More states consider working around the Electoral College

AP via Philly.com ^ | 12/23/2016 | SUSAN HAIGH

[dirtboy]

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Frustrated after seeing another candidate secure the presidency without winning the national popular vote, mostly Democratic lawmakers in several capitols want their states to join a 10-year-old movement to work around the Electoral College.

In states including Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Mexico, legislators have said they plan to introduce legislation that would require their state's Electoral College voters cast ballots for the presidential candidate who earns the most votes nationwide, regardless of the statewide results.

"Every vote in this country should have equal weight. The Electoral College is a relic of a bygone era, and we need to change this system," said Connecticut state Sen. Mae Flexer, who filed a bill with several fellow Democrats requiring Connecticut to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Since 2006, 11 states have signed onto the compact, which require their Electoral College voters to cast ballots for the national popular vote winner. In theory it would take effect once it involves states representing at least 270 electoral votes, the threshold to win the presidency.

[so_real]

If each county were represented by a single elector, it looks to me like a landslide for Trump ... no?

[DoughtyOne]

Thank you for the election county vote map.

As it turns out, I was wrong wasn’t I. It didn’t come out like the popular vote at all. That made sense to me when I predicted it, but I was way off.

I agree with the Electoral College the way it is. I don’t want large states to be able to run roughshod over small states, but there has to be some balance to this.

Should a county with a population of 5,000 have as much clout as the county that has New York or Los Angeles in it? That wouldn’t be reasoned. We have hundreds of counties like that.

The electoral college apportions one elector per each representative’s district. Each district has 710,767 residents. They are reapportioned after each ten year census. In about four years, we’ll see the populace jump to a higher population figure for each district.

As it turns out, the Electoral College does it’s job. In this election you had places like Los Angeles and New York over-ruled by many other congressional districts.

I think our Founders had it right. More folks might agree with you though.

https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-08.pdf

[Kellis91789]

Why not go the other way and have their legislatures allot the Electoral Votes based on Congressional district like Maine and Nebraska do ?

Oh, that’s right. That type of rule would benefit Republicans, so of course they don’t want to do that. 15 million conservatives in California, NY, and IL would have are votes actually count every 4 years. Can’t have that.

[Kellis91789]

The Constitution doesn’t dictate how any State chooses its Electors, does it ? If it did, we wouldn’t have 48 States that are “winner take all” and 2 that are “by Congressional District”.

If the SCOTUS was going to step in based on complaints by voters that they were being disenfranchised, should that have already happened ? 4 million CA like me had our votes unrepresented in the Electoral College. Millions of Dims in TX had their votes unrepresented. If SCOTUS has not done away with winner-takes-all for Electors, I don’t think we can count on them interfering with any rules a State chooses to assign its Electors.

[Phillyred]

Why even have states then?

[so_real]

There is definitely room for a debate. You asked if a small population county should have as much clout as a large population county. I would argue that it should, lest it be subjugated by the hive mentality of highly metropolitan areas. A population held together in close proximity becomes less individual and more communal. It assumes a hive mind. And I believe each hive should only possess a single vote rather than allowing the larger hives to rule over the smaller ones. After all, the wants and needs of a small community differ significantly from that of a large community; but each community places equal value in their wants and needs. I've defended the electoral college for as long as I've understood it. But I confess I do grow weary of the re-districting games (have you seen how district maps have been legally yet ridiculously contrived to produce a desired outcome?), and that a significant portion of the nation is "fly over country" because their states electors really have no bearing in the ultimate outcome.

[DoughtyOne]

I don’t agree that a 500 man county, should have the clout of a million person county. It would serve my political views to go for it looking at the map you provided, but it wouldn’t be right. It’s not proportional.

The Electoral College addresses that by equal representation.

Yes, gerrymandering is real, and it probably always will be. Not sure how you stop it.

There’s no way I know of to be definitive on this. That’s all I’ve got to say about it for now.

Take care.

