens; that, in effect, they are Jerusalemites; and that Israel’s claim that Jerusalem is its capital is bogus and illigitimate.
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Brilliant people devised the electoral college to reduce the influence peddling in the large metropolitan areas. At least that is what we are led to believe but with so many large metropolitan areas cropping up in farm country, excuse the pun, it needs research. If they ever think about doing this they need to write in a third stanza. Any president that takes actions that are clearly in principle go against the U.S. Constitution go to jail. That sounds more than reasonable.
One aspect of the Electoral College that I never see mentioned — it allows the LAND to vote. Think about it. Each state, regardless of size OR POPULATION, gets two votes for President/Vice President. This is equivalent to arming the weak when they’re confronted by the strong.
This isn’t necessarily ideal. Witness how Kansas and Iowa can command inordinate political power (and extract pork like agricultural price supports) due, in small part, to this political form. But its still better than pure democracy and the tyranny of the majority. The Founding Fathers were classically educated individuals well versed in Ancient Greek and Roman history. They knew what they were doing.
My brief, layman’s take on the two methods which probably nobody cares to hear:
1. NPV – a method by which the state governments tell their citizens that their votes don’t count. Plus, I don’t really care for the “plurality takes all” aspect.
2. CEV – I like it in theory, but only if gerrymandering is first gotten rid of, which I don’t really see happening.
I agree with the author. PLEASE stop monkeying with the Electoral College system. It is a very, very BAD idea. It is a dngerously stupid and ignorant idea.
I have noticed the lack of historical understanding about the whole process by ardent proponents of this “reform.”
One of the more common reasosn cited for a national vote is that there have been occasions when the popular vote winner LOST THE ELECTION! HORRORS!
First of all, there have only been FOUR presidential elections in U.S. history where this has happened. The one that Andrew Jackson lost, he only got a plurality, in the other elections, the “majority” popular vote winners only won the popular vote by a fraction of a percent (as in 2000). There have been 55-56 presidential election cycles. In 93% of these elections, the electoral college winner was also the popular vote winner, majority or plurality. How is this a problem or a compelling reason to overturn a perfectly good system that has prevented lopsided urban majorities from dominating the entire policy spectrum for everyone else in the country?
Have we forgotten why we are supposed to be a republic, and not a pure democracy? Can we please stop diluting the republican (small “r”) aspect of the greatest governing system on Earth?
All this is more important because of the ‘consequentiality’ of the .gov in our lives. I’m for anyone that will work towards making .gov more inconsequential in our lives.
And can I get an amen for the repeal of the 17th amendment? We already had a directly elected body, the house. The states as entities no longer have any representation in d.c.
While under the original Constitution the States could set property rules to vote and were only expected to offer a broad mandate for voters to the most numerous branch of their legislature the Courts have used the murky penumbras of the XIVth Amendment to enforce both universal sufferage under “one man, one vote” and to ensure the domination of urban politics by rendering state senates redundant and forbidding their apportionment on a geographical basis.
As part of a general plan of reform I support the repeal of the XVIIth Amendment. In addition voter ID verification is essential. Only citizens who do not derive the majority of their income from the federal public treasury, excepting enlisted members of the Armed Forces and officers called to extended active duty in time of conflict, should vote in any federal election. A similar bar should apply to any person who gets the majority of their income from the state treasury voting in any state or municipal election. Apportionment should be on the basis of the number of qualified and registered citizen voters as determined in each census.
The original Electoral College was a good idea. We should return to it. The idea was to have the leading citizens of each state meet and select their candidates. Either a national consensus would emerge or the business of politics would follow in Congress to select the winner. Right now the members of the EC are cyphers that no one would trust with a burnt out match. My suggestion is to empower and reinvigorate the Electoral College.
