Posted on 09/10/2007 9:29:24 AM PDT by labral
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee a majority of the Electoral College to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would reform the Electoral College so that the electoral vote in the Electoral College reflects the choice of the nation's voters for President of the United States.
Electors cannot be instructed on how to vote by legislation.
It is Constitutional only to the extent that states find a way to task their Electors to cast their votes in that manner under the existing Electoral College..
It would make sense that the candidate that got the most votes from the people should be elected to office.
But then, I realize there’s no place for common sense in politics.
You’d think it should be Constitutional since the founding fathers wanted a representative republic.
I always thought the electoral college idea was dumb anyway.
Each state can set its own rules for how to divide up its electoral votes.
I have seen where certain states have enacted voting rules about populare vote winners, which makes me laugh.
Think about this...lets assume that we get an arch conservative who wins the popular vote by a few thousand. His liberal opponent wins the electoral college (a la Bush 2000). Can you hear the caterwalling form the liberals, when their electors have to vote for the arch conservative popular vote getter? No matter what happens the liberals will go nuts.
Let them try this..it has been out there for years. They have met with little success
The point of the electoral system is to prevent a few big cities from dictating terms to the rest of the nation.
You should spend a bit more time reading the Constitution. The FF envisioned a representative government that reflected ALL parts of society, specifically creating an electoral college to keep the population centers from ruling the government.
The winner under this system would be the candidate who is *perceived* to have gotten the most popular vote.
And the unbiased, non partisan media will always perceive the lib as the victor...
True, and there is no way to set up a national popular vote without amending the Constitution. And there are so many small population states, that will never happen. If California wants to divide up their EC votes, knock themselves out.
Consider this: Mr. Conservative is running against Mrs. Liberal. Mr. Conservative carries 49 states with a 50,000 vote margin in each state. Mrs. Liberal however carries California with a 3,000,000 vote margin. Under a popular vote election who wins? Is that a representative republic?
Not even Ruth Bater Ginsburg could twist our Constitution into allowing this.
Electors cannot be instructed how to vote by legislation passed by Conbress nor can the Congress legislate—except by doing their part in a Constitutional Amendment—the assignment of electors. Electors are chosen the method determined by the state legislatures. Every state has decided to allow either the entire slate of electors be winner take all or winner take two for the state-wide winner and the other electors being the winner in the by congressional district.
As it stands today, no one in the U.S. save the electors (or the delegations in the House) votes for the president. We vote for electors pledged to a candidate.
The Electoral College also has the right to stop someone, like say.....Adolf Hitler from becoming President of the US, regardless of what the people want. People in this country do not research candidates and their past. Thus we have Hillary. It is a stop gap that is extremely important to our way of life. Say for instance, muslims become strong in a community, then a county, then a big city, then a state. They believe in sharia law which is against Christians and Jews. Without the Electoral College, they could control the vote in this country.
You're kidding, right?
Without it, the votes of people in rural and/or less populous states would be meaningless. Our Presidents would be chosen by states such as California and New York.
Our Founding Fathers gave us a Constitutional Republic for a reason. They had considered a democracy, and rejected it.
A democracy is a dictatorship; a dictatorship of the majority.
Our Founding Fathers wanted to protect the rights of a minority, against the dictatorship of the majority. That is why we have the Bill of Rights. That is why we have a bicameral legislature, with a House of Representatives, and a Senate. And that is why we have the Electoral College.
Exactly! I don’t want New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco picking the president. We will never get out of that hole short of having another revolution.
You’d think it should be Constitutional since the founding fathers wanted a representative republic.
I always thought the electoral college idea was dumb anyway.
Then it's obvious you have no idea what the job of the President was intended to be. The electoral college was set up to help give the States a check on the Federal executive branch. The State election of Senators was also intended as such. Look what dicking around with that via the 17th Amendment has done.
It seems to me that this would be the death of anything even roughly resembling the federalist system. Why even bother with the formality of having states anymore?
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