Electoral system, or popular vote?

I wasn't going to mention that your attempt to make more democracy sound like less and less democracy sound like more would have made Orwell proud, but since you're being snarky, have an Orwell award from me. As for reality, I assume you haven't read anything written by James Madison not found in your high school textbook. Or you pretend you haven't. It doesn't change that we're an oligarchy and were always meant to be.

 

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.

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.

National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate. In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

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

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.

Now, policies important to the citizens of non-battleground states - that include 10 of the original 13 states - are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing, too.

Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”

Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”

 

It is much easier to commit and conceal fraud affecting as little as 537 votes that could be needed to change the outcome in a single, critical state than it would be to manufacture the hundreds of thousands or millions of votes needed to change the result of a national election.

More than 2,110 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the National Popular Vote bill. The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, and large states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 10 jurisdictions with 136 electoral votes – 50.4% of the 270 necessary to go into effect. If Governor Cuomo signs it in New York, it will be at 165 electoral votes - 61%.

 

Taxcutter says:
Apparently, it's not too tough to gin up a 19,000-0 vote in parts of Philadelphia..

 

Then you have nothing to substantiate your claim.

No it's how many were denied a vote?

 

I bank at Wells Fargo and while you may be able to deposit a sum into an account you will NOT withdraw it or get information about it unless you either swiped your card and enter a PIN or show your ID unless and only perhaps the teller knows you personally, to try and claim your story about your bank teller knows you and doesn't ask for your ID is proof you don't need one to conduct banking transactions is utter folly and if my bank ever stopped asking I would change banks. And yes employers care because BY LAW they are required to see two forms of ID and must submit a federal form with the other federal documents they must file for new hires. One again, you don't need an ID just have your new employer break the law, is just more folly on your part.

Yeah just go sit for 48 hours while they verify you are not the 6' 1" white male with brown hair and red shirt they for whom they are looking.

Absolutely mainstream Choice Hotels chain and most states require it by law.

I pay about $3000 for homeowners insurance I may use once a decade if that much. So I take it you don't smoke or drink. In my state you are REQUIRED to have proof of age on your person in order to do either.

Doing all those things, yes.

ID is essential if you don't want to break the law as you have been suggesting and you certainly could have gone out a mowed or raked a yard on weekends couldn't you. Or clean a house for someone or a myriad of ways but since states with photo ID laws give them away for free you entire point is moot.

And they can get ID's, link me to people who were not able to get their ID's not postulations about it.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/17/cincinnati-illegal-voting/2530119/

See above, so you acknowledge it doesn't take "widespread" voter fraud to sway an election.

How do you know it is not? But I linked to one pertinent case of a woman voting in someone else's name in one election 3 times and if you look at the chart there are elections that could have changed.

Here's the list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_States and you claim as that NO Democrat controlled state has voter ID laws......fail.

Try again.

Spare me the platitudes and bromides.

Dodge noted.

 

Consider the candidates and their platforms that they had to choose from.

". . . . black Democrats do, sometimes, get 99 percent or more of the vote in black precincts. In 2008, Obama actually pitched a shutout in 18 Cuyahoga County precincts. And you would expect him to. In 2008, Obama won 97 percent of the black vote in Ohio. In 2012, it was 96 percent. In Pennsylvania this year, he won 93 percent of the black vote and 80 percent of the Hispanic vote. This was why Obama could clean up in precincts that are almost entirely black or Hispanic.

There are places where Obama won less than 10 percent of the vote. In King County, Texas, he won exactly five votes to Romney’s 135."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ssible_that_barack_obama_won_100_percent.html

 

Not it isn't. It dilutes state power.

No they wouldn't. There would be some places that never saw a political candidate again. Rural states/areas would be disenfranchised.

Not it wouldn't, unless by "minority party" you mean the democrats. This is the only reason the left supports it--because it favors blue cities controlling the WH.

They aren't "wasted" votes. They get what they wanted--to assign their electors to the winners.

Still wrong. 20 or 30 big cities would decide every election and the issues people outside those areas that care about would never again be addressed.

So you just want to disenfranchise some places? How very patriotic.

 

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), ensures that the candidates, after the conventions, will not reach out to about 80% 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.

Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a 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.
10 of the original 13 states are ignored now.
Four out of five Americans were ignored in the 2012 presidential election. After being nominated, Obama visited just eight closely divided battleground states, and Romney visited only 10. These 10 states accounted for 98% of the $940 million spent on campaign advertising. They decided the election.
None of the 10 most rural states mattered, as usual.
About 80% of the country was ignored --including 24 of the 27 lowest population and medium-small states, and 13 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX.

With a national popular vote, every voter everywhere will be equally important politically.
The political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows is that when and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

No states/areas or voters would be disenfranchised.

National Popular Vote would give a voice to the voters in each state who don't vote for the "winner" of their state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate. In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

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

With National Popular Vote, Utah's 385,000 votes and the wasted votes of the 8 small western states would be included in the national popular vote that determines the winner, equally to voters in any other state.

With National Popular Vote, big cities would not get all of candidates’ attention, much less control the outcome.

16% of Americans live in rural areas.

The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.

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.

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.

 

You know, instead of using Wikipedia as a source. YOU COULD LOOK AT THE STATE LAWS WHICH ALL STATE THAT NONE OF THEM REQUIRE AN ID TO VOTE! What a tool. I provided the links for every single state, and you still embarrass yourself by using Wikipedia. Wait.... what's this?

No ID required at polling place:

Maryland
Nevada
New Mexico
West Virginia

It even says it on your own link you posted. This is a trainwreck. You DIDN'T EVEN READ YOUR OWN ARTICLE. As, you said:

FAIL

 

You forgot TO REGISTER

Maryland - first time voter must show ID as when you register
Nevada - first time voter must show ID as when you register
New Mexico - my mistake
West Virginia - wiki error

It even says it on your own link you posted. This is a trainwreck. You DIDN'T EVEN READ YOUR OWN ARTICLE. As, you said:

FAIL[/QUOTE]

How are you going to get to the polling place in the first place without one???????? How are you going to register WITHOUT ONE??????????????????????

So what about your claim that NO DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED STATE REQUIRES AN ID and that you can vote without one????????????????????????

Connecticut
Hawaii
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Washington

 

You assume in error. But that's not really a surprise.

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A simple "yes" would have sufficed.

 

You really are in the dark aren't you?

 

Wouldn't make it any more fair to have a popular vote. Representative republican governing is based on a series of flawed premises. Pure democratic governing is based on some of the same flawed premises.

 

EVERYONE pays Taxes. Even the poor. So I guess that means everyone would get to vote.

 

Leave it alone. The only time that the electoral and popular votes haven't coincided historically, is when the election has been pretty close to a tie. In that case, it makes sense for the winner of the most states to win the election.

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Because this is a nation of states, fundamentally. The Founders wanted to disperse power, and divide it between the states and the people. The EC is an example of that.

 

horse(*)(*)(*)(*), I think I hear the tooth fairy calling you

 

Not federal taxes, they make money off the tax system.

 

Actually very true. Every time you purchase something, you pay taxes.

Looks like your looking kinda stupid now.

 

Keep the Electoral Vote System.