Posted on 12/11/2017 10:14:06 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Republicans are hesitant to switch from our winner-take-all state laws allocating electors to the electoral college to using the National Popular Vote. The National Popular Vote Plan would award all of a state’s electors to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states. There is a fear that such a move will benefit Democrats, since Democrats won the popular vote even though they lost the elections in 2000 and 2016. But the truth is, Republicans are likely going to lose their ability to win the necessary swing state of Florida in the future, and they can win the popular vote by campaigning differently.
The demographics of Florida are changing. More and more illegal immigrants are entering the country. Additionally, Puerto Ricans are flooding the country due to economic chaos and humanitarian crisis following Hurricane Maria at home. When they enter the U.S., because they are American citizens they can vote, and they vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Hillary Clinton had an almost three-to-one edge among Puerto Ricans in Florida last year. Both illegal immigrants and legal Puerto Ricans are counted in the census which is used for determining how many congressional seats and electoral votes Florida receives. This will soon result in an increase in Florida’s electoral votes, which will lean more Democratic as increasing numbers of Puerto Ricans vote (this doesn’t even take into consideration possible illegal immigrant voter fraud).
It is true that Democrats Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the election. But those weren’t true popular vote elections. The Republican candidates they lost to put all their efforts into a handful of swing states, and did a better job campaigning there than the Democrats. In contrast, Clinton’s campaign unwisely campaigned in non-swing states such as Arizona, while ignoring the swing state of Wisconsin. If there was a true popular vote election, the Republican candidates would run a completely different type of campaign, likely focusing on mobilizing their base in rural areas and red states. Regardless, Republicans still won the popular vote in 2004.
A presidential election using the National Popular Vote is not a radical proposal. Critics contend there would need to be a constitutional convention to amend the Constitution in order to change the state-based, winner-take-all rule that most states use to send their electors to the electoral college. This isn’t necessary. The electoral college can remain. All the Constitution says about electing the president is in Article II, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….” In order to change the system, individual states would merely need to revise state law to send their electors based on the National Popular Vote for the presidential candidates instead of winner-take-all. Currently, all states but two, Maine and Nebraska, have winner-take-all systems to send their electors to the electoral college.
Critics also claim that using the National Popular Vote in presidential elections would favor big cities over rural areas. This isn’t correct. Only one-sixth of Americans live in the 100 biggest cities. In contrast, in the current unfair winner-take-all system, only a handful of states decide presidential elections, the swing states. The 10 most rural states aren’t included, nor are 12 of the 13 smallest states. The winner-take-all system does not represent the vast majority of Americans. By the time voting results come in from key swing states, many voters on the West coast don’t bother voting because their votes essentially don’t count. This hurts minor candidates on the ballot in those states.
Under the current system, presidents shower pork on the swing states in order to get their votes. During the 2004 election, President Bush advocated for and got a trillion dollar expansion of Medicare in order to entice votes from the large population of senior citizens in Florida. Presidents take steps to help the coal industry in order to influence Pennsylvania, and the ethanol industry to help Iowa. Battleground states are twice as likely to receive exemptions from No Child Left Behind as fly-over states and twice as likely to have natural disasters declared.
There is another criticism that a rogue state secretary of state could frustrate the National Popular Vote Compact by refusing to certify the results. This is invalid, since plenty of federal and state laws prohibit that elected official from doing so.
Voter fraud will become more difficult under a National Popular Vote, because crooked party operatives will no longer be able to focus their efforts on just a handful of states, and the windfall of electoral votes for their illicit efforts will be smaller. For the same reason, it also reduces the possibility of recounts.
What did the Founding Fathers prefer? Not winner-take-all. The Founders debated various methods of the electoral college and almost adopted the proportional system at the Constitutional Convention. They never debated a winner-take-all system. As the states began to adopt winner-take-all, in order to ensure that their favorite sons like Thomas Jefferson won, Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton warned in an 1824 Senate speech, “The general ticket system [winner-take-all], now existing in 10 States was … not [the offspring] of any disposition to give fair play to the will of the people. It was adopted by the leading men of those states, to enable them to consolidate the vote of the State.”
There are a significant number of prominent conservatives who understand what is taking place demographically so they support direct presidential elections. They include former congressmen Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Bob Barr (R-GA), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and eight former national chairs of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.
So far, 11 states have passed laws implementing the National Popular Vote Compact, and it has passed in at least one chamber of 12 other state legislatures, four of which are red states. It will go into effect when enough states have passed it to total 270 electoral votes. When polled (by a left-leaning polling company), 74 percent of Americans support direct presidential elections. This breaks down to 75 percent among Republicans and 78 percent among Democrats. The left naively thinks direct presidential elections will benefit Democrats, assuming that large urban areas will decide elections. This bipartisan support means there is a good chance it will happen.
The purpose of the National Popular Vote bill is to make every voter in every state politically relevant in every presidential election. This is the only way to right size the political influence of battleground states. Clinging to the winner-take-all system is a losing strategy for Republicans. Under that system, they will likely lose Florida by 2020 or 2024 due to demographical changes. It is better to take our chances with a direct presidential election than suffer certain defeat with the unfair, outdated, flawed current system that can and should be reformed.
If you read Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which was later amended through the 12th Amendment, it seems as if the founders of this country anticipated that the “House tiebreaker” process would happen on a fairly regular basis. This would be the case if you had regional parties and more than two major candidates in any presidential election who had enough regional appeal to win electoral votes in a presidential election.