[Candor7]

Candor7, do you know more about the actual popular vote totals? I’ve searched and can’t find anything that is current or seems half way accurate. Aside from that, has any authoritative source even mentioned or tried to figure out how many CA votes were by non-citizens?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You point out a very interesting phenomenon. During the Michigan recount it was discovered that one borough in Detroit that went for Hillary had 206 more votes cast than they had registered voters.

The democrat machine began winding down ino redr to keep frpom discovering such embarrassing fact.

I suspect we will not see much reveal from the MSM but we will have to wait for forensic political scientists to do the research and publish their findings.

I suspect that Clinton’s popular vote in California is comprised of a lot of unregistered voters.The sign of this fact would be that more voters vote at any given poll than are registered in that polling district.This information should be tallied nationally and published nationally. But do not hold your breath.

[trebb]

The People of those States need to be livid - a State could potentially go 90+% for a candidate and have its Electors vote for the other guy...

[windsorknot]

The Left loves to “work around” the Constitution.

[Obsidian]

poster on JackPineRadicals (a surprisingly good site despite their politics) had an excellent point to make regarding abolishing the electoral college:
Furthermore, a straight up national popular vote for president requires one more thing… national reciprocity of vote legitimacy. For State A to recognize the legitimacy of State B votes/voters, State A is going to want all of the voters from State B to be vetted/accredited/accounted for in a similar fashion as their own State A voters. Basically, any state that requires voter IDs if going to want every other state’s voters to be similarly qualified if all the votes get lumped together nationally. I believe a push for nationwide popular vote will see a big counter-demand for nationwide standardization of Voter ID Law.....I’m just saying that if you lump ALL people from all states together into one big pool of popular votes – certain states are going to DEMAND that if you individual votes to count equally across state lines, then the qualifications to across state lines should also be identical/equal. And frankly, it’s not an unreasonable request....Unfortunately, the only way to really do that is implementing some sort of ID law or something… and getting all sides to agree to some sort uniform voter registration/ID is going to be like herding cats. Realistically, I don’t see it happening.

[Obsidian]

And I would add to that, that going by Hillary’s popular vote margin, it’s not like Trump would have to get almost 3 million more votes—all he would’ve needed would be about 1.5 million more to not only cancel out and halve her margin, but top it.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

in Georgia. There is a defacto alliance in the state legislature to draw up districts in which there are three safe districts for black Democrats and eight safe districts for white Republicans.

The racial aspect is, perhaps, less explicit in PA; I know that at least in the South, there is judicial pressure to assure black representation in Congress - which, as you suggest, is mighty convenient for the black Democrat politicians and for the (white) Republican ones.

[little jeremiah]

I hope that the voting fraud crap gets straightened out by the next presidential election, if not sooner. CA and OR and maybe some other states have automatic voter registration for anyone who gets a drivers license. Totally sucks - since both states allow non-citizens and illegals to get drivers licenses.

I hope that some sort of accurate numbers surface eventually so the “Hitlery won the popular vote by a million or two” myth dies the death it should.

[little jeremiah]

I agree with you 100%. No political or governance system is perfect, because humans aren’t perfect. Which ever system is less pliable for corruption is best.

[little jeremiah]

Thank you. And then remove illegal votes....

[deport]

Popular vote is an interesting study at the national level.

Clinton won the popular vote by some 2.8 million votes. Of that popular vote win
approximately 1.3 million of those votes came out of her win in Los Angeles County, CA.
Her other 1.5 million votes came from across the remaining 3,100+ counties or equivalent nationwide.

 CLINTON   2,464,364  
 TRUMP       769,743  
 JOHNSON      88,968 
 STEIN        76,465  
 LA RIVA      21,993  

 

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the note of agreement.

I agree with your corruption comment.

[Right-wing Librarian]

Enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC.

Actively working against our republic to undo this vital protection from democratic rule constitutes being a domestic enemy.

James Madison:

“Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and ... and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

[little jeremiah]

The men who wrote and ratified the Constitution were intelligent and educated. Compare their educations and general standards of morality to the average political operative now....

I rest my case.