Why not just sit out the election and give the delegates to the national popular vote winner? It will save the state money on those pesky election days!
Yes, all Democrat leaning states should agree to this.
Seem’s we’re getting closer and closer to that edge we can’t step back from.......
This movement is so ignorant and ridiculous, in so many ways. There were good reasons for the elctoral college system when implemented, and I’d argue they are even more important now.
Therefore if 20 candidates run for the president, and the winner has only 20% of the national vote, that means that we’ve somehow improved things by putting a grossly unsupported person into the White House?
This is insane. It will encourage huge numbers of candidates to run for the presidency.
It is conceivable that a California candidate, if he wins just the California votes and nothing else, could be the president.
This would only work if the bill were also to stipulate that the electoral votes would only go to the popular vote winner if that winner attains a national majority of the votes.
If Obama wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote (as Bush did in 2000), this tomfoolery will die faster than a fruit fly. Of course, if this concept had been in place in 2000, they might STILL be counting the votes. The only way this would ever work would be if they required a true majority of the popular vote to win - not a plurality - with run offs eliminating the minor candidates.
This is an appalling bill. And yes, you are right, this allows them to decide their vote after the gross national votes have been tallied, thereby depriving the individual state of any power and completely defeating the purpose of the electoral college.
I think they’re going to try very hard to steal the next election, because I don’t think Barry and Joe are going to be able to win it fair and square. I hope the GOP lawyers are already preparing themselves and trying to determine possible strategies that the Dems might use, based on their prior attempts in 2000 and 2004.
Why even keep the Electoral College if they are going down this road. It just negates its purpose. Plus Amendment 17 put us on the road to Democracy from Federal Republic. So is anybody surprised by this?
If states are stupid enough to do it they can.
People need to be really careful about changing things. It seems like anytime something is changed in the election process it turns out that the Democrats were behind it. For example, changing the primaries to allow open primaries. Hillary Clinton was known to be one of those people who a few years ago was talking about getting rid of the electoral way of voting. I think this is another Dem attempt to destroy our political system. I say no to any and all attempts at reforms at this point.
Really, I live in MA too.
I’m not familiar with this law.
Do you know what year this was passed? I’d like to find out more about this if I can.
I think we need to take this seriously. Without the electoral college, the Sarah Palin gambit would fail from the getgo. She and people like her, meaning us, are hated by the urban elites. If the Electoral College is done away with, either by Constitutional Amendment or by this roundabout process, we become the slaves to the bi-coastal elites. The only way the “sleeping bear” that was awakened by the Palin nomination worked was because of the Electoral College system.
Who has standing to bring a lawsuit that could declare these state laws unconstitutional? Or must we wait until the national threshold of however many states doing the same thing (written into these individual state laws) nears? That provision would seem to make clear that it is an end run around the Constitution-amendment process. Can that be challenged now rather than waiting?
This sounds as smart a a box of rocks. If 49 states pass this rule then the 50th will decide ALL elections.
Only a liberal would even think this is a good law.
The founding fathers created the Electoral College for a reason and it has worked sublimely. This law disenfranchises the voters and usurps their vote.
Maryland has passed this bill, but I understand that it only goes into effect if many other states agree. The (stupid) idea is that if states totaling 270 electoral votes agree to the measure, then everyone will enact it at once.
I don’t know if there’s an expiration date.
It would be sweet justice if it were to backfire in our favor of course. That’s the fastest road to getting it repealed!
If this takes effect it devalues the vote of very Marylander from 1 out of 2.5 million for 10 electoral votes, to about 1 out of 40 million for the same electoral votes.
I’m not sure I follow this.
Would this law make it theoretically possible for 100% of the state of Massachusetts to have voted for candidate x, but the state’s delegates be awarded to candidate y because 51% of the nation did?
Then why have states at all? Since they would not count in the national tally anyway this would be the first step in ridding the nation of individual States.
First the state borders will not count, then the national borders, pretty soon we really will have candidates campaigning in France, Ugandi, Russia, China etc because they will be voting in the US election because hey, whomever gets the U.S. Presidential election "affects them too ya know."
What a bunch of ignorant bastards.
This is a blatant attempt by the Rats to have the far left coast, the NE, and Chicago select the POTUS.
We all know how that would work out, don’t we?