Quotes of the day (Electoral College change)

Hot Air ^ | September 14, 2011

[wmfights]

Title was altered by me to reflect the subject.

[wmfights]

“But most of these states have a simple political geography: vast swaths of Republican-leaning rural and sometimes suburban districts balanced by, and sometimes outweighted, by densely-packed, deeply Democratic urban districts. It’s not surprising that frustrated Republicans would tire of seeing their votes rendered moot by high (some would argue suspiciously high) turnout in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, etc. often gives Democrats the edge in these key states.

My first thought was to oppose this until I read this. If we ended up with electoral votes awarded by district vote fraud is limited to Rat strong holds and can't sway entire states.

[Sudetenland]

Wow! Another stupid idea from shallow thinkers. The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College for a reason. People like Corbett and Fred Thompson need to reread their copies of the Constitution.

[rarestia]

It’s beyond me why everyone, even Republicans, are looking to amend the Constitution and change the ways we’ve been doing things.

Leave it alone! It’s lasted us this long. Roll it back to original intent, and we’ll really see some growth in this country!

[Laserman]

I don’t think the Constitution specifies how EC votes will be assigned in the states. I believe it is left to the states to decide.

[Laserman]

I don’t think the Constitution specifies how EC votes will be assigned in the states. I believe it is left to the states to decide.

[Mr. Lucky]

OK, what part of the Constitution prohibits states from determining how their electoral college votes are allocated?

[swain_forkbeard]

Any action by the PA legislature to change how its electors are allocated will undermine neither the EC or the COTUS.

[swain_forkbeard]

“... looking to amend the Constitution...”

Which constitution are you talking about?

[demkicker]

We all need to be VERY suspicious of anyone - Republican or Democrat - that advocates tinkering with the Electorial College (Constitution). This is a Pandora’s Box that needs to stay closed.

[mrs9x]

No one is talking about amending the constitution. Any state can choose a method for selecting electors to the Electoral college and it is perfectly constitutional.

[So Cal Rocket]

No one is talking about amending the constitution. Any state can choose a method for selecting electors to the Electoral college and it is perfectly constitutional.

Not only that, but I believe Nebraska and Maine already allocate their Electoral Votes using this method.

[TStro]

The Constitution leaves the means of apportionment up to the states. California is changing theirs to a “winner takes all” to benefit Zero. This just balances that, and gives folks in “flyover country” representation.

[xzins]

The system we have now is not the original system.

[Sudetenland]

It doesn't, but then I didn't say that it did.

The proposed change defeats the whole purpose of the Electoral College to change it to reflect the popular vote. The whole concept is to negate the massive advantage that large-high population states have in the electoral process.

If every state did this it would render the smaller states irrelevant. The FF did not set up the system so that it might favor one party of the other, as it argued in this piece. I don't care if it would be to the advantage of the GOP, I care about maintaining the integrity of the electoral system. The closer you get to a pure democracy, the closer you get to an untenable and dangerous system.

[Buckeye McFrog]

if the vote happened today I think the split would be more something like 16-4

[Raider Sam]

What about Maine and Nebraska? This isnt a Constitutional issue, just a tradition issue.

[PDMiller]

Maine and Nebraska both use an alternative method of distributing their electoral votes, called the Congressional District Method. Currently, these two states are the only two in the union that diverge from the traditional winner-take-all method of electoral vote allocation. With the district method, a state divides itself into a number of districts, allocating one of its state-wide electoral votes to each district. The winner of each district is awarded that district’s electoral vote, and the winner of the state-wide vote is then awarded the state’s remaining two electoral votes. This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996.

From http://archive.fairvote.org/e_college/me_ne.htm

[heiss]

Exactly. Voter fraud would be limited to dem districts (that they would win anyway).

This idea would eliminate voter fraud.

[wmfights]

It’s beyond me why everyone, even Republicans, are looking to amend the Constitution and change the ways we’ve been doing things.

If you take the time to read the article you might see that it is constitutional and that it is a great way to limit the impact of vote fraud.