Posted on 04/04/2011 7:43:16 AM PDT by SmithL
The smaller states would still be forced to pay taxes, even though they have no representation?
Time for a bigger Tea Party.
The states that have approved that stupid national-popular-vote “compact” won’t hand out their EVs based on the national popular vote unless enough states to encompass 270 EVs have signed on to the “compact.” Doesn’t make them any less idiotic, though.
IIRC, they go to whom ever wins the popular vote state wide. I could be wrong, though.
California - “We vote to make San Francisco the capital of the universe! Well, we voted for it, so it must be real.”
It’ll backfire.
I think that Congress should pass a law that states that electoral college votes must be allocated based on only that state’s own votes, and cannot be tied to a national vote total.
That’s a fuzzy area Constitutionally, as states are allowed to allocate their EV’s as they wish. However, since they are trying to circumvent the very intent of the Founders, there might be some leeway here.
Nebraska has three congressional districts.
Under a 1991 Nebraska law, whichever presidential candidate wins the individual congressional districts gets one electoral vote from each district.
Whichever candidate wins the statewide popular vote in Nebraska gets the other two electoral votes....the two electoral votes they get from their senators.
In 2008, McCain won two of Nebraska’s congressional districts as well as the statewide vote. He received four electoral votes from Nebraska. Obama won one congressional district in Omaha, and he, Obama, received one electoral vote from Nebraska.
Maine has two congressional districts. Same deal as Nebraska....the statewide winner of the popular vote receives the two electoral votes they get from their senators. Obama received a majority of the vote in both of Maine’s congressional districts, so he, Obama, received all four of Maine’s electoral college votes.
Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that divy up their electoral votes by congressional district.
we’re already nothing but fly-over country.
It's R E A L L Y dumb to through POTUS into that mix too...less our Republican form of government cease to exist.
Tell the Dims to set a good example-get rid of superdelegates.
a nation lost becuz the electorate is so dumb, they would vote to be conquered.
Idiot. If he wants attention paid to California in a national election, he should work for proportional allocation of its electoral votes.
You need a Constitutional Amendment to do this!
A bunch of big blue states are trying to set it up so as radical left wing candidates running for the White House will never lose.
The plan based on mimicking the national popular vote frankly sucks.
I saw a report/study/analysis 6-10 years ago, possibly posted on FR, in which the ME/NE method was applied nationwide to all elections since 1960.
The outcome in the Presidential race remained the same for every election. But there were differences. Every landslide was still pretty much a landslide, but less so. If a candidate won 49 states under the existing method it was still a blowout, but the gap closed some because the losing candidate picked up a bunch of votes from either blue urban districts or red non-urban districts depending on which way the blowout swung.
There were two significant(interesting?) changes. Carter’s victory was the closest contest and Bush 2000 won handily.
So if every state adopted the ME/NE method both sides would be more fairly represented in the final tally, but large urban areas might lose the ability to throw the entire state into one column. (’Every state’ being the operative phrase.)
On another note:
There are two serious problems with moving to an NPV.
First, as many have noted in other postings, the obvious loss of representation for anyone outside the coastal states and the large urban areas.
Second, accumulated voter fraud. A few hundred or a couple thousand fraudulent votes in a heavily red district may have little or no affect on the outcome in that district, but it will get added to the ones generated everywhere else.
I read a statistical analysis of the 2000 Palm Beach County vote in which the author stated the typical error/spoilage rate for the type of butterfly ballot used in PBC was a fraction of a percent. The rate would have translated to about 1800 spoiled ballots. PBC had over 19,000. Sadly, but maybe revealing, this was not uncommon for PBC.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1054629/posts
As was pointed out in the article ballots of this type could be stacked up and punched en masse for a selected candidate and any ballot not cast for that candidate would become spoiled. Few locations in the country had anything even close to this volume of error/spoilage although Chicago typically has tens of thousands of ‘spoiled’ ballots. Repeatedly. (120,000 one year according to the article.)
It’s anybody’s guess as to how much of this is going on, and at the state and district levels the affect might be minimal. But at the national level it would be cumulative!
Dems love to point out that Gore won the popular vote, but that might not have been the case if fraudulent votes were removed and intentionally spoiled ballots were restored and any ignored votes were counted. (I believe some states do not bother counting absentee ballots if there is no chance of changing the outcome, but I could be wrong on that.)
My feeling is that anybody pushing for an NPV is counting on those two things: urban rule/dominance and fraud. Either that or they’re an idiot.
The parties nomination processes certainly disenfranchise millions. CA will have its presidential primary in June 2012 long after the determination has been made. Iowa and NH entitlement can go to hell.
Democrats only want to do away with the Electoral college because, historically, they've been the only party blocked by it: Hayes over Tilden in 1876 with 150,000 fewer votes, Cleveland had 100,000 more votes but lost reelection to Harrison in 1888. Harrison did lose in the 1892 rematch however. And then W came in with 540,000 fewer votes than Gore.
Democrat power is increasingly concentrated in urban areas, a problem magnified in CA where L.A. and the Bay Area control the state while millions of other Californians, outside those areas, suffer their failed politicians and failed policies.
This is precisely what the electoral college is designed to guard against.
Unfortunately both of your points might be effectively circumvented without violating the Constitution. Regarding your second point, as per Article II, "Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature may therof direct, a Number of Electors...". Hence there is nothing which prevents each state legislature from appointing Electors who will vote only for the candidate who has won a majority of the national popular vote.
Your first point is stronger, but it still only requires that a majority of Congress consent to the compact. Whereas a Constitutional Amendment would require a 2/3 majority of both houses of Congress plus ratification by 3/4 of the states. As long as Republicans either control the House or have enough votes to filibuster in the Senate, then Congress is unlikely to approve such a compact. (And it's possible that only a majority of the Senate would be needed if they tried to insert it into the budget reconciliation process.) But as soon as Democrats gained total control of both houses they could approve the compact. (Although this won't necessarily break down along strictly partisan lines. Some Democratic Senators from small states could find it politically impossible to vote in favor of the compact.)
So the NPV movement is actually a very clever end-run around the otherwise impossible task of getting 2/3 of the Senate plus enough small states to ratify a Constitutional Amendment for electing Presidents by popular vote. There's a reasonable probability that eventually enough states will pass the measure to total 270 electoral votes. I certainly expect California's Democrat-dominated legislature to re-pass it, and this time a Democrat governor is likely to sign it.
This will skew the balance of power toward the urban consumers and away from the rural producers.
There is no reason that California can’t opt to split it’s electoral votes in direct proportion to the popular votes. Other states do that. Nebraska and Maine do that.
There is no reason for California to screw up the rest of teh states. Just opt to split the state’s electoral votes per the popular vote.
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