Posted on 06/03/2011 7:25:02 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
Popular-vote pact picks up steam
A once-sleepy movement that would upend the Electoral College, reverse two centuries of constitutional practice and elect presidents by direct popular vote has quietly picked up momentum in recent days, with Republican Party leaders scrambling to stanch a steady stream of defections by GOP state lawmakers to the plan.
*snip*
Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s voters supported another candidate. If a group of states with an accumulated tally of 270 electoral votes - the bare majority - sign on, the practical effect would be that the popular-vote winner instantly becomes the Electoral College winner as well.
*snip*
A rash of Republican state legislators have signed on as co-sponsors and even sponsors of this year’s spate of NPV bills. At a May 12 news conference, two prominent Republicans — former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and former Gov. Jim Edgar of Illinois — endorsed the compact.
“We’re perpetually kind of rolling the dice in presidential elections in this country and risking electing someone who didn’t get the most votes,” Mr. Thompson said at the event. “It’s an unnecessary risk.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I’m probably a pretty small minority here, but if it is done correctly, I would be in favor of popular vote determination, though it should ONLY be done by Constitutional Amendment.
What was the purpose of the Electoral College in the first place? To choose wise individuals who would then work out the best candidate, thereby avoiding being slaves to the passion of the moment. But with electors now obligated to follow the dictates of the popular vote in their own states, the whole point of the system is erased. Now it only serves to confuse and make things more complicated than they need to be while encouraging cynicism.
Dare I say something positive about French elections and the way they are held? Everyone votes, the votes are counted and 15 minutes after the polls close, we know the winner. If nobody gets 50.01%, there is an immediate runoff between the top two just 2 weeks later, which ensures that the winner gets a majority of the citizens’ votes. In our elections, we have a system in which it has become rare for a candidate to get an actual majority, inviting false flag parties, mischief-makers and lawyers (please excuse the redundancy) to distort the result. Look for big-time false-flag Tea Party candidates in the 2012 elections, just to scatter and dilute the conservative vote. It is going to happen.
I thought a second reason was to prevent smaller states from becoming totally irrelevant. If we went with a straight popular vote, wouldn't candidates just focus their attention on larger cities (even more than now)?
Another temptation to ‘change’ the Constitution. The electoral college was envisioned by the Framers as one of many checks and balances on the concentration of too much political power. Then it was larger states numerical advantage over the smaller states. As many here have posted, it is as valid today as it ever was, maybe more so. And the concept applies to in-state governance as well. Each state of the union has at least one large city, and as every body knows, states like Illinois are led around by the nose by Chicago, a political entity not many of us revere.
I find it troubling that you feel that way about the Founding Fathers.
This is the thought that occurred to me. Can states individually abrogate Constitutional requirements to have electors? Correspondingly , can electors as Constitutionally designated for States give one States voters to to another or more? Sounds like something one would expect out of Russia in 1917 or Germany in 1932 maybe it is.
To give me some some sense that you are not just making numbers up out of whole cloth, that's why. The total number of votes cast in all states in the last presidential election was about 129.5 million.
Nixon on Thompson: ‘Dumb’ but ‘Friendly’
October 09, 2007 9:06 AM
Fred Thompson has made much of his role 30 years ago as a young Senate lawyer helping to lead the investigation of the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon.
But a much different, less valiant picture of Thompson emerges from listening to the White House audiotapes made at the time, as President Nixon plotted strategy with his aides in the Oval Office.
Thompson’s job on the Watergate committee was to lead the Republican side of the investigation. He was appointed by his mentor, Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, who is now co-chair of Thompson’s 2008 presidential bid.
Two words, Faithless Electors.
Actually I think they only want the inner city thugs to put them in power, then they will rule over us.
Like that s a new concept?
You have a very corrupt government in California at all levels. They'll cheat.
I would be in favor of that, it would prevent the constant loss of Republican/conservative EVs that occur in the "winner take all" blue states. For many of us in blue states, it is painful to see all of the EVs go to the Dim candidate even from districts that are always red.
God, I don't know ..... they're twisting his arm somehow? The man is a constitutional scholar -- he knows better than this! He knows the practical effects, too. It'd make the blue hellhole cities absolute kingmakers.
Maybe he couldn't stand George W. Bush? Al Gore went to some Tennessee pals and they got something on Fred?
The Electoral College used to do just that. The Electors represented the States, not some candidate.
Sorry about your disappointment, but Duncan Hunter got ignored by everybody. The reason? He was a good man, but he was a small man. No clout, no swing, no pull, no friends. Nothing.
Sorry.
These people don’t have a clue what the electoral college was all about.
If one notices that the word “political party” appears absolutely no place in the US Constitution, nor does two-party system, nor does “campaign”, ... then it is imperative that the person figure out HOW the electoral college operated in the absence of “parties” and “campaigns.”
And therein lies the divinely inspired genius of the Founders when it came to selecting a president.
I was talking about the process to select the candidate. Why the hell should we let Iowa and New Hampshire and a couple other states be the ones who select our candidate?
Absolutely.
That is absolutely not true, and I've got the quotes to prove it.
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