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Dissenters in GOP rethink Electoral College [Fred Thompson joins those trying to destroy it]
The Washington Times ^ | June 2, 2011 | Valerie Richardson

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 ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Front Page News; US: Illinois; US: Tennessee
KEYWORDS: ec; elections; electoral; electoralcollege; electoralvote; electoralvotes; fred; fredthompson; illinois; jimedgar; nationalpopularvote; tennessee; thompson
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To: EternalVigilance

“Absolute proof the Oligarchy is having a hissy fit about the prospects of Flyover Country electing their president!!!!”

Indicates to me that the Oligarchy can only “manufacture” votes in the inner cities of the big states.


21 posted on 06/03/2011 7:39:52 PM PDT by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you do not, no explanation is possible")
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To: EternalVigilance

Okay, what lobbyist group is “lobbbying” Fred Thompson and others to proclaim this particular view?? (Follow the money).

If we want the US to be like Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, ok....vote me in as dictator for life and I will give you free stuff..., wait that’s almost what we’ve got now!


22 posted on 06/03/2011 7:45:39 PM PDT by khnyny
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To: EternalVigilance
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!
Electoral College is our only sure protection against localized electoral corruption, particularly at a time when Demonrat precincts are "accomplishing" >100% voter turn-out.
23 posted on 06/03/2011 7:47:53 PM PDT by Nevermore (...just a typical cracker, clinging to my Constitutional rights...)
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To: Pollster1
Direct popular vote will hand over the election to the control of California with 120 million voters, New York with 85 million, and Florida with the same 85 million.
24 posted on 06/03/2011 7:48:53 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Farmer Dean

Fred is and old senile has-been who is looking for attention any way he can get it. Only a fool would do away with the EC. Popular vote? Really? That is the vehicle that undermined the 10 Amendment and effectively destroyed state sovereignty—when the PV was used to elect senators rather than election by the state legislatures.

But, hey, who needs the Constitution anyway? Right Fred? I mean you are so much more enlightened than those who drafted that august document!

If we do not cut the necks of these elite bastards, then we shall soon have an oligarchy rather than a representative republic. Mob rule by “democracy”—and is that not the term with which these change agents constantly use when referring to our system of government? They never use the word “constitutional republic.” Always their axiom is “democracy.” These individuals are wolves in sheep’s clothing, bar none. They pretend themselves “conservatives”—but nothing could be further from the truth.

Oh yes, they throw the conservative base a bone here and there—anti-abortion, pro-marriage, pro “free-market”—anything to keep our focus off their treasonous machinations. Like true masters of the illusionist art they keep us distracted from what their real object is. And we are mostly too stupid to notice. Too caught up in the little distractions they throw at us, so not to see the war they wage against our freedom.

Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich, Willard Romney, George HW Bush, George W Bush, etc, et al. All of them dupes of the banking cartels—and all of them co-conspirators in the NWO of the elite oligarchs.


25 posted on 06/03/2011 7:49:01 PM PDT by TCH (DON'T BE AN "O-HOLE"! ... DEMAND YOUR STATE ENACT ITS SOVEREIGNTY !When a majority of the American)
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To: EternalVigilance
Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution states: "... No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, ..."

So this compact among states to circumvent the Constitution is in and of itself UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

26 posted on 06/03/2011 7:50:08 PM PDT by VRWCmember (_!_)
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To: EternalVigilance

He was good as Knox Pooley.


27 posted on 06/03/2011 7:51:31 PM PDT by decimon
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To: hinckley buzzard

I saw him up in New Hampshire, and was appalled.

He looked really, REALLY old and tired. NOT someone you wanted in charge.


28 posted on 06/03/2011 7:52:17 PM PDT by rlmorel (Capitalism is the Goose that lays The Golden Egg.)
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To: VRWCmember
So this compact among states to circumvent the Constitution is in and of itself UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Yeah. Too bad that we don't have executives, legislators, or judges who pay any attention to such matters now.

29 posted on 06/03/2011 7:54:16 PM PDT by EternalVigilance (Some of us still 'hold these truths to be self-evident'..Enough to save the country? Time will tell.)
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To: EternalVigilance

Except for 2 states [ME and NE], its winner-take-all in each state [which kinda sucks for those districts that DO NOT vote for that candidate].

NOW, they want to change a state’s electoral votes if the National Popular Vote [NPV] goes to the other candidate [even if that candidate wins with LESS than 50% of the NPV].

The FAIREST method would be to allocate the electoral vote of a district within a state to the WINNER of that district. The remaining 2 electoral votes would go to the overall winner of the STATE’S Popular Vote [SPV].

Thats the way it works in ME and NE ...


30 posted on 06/03/2011 7:54:58 PM PDT by Lmo56 (If ya wanna run with the big dawgs - ya gotta learn to piss in the tall grass ...)
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To: Pollster1

That’s exactly why the left wants this. They want inner city thugs to control us.


31 posted on 06/03/2011 7:55:07 PM PDT by conservativebuckeye
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To: EternalVigilance

Is the NPV compact even constitutional?

If (just suppose), Zero were to lose the popular vote next year, but could manage enough electoral votes for re-election; except that California has already signed on to the NPV ... bet your bottom dollar the issue would be going straight to the Supreme Court.


32 posted on 06/03/2011 7:58:22 PM PDT by eclecticEel (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: 7/4/1776 - 3/21/2010)
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To: eclecticEel
Is the NPV compact even constitutional?

No.

33 posted on 06/03/2011 8:00:45 PM PDT by EternalVigilance (Some of us still 'hold these truths to be self-evident'..Enough to save the country? Time will tell.)
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To: Farmer Dean

what did you expect from draft dodging head of senate centrist coalition?

Always a Rino..


34 posted on 06/03/2011 8:00:45 PM PDT by heiss
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To: EternalVigilance
It appears the "elites" in this country think they know better than those that came before them. Fred must want more gigs in Hollyweird.
35 posted on 06/03/2011 8:04:49 PM PDT by Major Matt Mason (RINO's are more interested in defeating conservatives than they are in defeating Marxists.)
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To: TCH

And yet a large contingent here at FR thought Fred Thompson was the second coming of Ronald Reagan, and ignored the real conservative in the race—Duncan Hunter.


36 posted on 06/03/2011 8:05:05 PM PDT by hellbender
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To: EternalVigilance

I respected Fred once, not any more. I thought he was a Constitutionalist but I guess not. Oh, well.


37 posted on 06/03/2011 8:05:36 PM PDT by gunsmithkat (There is no such thing as Too Many Guns)
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To: EternalVigilance

The Electoral College is there because the States were the sovereign units. A President had to be elected by a majority of the several States’ electors, not by “the people.” By the same token, Senators were to be elected by State legislatures, not “the people.” The only group to be elected directly by popular vote was the House of Representatives.


38 posted on 06/03/2011 8:08:14 PM PDT by hellbender
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To: gunsmithkat

Hopefully, Sarah Palin, being from Alaska, will never, ever hop on that wagon.


39 posted on 06/03/2011 8:08:37 PM PDT by gunsmithkat (There is no such thing as Too Many Guns)
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To: hellbender

Yeah I was a Hunter fan but he just wasn’t well known.


40 posted on 06/03/2011 8:11:39 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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