The Electoral College - yet again

We don't live in the People's Republic of America, we live in the United STATES of America. The Electoral College system ensures that each state's residents have a 'population appropriate' say in who becomes president.

Were we to adopt a popular vote system, presidential campaigns would not even bother trying to appeal to residents in smaller market, less densely populated states.....they'd focus all of their time and money in California, New York, Texas, Florida, etc, and leave Flyover Country's citizens to twist in the wind....sitting and prospective Presidents wouldn't have to care about them.

And to be perfectly honest, people who are attracted to living in dirty, high-crime, high-density urban hives are, well, let's just say...let's just say we don't see eye-to-eye, judgement-wise....

 

Cities are prisons we choose to live in.

 

escaped to the woods for good almost a decade ago. paradise.

 

As someone on the left one is troubled by a lack of capital for the poor to apply their labor to. If you have 20 acres of land in a rural area and you don't mind apply your labor you're going to do rather well for yourself.

You can grow your own food, graze your own meat and poultry, farm a crop for profit, live entirely off the grid. You could not leave the property for as long as you live if you see fit. You can avoid drug laws by cultivating discretely.

20 acres of irrigated land in West Kansas will set you back ~$60,000. Peanuts for city folk.

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As someone on the right, one is troubled by the lack of freedom and intrusive government. If you have 20 acres of land in an appropriate state you can purchase whatever guns you like, pay no state income tax, blow **** up, fish for free, grow all your own produce, avoid sin taxes by brewing/distilling/fermenting your own liquor and cultivating your own tobacco, hoon around on dirt bikes, play loud music until 6am on a Tuesday, whatever you like.

The only reason anyone should remain in the city is in expectation of a bigger country property down the line.

 

I cannot understand your electoral system. "In case the people voted wrong?" Who decides if they voted wrong?

 

Are you kidding me?!!!???? The US elections comes down every four years to 4 or 5 swing states. In these states the candidates will make repeated visits to make their claim, they will inundate the state's airwaves,and they will send litterature in the precious hope of getting their votes. They will tailor their programs to fit with the swing voter states as best as possible.
Now indeed, I am sure that the voters in the swing states will be frustrated that their Oh-so-close state went to the other guy, and they have 0 electoral votes to show for it. But they at least got to participate actively in that decision. Now think, if you can, to the millions of other voters whose states were already a foregone conclusion and held zero interest to the candidates (and to ad insult to injury if you come from a populated state, whose EC vote is worth significantly less then that of a voter of a small state) those people are disenfranchised.

 

So after you get rid of the system of electing the president, are you going to try to get rid of the senate as well?

 

Trump got more votes in California than he got in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia combined.
None of the votes in California for Trump, helped Trump.

California Democratic votes in 2016 were 6.4% of the total national popular vote.

The vote difference in California wouldn't have put Clinton over the top in the popular vote total without the additional 61.5 million votes she received in other states.

California cast 10.3% of the total national popular vote.
31.9% Trump, 62.3% Clinton

61% of an equally populous Republican base area of states running from West Virginia to Wyoming (termed “Appalachafornia”) votes were for Trump. He got 4,475,297 more votes than Clinton.

With the National Popular Vote bill in effect, all votes for all candidates in California and Appalachafornia will matter equally.

In 2012, California cast 10.2% of the national popular vote.
About 62% Democratic

California has 10.2% of Electoral College votes.

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 the National Popular Vote bill in effect, all votes for all candidates in California will matter.

 

" We just had primary voting on Tuesday less than 20% of registered voters cast a ballot and a very significant portion of those eligible to vote don't even register. "



Do you think the youth will get up off their ............ Iphones to vote ?

 

Maine (since enacting a state law in 1969) and Nebraska (since enacting a state law in 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters have supported a national popular vote.

Nebraska in 2008 was the first time any state in the past century gave one electoral vote to the candidate who did not win the state.

2016 is the first time an electoral vote in Maine was given to the candidate who did not win the state.


In Maine, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine's 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored).
In 2012, the whole state was ignored.
77% of Maine voters have supported a national popular vote for President
In 2008, the Maine Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill

Republican leaders in Maine proposed and passed a constitutional amendment that, if passed at referendum, would require a 2/3rds vote in all future redistricting decisions. Then they changed their minds and wanted to pass a majority-only plan to make redistricting in their favor even easier.

