Posted on 05/19/2011 6:11:55 PM PDT by SmithL
Lawmakers have taken a step to make California more relevant in presidential politics, voting to give the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote.
The state Assembly passed AB459 on Thursday on a 43-18 vote, sending it to the state Senate. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
A generation has never learned the principles of our successful, national, political system.
The Achilles heel of a democratic republic is the democracy. One man, one vote, the bane of our existence.
Obviously you’ve looked into this issue closely.
It seems to me that California’s Dems are overlooking one thing. If the law is passed, the Republican candidate will no longer simply ignore CA’s voters (knowing he or she will most likely lose all of the electoral votes anyway) so CA’s Republican votes are not aggressively sought by the candidate. Furthermore, CA’s Republicans probably don’t feel any urgency to vote either, knowing it’s a lost cause. Granted, most of them probably do vote, but still, it strikes me that the California results could be significantly closer once the popular vote is actively pursued by the Republican candidate.
Any thoughts on this?
So if the Republican nominee wins the popular vote but loses California, he or she will win its electoral votes anyway? Very interesting.
Read the details, they are only around 90% crazy.
“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.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/19/national/a172235D13.DTL#ixzz1Mrbv9W7w
I see thanks for the clarification.
There is no individual, federal right to vote for President in the US Constitution (I think I said it correctly).
Yeah, that's pretty much what it is. I really have a hard time beliveing that this is really getting any traction in the assembly. It's just uncommonly stupid. Why would any state, let alone a state the size of California, wish to make themselves irrelevant in national elections? That's what this bill would do. It makes California irrelevant. It disenfranchises every voter. The votes in CA would be ignored. So why would anybody campaign there? They wouldn't bother. The votes don't matter.
The Constitution says that a state may choose its electors however they wish, but suppose there is a replay of Florida 2000, but this time the state legislature insists on choosing the electors themselves. So, now the other states in the compact — do they now dump the electors they thought they chose on Election Day for electors of the opposite party?
Another thing to add to the mix here, is that there *is* no “national popular vote”. Those numbers don’t exist. There is no agency, or department, that tabulates such a number. The media have crafted an approximate “popular vote” total, but in point of fact there is no such official number. One wonders where they will get their numbers for this.
Well, so much for one man, one vote.
The exact opposite: The votes in Northern CA now count. If the voters could help the Republican win the popular vote, the Republican candidate could lose the popular vote in CA by a few hundred thousand and still get all of CA electoral votes. For example, Bush lost CA by 1.3 million votes and lost the popular vote by 544,000 votes. If Bush could have picked up 5% of Gore votes 5.9 million votes via campaigning in CA, Bush wins the popular vote and gets CA 54 electoral votes, although he would have lost the popular vote by a half a million votes. Also people in Northern CA, might be more incline to vote since their vote would add to the popular vote; hence, might have an impact during a close election.
Bush ostensibly lost the popular vote by one half of one percent. (I am sure Democratic voter fraud counted for more than that.) Can you image the turmoil that would be caused by having to check the whole country to determine who get CA’s 54 electoral votes!
I also live in MD, the person is incorrect
So it sounds like a large crooked State might possibly manufacture an illegitimate vote margin that dwarfs and thus overturns the margins of numerous smaller States.
I live in Maine.
In 1992, Clinton campaigned here. While VP, Gore also campaigned in Maine.
George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have all made campaign appearances here in the past. The democrat and republican nominees also run commercials on Maine TV and radio stations during the Fall (in presidential election years).
Maine only has two congressional districts but, like Nebraska, allocates it’s electoral college votes based upon which candidate wins the popular vote in each specific district.
This is that thing that other states passed. The “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact”.
It only goes into effect if enough states for an EC majority pass it.
It’s just an attempt at an end around of the EC by liberal states.
If Cali gives final approve it will join IL, WA, VT, MA, NJ, DC, MD and HI in doing so. No Republican state will ever pass it.
Wow. Making your vote irrelevant. This is crazy. California Democrats no longer represent California. They are obviously nuts.
We have more important things to do like taking away Second Amendment Rights and turning the Presidential Election into American Idol.
I can't believe the California I grew up in is the same place we see today. What the hell happened?
Actually the state can give the electoral college votes to anyone they please. The popular vote is a new way to elect the President.
Thank you. It is little known fact that the constitution invests the power to elect the President in the state legislatures. Also the Senators. An amendment changed the election of Senators to a popular vote and just look at what that mistake has caused.
Seems like the Republicans can just ignore California.
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