Yeah, no problem except fraud in a handful of precincts in Chicago and CA can throw the entire election!
As states go, California has almost as many electoral votes as #2 and #3 combined. The winner-take-all version in use in most (?) states should be replaced with a proportional system, anyway.
However, the NPV "reform" would probably make it damned difficult for the Demagogic Party to ever again occupy (that's Occupy) the White House, assuming nitwits like Flake, Corker, McConnell, Ryan, and Romney aren't in charge.
Right now the Pubbie turnout in CA is depressed thanks to decades of gerrymandering, illegals, single party rule most of the time (assuming one accepts that Ahnold was a Republican), etc. If their turnout is keyed on, that is, they are motivated by the fact that when they turn out they flip a bunch of smaller NPV blue states' Electoral Votes right into the Republican column, they will be incentivized to turn out, despite the futility at the state level.
Thanks Oshkalaboomboom.
Here’s the `black letter’ authority:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii
Where in Article 2 can it be shown that the framers did not want a “winner take all electoral college”?
Or what secondary authority supports that position? The Federalist Papers? Which one? A letter from one to another?
Another remarkable statement: the electoral college will be “broken” only if the Constitution is amended.
We have already experienced the damage that resulted after ignoring the “natural born citizen” requirement in the same article.
If the Democrats want to start stealing elections legally they will have to change the US Constitution first.
The article allows electors to vote for only two candidates.
What proponents of the National Popular Vote don't tell you is that the compact is not necessary.
Any state can pass a law now to award their Electoral College vote to the winner of the national popular vote on its own. Why will no state step up and unilaterally do this to be a leader for the cause?
Why are they hiding behind this need to have a compact of 270 votes lined up before making the change? Why won't some liberal state lead by example, take that first step, and just do it now?
Could it be that, deep down, they know their voters would reject the idea of other states determining their state winner for them?
-PJ
The other thing worth noting in this election is that the population of the U.S. was somewhere around 10 million in 1824, and yet only 356,000 votes were cast. This might come as a huge surprise to a lot of SJW-types who like to complain about "white privilege," but the truth is that most white men didn't have the right to vote back then.
| Hillary's | |||||||||||
| Trump | Hillary | Margine of Victory | |||||||||
| National | Vote | ||||||||||
| Popular vote | 62,984,825 | 65,853,516 | 2,868,691 | ||||||||
| California | Vote | ||||||||||
| Popular vote | 4,483,814 | 8,753,792 | 4,269,978 | ||||||||
| National Vote Minus Hillary's California Margin of Victory | |||||||||||
| Popular vote | 62,984,825 | 61,583,538 | 1,401,287 | ||||||||
| Without California, Trump's popular vote totals exceded Hilary Clinton's by 1,401,287 votes. | |||||||||||
| 49 states gave Trump the popular vote by a margin of 1,401,287 votes. | |||||||||||
| National Vote Source: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016 | ||||||||||
| popular vote right side box | |||||||||||
| California Vote Source: | http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2016-general/ssov/pres-summary-by-county.pdf | ||||||||||
| bottom of page 3 | |||||||||||
Nope how about a ironclad federal law that some
lib states can’t interpret or circumvent
Yeah exactly. I’d imagine a lot of Trump supporters in New York, Illinois, and New England also stayed home since they knew Hillary had those states in the bag.
More Salem NeverTrump claptrap
It's idiotic to even suggest this. It would be like adding the total points scored by each football team and the most points wins, instead of which team wins the most games.
👍
Its evident from the debates at the federal convention. Their purpose was to devise a way to elect a man who wasn't beholden to any party or faction. They believed most presidents would be elected by the House, one vote per state. They would freak out at how the political parties hijacked the system, such that electors are limited by law to the candidate of one of two outright factions who put their interests ahead of the country.
Donald Trump is from the Framers' mold, who arrived in office without political or monetary debts of any kind. It is among the reasons the Deep State wants him gone.
Donald Trump: The Echo of our Framers' Uncorrupted President.
The additional two electoral votes per Senator should represent the wishes of the state legislature, hence the need to repeal the 17th Amendment.
Under the current winner take all system large urban political parties can skew the election through voter fraud, and massive get out the vote drives.
Our founding fathers knew that the urban area vote could be manipulated, and hence set up the Electoral College, to avoid larger states and population area dominating elections. They created a Republic not a Democracy to avoid mob rule.
Indeed
This Rachel, whoever the hell she is, has a screw loose.
A National Popular Vote would mean illegals and moonbats in Los Angeles and New York would choose the president.
I would rather dissolve this so-called “union” and make each state a separate country than have loons and illegals pick the president.
“I’m afraid, Dave.”
Hitlery “won” New Hampsire by 3,000 votes. It’s already been proven that Pickles Clinton stole New Hampshire.
New Hampshire allows busloads of Massachusetts residents to vote. When asked, “Do you plan to establish a domicile in New Hampshire?” they allow you to vote there if you say “Yes.”
Hopefully, the new Republican governor will change that.
Maine splits it’s electoral votes. Trump won Maine’s Second District, which covers 80% of the state, by 10 points for one electoral vote.
Hellary won the First Congressional district for one electoral vote also.
She won the statewide vote by 2.7%, which gave her two more electoral votes.
If candidate Trump had advertised here in Maine more, I believe he could have taken the entire state.
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