First make it a standing body with two classes of members. Ex officio members from each state would include the heads of each state’s three branches of gov’t, that is the Governor, the Chief Justice or senior judge of the highest Appeals Court, and the Speaker or equivalent of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. For states granted more than 3 Electors others should be appointed for six year terms by the state legislature in staggering classes that mirror the method used by the US Senate. No appointed Elector could hold a position of profit or trust in the service of the United States or the state that appoints them, except for enlisted service in either the state or federal Armed Forces or service as an officer in the state militia.
The Electoral College as so constituted would convene quadrennially to select a candidate for POTUS, and would also serve to fill any vacancies that occur more than 120 days before the next scheduled regular election by meeting within 30 days of such a vacancy happening. The popular vote would be properly restored to its position as an opinion poll for the consideration of the state legislators. The focus of politics would return to the state level. The federal government would remain busy rooting out corruption in the states but the current system of ignoring state level venality and then transferring all politic and corruption to the federal level would end. The revived states would jealously investigate and expose corruption at the federal level.
Second I would use the EC as a national Court of Judicial Review to determine the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress. As a creature of the states the determination of the fidelity of the Congress to the Constitution should better be determined by the EC than the SCOTUS. I would propose that a law could be flagged for review by a petition of 20% or more of the states, or by the President or by the Supreme Court reviewing submissions from inferior courts that could hold disputed laws in abeyance for up to one year while under review.
There seems no particular reason to think that Benjamin Franklin would have objected to Presidential Electors being chosen in districts. His own Pennsylvania did it that way in 1796 without any preoblems. True, they abandoned it for 1800 in favour of choice by the Legislature, but this proved to be a disaster, as the two Houses of the Legislature failed to agree.
Several states used forms of the District system down to c1830, and others have used it occasionally – notably Michigan in 1892. It fell out of favour because states wished to increase their political clout by casting a block vote. These days, however, most states are safely “red” or “blue” and only a handful of “swing” ones need to be courted, so that consideration carries far less weight. In short, I don’t really see the problem.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson argued that Virginia should switch from its then-existing district system of electing presidential electors to the statewide winner-take-all system because of the political disadvantage suffered by states that divided their electoral votes by districts in a political environment in which other states used the winner-take-all approach:
“while 10. states chuse either by their legislatures or by a general ticket [winner-take-all], it is folly & worse than folly for the other 6. not to do it.” [Spelling and punctuation as per original]
Indeed, the now-prevailing statewide winner-take-all system became entrenched in the political landscape in the 1830s precisely because dividing a state’s electoral votes diminishes the state’s political influence relative to states employing the statewide winner-take-all approach.
Dividing a state’s electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the state. Under the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws(whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts (the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state’s 53 districts. In Pennsylvania, only 4. Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Under the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 2/3rds of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 88% of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
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 becomes President.
What you’re saying is that Jefferson wanted what we currently have with no electors in the middle. That’s hardly an argument for NPV, and is a pretty good argument against CEV.
Jefferson just wanted to maximise the political clout of his home state – which then had the biggest block of electoral votes. Perfectly reasonable at the time, given that VA was certain to vote for him, but not proving very much about the merits of the system two centuries on.
DEMOCRACY does not work… it is MOB rule… we have a Republic (thank God). I’m pretty sure article II of the Constitution prohibits the states from entering into ‘compacts’ together, so this NPV pack should be DEAD in the water and totally UnConstitutional.
Couldn’t they just leave out the word “Compact”?
After all, there’s no need for the Governors to get together and make a formal treaty. All that’s needed is for a bunch of states with over 270 Electoral votes too all pass similar laws, assigning their electoral votes according to the national tally instead of the state one.
If a foreigner may be so bold, I don’t quite see how that could be unconstitutional. Presumably it would be ok for a dozen states to have identical laws about the death penalty or sales taxes, so why not about how they cast their electoral votes? Please note I do not advocate NPV (none of my business anyway, really) but just don’t see any particular ground for declaring it unconstitutional, as distinct from just inadviseable.
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