In Nebraska, 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.
In 2012, the whole state was ignored.
74% of Nebraska voters have supported a national popular vote for President

After Obama won 1 congressional district in Nebraska in 2008,Nebraska Republicans moved that district to make it more Republican to avoid another GOP loss there, and the leadership committee of the Nebraska Republican Party promptly adopted a resolution requiring all GOP elected officials to favor overturning their district method for awarding electoral votes or lose the party’s support.
A GOP push to return Nebraska to a winner-take-all system of awarding its electoral college votes for president only barely failed in March 2015 and April 2016.

The National Popular Vote bill 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 among all 50 states and DC becomes President.

 

There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the presidency.

The National Popular Vote bill is states replacing state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states, to guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.

The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.

The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire, Ohio, or Florida. The National Popular Vote plan would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.

The bill would take effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9), and New Mexico (5).

NationalPopularVote

 

With the National Popular Vote bill, when every popular vote counts and matters to the candidates 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 a handful of battleground states.

Fourteen of the 15 smallest states by population are ignored, like medium and big states where the statewide winner is predictable, because they’re not swing states. Small states are safe states. Only New Hampshire gets significant attention.

Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group

Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.


Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.

In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 5.

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.


The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.

Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections.

Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.

Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

 

What national popular vote? There is no national popular vote.

 

Anyone who supports the current presidential election system, believing it is what the Founders intended and that it is in the Constitution, is mistaken. The current presidential election system does not function, at all, the way that the Founders thought that it would.

Supporters of National Popular Vote find it hard to believe the Founding Fathers would endorse the current electoral system where 38+ states and voters now are completely politically irrelevant.

10 of the original 13 states are politically irrelevant now.


The Founders created the Electoral College, but 48 states eventually enacted state winner-take-all laws.


Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1
“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 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, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, 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 winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1880s after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state. . The Founders had been dead for decades

The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.

States have the responsibility and constitutional power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond. Now, 38 states, of all sizes, and their voters, because they vote predictably, are politically irrelevant in presidential elections.

 

If you want to do that IN YOUR STATE then start a movement.

 

States can appoint their electors in any way they choose. An election is not required. A state could appoint its electors by lot, if it chose.

 

The President and Vice-President are not elected by the People they are elected by the States. This fundimental principle of our country seems to have been lost in modern civics education.

 

Yep. In Florida 2000 the state legislature was about to step in and appoint them. The People have no right to vote for President and VP.

 

Correct. It's not required that any state hold an election to choose its electors. They could appoint them by whatever method they choose.

 

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).

In Florida 2000 the state legislature could NOT step in and appoint them after Election Day.

 

If the system can put in office a president that the majority of Americans do not want, then it’s garbage and should be tossed entirely.

Every last one of you conservatives agree with me. You just don’t feel it right now because the man foisted upon America against its collective will was your boy.

In the future if a conservative wins the popular vote but the electoral college puts a democrat in office you will be tearing your eyes out in rage and screaming to the heavens that the electoral college is a tool of oppression.

 

The president is chosen by electors appointed by the states. There is no such thing as a national popular vote for the president.

Do you also oppose the idea of the senate? That Vermont and Wyoming have just as many votes as New York and California?

 

The "national popular vote" is the total of the certified popular votes of all 50 states and DC.
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 number of votes cast for each.
Most children can add them together, or consult the NARA website.

 

No state is required to have a vote to choose their electors. A state could choose their electors by lot, if it chose.

 

Equal representation of the states in the U.S. Senate is explicitly established in the U.S. Constitution. This feature cannot be changed by state law or an interstate compact.

In fact, equal representation of the states in the U.S. Senate may not even be amended by an ordinary federal constitutional amendment. Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides:
“No State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”

Thus, this feature of the U.S. Constitution may only be changed by a constitutional amendment approved by unanimous consent of all 50 states.


In contrast, the U.S. Constitution explicitly assigns the power of selecting the manner of appointing presidential electors to the states. The enactment by a state legislature of the National Popular Vote bill is an exercise of a legislature’s existing powers under the U.S. Constitution.