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Monday, August 9, 2010
Bypassing the Electoral College
Here’s another case of the DEMs subverting the intent of the Founders. It’s not like they have any respect for them after all they were all white guys and mostly slave owners. That allows Progressives to ignore that the system the Founders set up that has allowed the United States to grow into the most powerful nation in the world with a system of government that respects, mostly, the rights of its individual citizens. They gave us a nation that with the exception of that period of unpleasantness has managed to have a peaceful transition of power every four years since the Constitution was enacted. Four States have passed legislation that will give their electoral voted to whatever Presidential Candidate wins the popular vote regardless of whether that candidate wins the State’s popular vote. There is a movement to pass the legislation in other states. This is simple a way to change our electoral process without having to anything so inconvenient as amending the Constitution. It’s another attempt by the DEMs to rig the system in their favor. It's a power grab intended to ensure their are no further transitions of power. For the rest of us it’s another nail in the coffin of the Republic.
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6 comments:
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Elections wouldn't be about winning states. Every vote would be counted for and assist the candidate for whom it was cast - just as votes from every county are equal and important when a vote is cast in a Governor's race. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
Now, 19 of the 22 smallest and medium-small states are ignored. The current winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states, and not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution, ensures that the candidates 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 bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. The National Popular Vote bill does not try to abolish the Electoral College. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action, without federal constitutional amendments.
The bill has been endorsed or voted for by 1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
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 for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls.
Most voters don't care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was counted and mattered to their candidate.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 30 state legislative chambers, in 20 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (17), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), New York (31), North Carolina (15), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California (55), Colorado (9), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), New Jersey (15), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), and Washington (11). The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington. These six states possess 73 electoral votes -- 27% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
National Popular Vote is a bipartisan coalition of legislators, scholars, constitutionalists and grassroots activists committed to preserving the Electoral College, while guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who earns the most votes in all fifty states.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award electoral college votes were eventually enacted by 48 states AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, .
The Founding Fathers only said in the U.S. Constitution about presidential elections (only after debating among 60 ballots for choosing a method): "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."
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 rule) 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.
In 1789 only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all rule to award electoral votes.
There is no valid argument that the winner-take-all rule is entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all rule (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 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 rule.
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 rule is used by 48 of the 50 states.
A "republican" form of government means that the voters do not make laws themselves but, instead, delegate the job to periodically elected officials (Congressmen, Senators, and the President). The United States has a "republican" form of government regardless of whether popular votes for presidential electors are tallied at the state-level (as has been the case in 48 states) or at district-level (as has been the case in Maine and Nebraska) or at 50-state-level (as under the National Popular Vote bill).
I must respectfully disagree with damn near everything "toto" just wrote here.
Small and medium states will be ignored in favor of those big states like California and New York that will deliver the biggest number of overall votes to a candidate.
It is a "let's ignore flyover country" approach. The only winners in this proposal are the coastal states and the Democrats.
This proposal came up in North Carolina in 2009 but never made it out of committee.
I think the approach is on its face utterly and totally unconstitutional.
Frankly, if the political elites dumped this on America, it would be a predicate event to a second Civil War.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Bullshit! This would guarantee that those areas with the densest populations, metropolitan areas and the left coasts, DEM strongholds, dominated the popular vote and controlled the Presidency. It’s nothing but a power grab. This nation is a Constitutional Republic with checks and balances to prevent rule by popular vote. The Founders threw the popular vote its bone with the House of Representatives. The Senate and the Executive were not in the deal. Progressives have been working to convert the Republic into a democracy since before WW1. Direct election of Senators stripped the States of their representation in Congress and moved us further in that direction. This attack on the Electoral College is just another. The description of democracy as two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner is old but true. Those supporting this trash think we’ll just sit still while they make our votes useless. They’re wrong.
Thanks John, I’d been trying decide how to respond to these comments. Your post gave me my hook. A point of interest is these comments have been posted in at least four other locations on the web as comments to posts about this issue. It’s a cut and paste from the National Popular Vote website.
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