Posted on 05/19/2011 6:11:55 PM PDT by SmithL
Perhaps the biggest problem with a popular vote is the fact that in the United States all elections including presidential elections are piratically and technically State elections.
States ultimately control who can vote, and who can cheat. As a result they can greatly influence the turnout rate. A Federal popular vote would provide an incentive for States to encourage fraud to amply their power.
As a result our election system in all 50 states would become progressively more corrupt. Unfortunately owing to the nature of such competitive voter turnout inflation techniques the real people of them States would progressively loses more and more control over not only the Federal Government but their States as well.
“The bill would take effect if it’s approved by states with a total of 270 electoral votes - the minimum needed to elect a president. States with 77 electoral votes have approved it so far. California has 55 votes.
The effort started after Al Gore won the popular vote in 2004, but George W. Bush won the electoral vote.”
This is a movement to make smaller states irrelevant and ensure a permanent Dem presidency. Only mob vote counts — no wonder the Dems want to give citizenship to the millions of illegals.
Very interesting analysis. Thank you.
How do you factor in the television coverage of candidates within a state? It would seem that if a candidate gets TV coverage in the major markets, he would cover the state.
The only place I see retail politics practiced is in the early primary states.
You are an obvious troll. No one cares what you are told to think. Go away and don’t speak to me again.
Look at the posting history of mvymvy and you’ll find a seminar posting troll.
All you need to know can be found at the bottom of the page.
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/op-eds/wsj_20081214.php
“Mr. Soros is the deputy chairman of Soros Fund Management and a supporter of the National Popular Vote.”
you are 100% correct!
That is exactly what they will do!
Correct. This idiocy would guarantee that presidential candidates would never set foot in flyover country. They'd only campaign in large metro areas in the northeast and left coast.
It would however, be highly satisfying to hear CA liberals howl if a GOP candidate won the popular vote, yet lost CA by 10 points.
I prefer the district voting system. The candidate that receives a majority of the votes in a district gets that districts votes. The candidate that receives the majority of the votes at the state level, receives the two state EV.
Should their not be a majority at the district level, the top two candidates have a run off election in 30 days. If there is no majority at the state level, the two votes are split between the top two candidates.
In case you are unaware, there is a national movement underway to undermine the electoral college. States like CA will enter into compacts with other states to combine their electoral votes based on the national popular vote. It gives the larger states more power.
Seven states and DC have enacted it into law: NJ, VT, MD, MA, IL, WA, and HI.
Candidates will focus their limited money and effort on major urban areas because it is more cost effective. The vast majority of urban areas are Democrat and getting more so. This gives the Dems more power and helps them in terms of voter fraud, to not only determine the outcome of state results, but national results as well.
NPV would be a disaster for Reps and the nation given the rapidly changing demographics of this country. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under will be minorities and by 2039, half of the country will be minorities.
The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 36 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born. Immigrants and minorities vote Democrat.
Immigration, Political Realignment, and the Demise of Republican Political Prospects
Obama won CA by 3.2 million votes or 61% to 37%.
The precidence is comforting to see. My memory of to 2000 and 2004 elections is that there was visible public pressure by the dims to have the college electors “vote their conscience”.
I see a couple of advantages.
For starters, under this arrangement California’s REPUBLICAN votes would finally count again. Currently, we start each Presidential election assuming we are going to lose California’s electoral votes. 8 am on the east coast: Dems: 55, Reps: zero.
This not only puts them in play, but it also means that the votes of CA Republicans count in the process, whereas currently they might as well not even bother to vote.
The other huge advantage I see is that corruption in one state is much less likely to swing an election, or for that matter, the makeup of the Supreme Court. What if it had leaned 4-5 instead of 5-4 in the Florida 2000 mess? We’d likely have had Gore for 4 to 8 years after they got done counting hanging chads. Granted, Gore would have won that year under a popular vote count, but if this law was in effect, the candidates would have campaigned differently, so we’ll never know who would have won the popular vote if this arrangement had been in place.
Finally, a Presidential candidate who ignores flyover country will lose flyover country big. That would just be stupid politics. The big change will be that the attraction to campaign mainly in battleground states will completely disappear. Why spend 90% of campaign time in 10 states when every vote across the nation counts for you?
Furthermore, why would election officials take the risk of corrupting the process when breaking the law big time is unlikely to make a hill of beans worth of difference to the outcome. Currently, a few thousand votes stolen in Chicago or Tampa might swing the electoral college vote the other way. Nationally, a few thousand votes won’t matter and won’t be worth going to jail to try and obtain.
But I’ll admit this. Soros’s backing makes me wonder what I’m missing. (My personal preference would be to divide CA into three states, hoping that two of them are in play again, but that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.)
>>NPV would be a disaster for Reps and the nation given the rapidly changing demographics of this country. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under will be minorities and by 2039, half of the country will be minorities. <<
Suppose this happens, as it likely will. A party that can’t figure out how to get a good share of that vote is then destined to fail as a party. Clear?
ANNAPOLIS, April 10, 2007 - Governor Martin O'Malley today signed the National Popular Vote bill. Maryland thus became the first state to enact state legislation to guarantee that the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in all 50 states will win the Presidency.
this is step one.
first is popular vote,
NEXT IS PARLIAMENTARY STYLE PROPORTIONAL representation by party.
You are correct - but read the following from Bush v. Gore, then read my comments after ...
" ... The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, §1. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 28—33. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 (“[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another. See, e.g., Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 665 (1966) (“[O]nce the franchise is granted to the electorate, lines may not be drawn which are inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment”). It must be remembered that “the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964).
The import of this proposed law in CA and other states is essentially this:
"The state grants the individual citizen the right to vote, but reserves the right to change that vote if the majority of voters in the 50 states [collectively] award their votes to the opposing candidate".
This seems to fly in the face of the ruling:
When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter.
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another.
That would be even more delicious, but it's unlikely a GOP candidate could win the popular vote, yet lose CA by that large a margin. But with the direction that state is heading, nothing's out of the question.
See post number 106. All you need to know is that George Soros is a major financial supporter.
Anyone who thinks they’re outsmarting him by doing what he wants is an idiot.
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