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To: zaker99

I didn’t say it was unfair, every state can do what they want with their EC Votes, I said doing so undermines the intent of the EC in the first place and basically makes it meaningless.

Why do you think we have an EC vs a straight popular vote?

If you don’t know I suggest some reading up on history.

The purpose of the EC was to ensure populous states could not just run roughshod over less populous ones. To enable this the EC is set up so that all states have a vote for every senator and every representative.

Why? What does that do? Well simply put that allows smaller states to have a disproportionate weight related to their populations.. IE big state has say 30 Reps and 2 Senators 32 EC votes.. small state had 5 reps and 2 senators.. 7 EC votes. The Larger state has over 6 times the population of the smaller state (32 vs 5) but its EC weight is not 6 times the smaller state (7x6=42) it is closer to 4.6 times the smaller states weight 7X4.6 = 32.2

So the big state, in spite of having over 6 times the smaller states population its EC vote is only 4.6 times larger. The smaller less populated states actually carry more EC weight than larger ones per population. Now the Constitution does not stipulate how the states divvy up the votes, so what this guy in PA is proposing is not unconstitutional, but it does tend to lessen the effect of smaller states have to counter larger states.

Lets say for Example this rule was followed by all states.. if it were, you would effectively wind up with nothing more than the popular vote.. the extra 2 votes for senators, while still there, and could be divied up by who won the state as a whole or some other method, won’t really carry the same weight to preventing larger states from running roughshod.... You are dilluting the countering.

PA for example has 18 districts... roughly with the same population each. This election O clearly won 10 of those districts, and assuming the senate votes go to him, he’d get the extra 2 for winning the state overall... so he’d get 12 of the 20 EC votes.

Okay so Romney now gets 8 votes he wouldn’t have had.. but if you assume ALL states go to the same model, you really are dillute those 2 extra votes, and wind up with really nothing more than a popular vote... Because for a state like PA or OH where this might seem like it would help the republican.. you have a state like GA or FL or VA.. where the R can win the state, but lose a lot of the congressional districts, so its a mixed bag, lets say Romney gets FL.. that’s 29 votes right now, but under the proposed change, he’d likely only wind up with 14 of the 27 districts, and the 2 extra.. so he’d get 16 votes for FL, and O would have gotten 9... Take those 16, add the 8 from PA and you net 24 votes for Romney.. then you take the 13 O votes in FL add them to the 12 votes from PA and Obama gets 25! So it went from 29 votes for Romney for FL, and 20 for Obama for PA to 24 for Romney, and 25 for Obama... you’ve dilluted the extra EC votes to nearly meaningless and gone to a true popular vote by proxy.

Can states do this? Absolutely.. they can allocate the votes however they wish, but don’t think for one minute messing with how the states allocate their EC votes it won’t impact things.

Even this election with only a few million voted between them, this sort of allocation change if done nationally would not have changed the outcome... It would make the EC closer reflect the popular vote, but it would not have given Romney the win.

I for one do not wish to dillute the purpose of the EC.

Now Romney lost because it seems the GOTV didn’t do its job.. Obama lost 10 MILLION votes, and Romney didn’t even get the same amount as McCain.. that’s not a failing of the EC model, or allocations or even vote fraud.. that’s the failing of the ground game.


27 posted on 11/09/2012 9:23:34 AM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: HamiltonJay

I think it should be done where we have control, if it will help us. I’m not advocating that it be done everywhere, because clearly there are traditionally republican states where this would help democrats. The democrats continuously impose laws on us that violate the constitution. We need to defeat them, and we can do it legally and within the constitution.


29 posted on 11/09/2012 9:41:13 AM PST by zaker99
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