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.
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The NPV Compact raises serious constitutional questions and may very well be unconstitutional - if it ever goes into effect. Likewise, the award of electoral votes by a state based on the NPV raises similar issues.
Many constitutional scholars say that a state legislature may choose electors based on methods within its boundaries, but NOT outside its boundaries.
Per SCOTUS:
“The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, §1. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 28—33. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 (“[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another. See, e.g., Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 665 (1966) (“[O]nce the franchise is granted to the electorate, lines may not be drawn which are inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment”). It must be remembered that “the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964).”
The operative words and phrases are “statewide”, “equal weight”, “equal dignity”, and “may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another ...”
Basically, the award of electors based on the NPV allows states to grant voters the right to choose their electors - but only if their winning candidate and the winner of the NPV are one in the same.
This ain't gonna fly constitutionally.
National popular vote encourages widespread fraud in states and districts that are overwhelmingly democrat. If you think their fraud machine is big now, imagine the scope of fraud when they never have to leave the ghetto to stuff their ballot boxes. No, thank you!
Imagine having to do a nation-wide recount in the case of a close election.
A "national popular vote" (winner take all) is America's suicide.
If changed and a Demonut loses the same way they’ll want to change it back . All because Hillary was supposed to Win , LOL
Surprisingly, some of us are willing to have a civil war before we accept a national popular vote. Such an abomination is the complete antithesis to what the Founders set up, a republic of republics.
Welcome to the United States of California, Florida and New York. Win those big, and you’ve won the election. Guess where government spending will be targeted? Clue: it won’t be states like Wyoming, Maine or North Dakota!
“Fear?”
My big fear is that idiots who wish to eliminate the Electoral College have a vote that counts for exactly as much as mine despite their should-be-a-punishable-offense ignorance.
We are the United STATES of America. NOT the United Peoples of America.
The whole understanding of what we are would be changed. We should not allow those who want to destroy the checks and balances to destroy the language.
So tired of the Dems win the popular vote lie. It is a lie.
The Dems have won the popular vote twice in the last 6 elections, 2008 & 2012. The Repubs have won it once, 2004.
Hillary got 48% of the popular vote in 2016. That is not a majority. It’s a plurality.
The author ties David Frum for the 180-degrees-from-reality award. California tossed a *ton* of illegal votes into the national total but they were all California so they only counted the same as a 5-vote win. Cali has enough illegal votes to offset five states if they were to be counted as one national vote.
The plan is disenfranchisement of the voters who got a majority of the votes cast NOT for the candidate that won the “national popular vote” in their state.
“The nation” is not “the most people” as any map showing the distribution of the electoral college vote will attest.
The “national popular” vote is as equally disrespectful of what we are as a FEDERAL REPUBLIC as was, and is, the amendment that switched the selection of U.S. senators from selection by the state legislatures to selection by popular vote - denuding the high influence states were to have, as represented entities in their own right, in the Senate.
Winning the presidency is not about winning a “national popular vote”. Its about winning “more of the country” as represented by “more of the places in the country”. That is exactly what post election electoral college maps show. The winner has won in more counties in the country. Ignoring the importance of the regions as entities with their own identity, and identities NOT to be squashed by mere “larger national vote”, is what republics do on the path to dictatorship.
‘In the last general election one state, “CALIFORNIA” would have overridden 49 other states to make Hillary Clinton the President of the United States.’
the NPV would take effect only when the states entered into the compact have secured 270 EV’s...the states currently involved total 165; this includes CA, she would have needed another 105, of which she managed only 38...
I am addressing only the popular vote count, which pertains to the idea we should go that route and forget the Electoral College.
I do not support doing away with the electoral college, and this election result was a very good reason why.
Hillary would be president right now if we only had the popular vote with no Electoral College.
If I’m misunderstanding your point, please run it by me again making a few changes so I’ll catch your drift.
To be more precise, it gives the power to state LEGISLATURES to select electors in any manner they choose, so it’s just as accurate to say that there is no right for citizens to VOTE for president in the US Constitution, as that resulted from a delegation of that power from the states (starting in 1824), which can be withdrawn at any time through amendments to any or all of the STATE constitutions that adapted that method.
And even under those state constitutions, citizens STILL don’t have the power to vote FOR president, since the state only has the power to delegate its right to chose its electors for president ... so it’s just as accurate to say that a NATIONAL popular vote for president is a FICTION, since no such popular vote actually exists ... as no citizen is really voting FOR a president on election day.
Nonsense. With the Electoral College the liberals have to steal votes in states that would otherwise have a majority voting Republican. With national popular vote, they would only have to steal votes in their own back yards.
There was an election not too long ago in which the votes cast in King County, Washington exceeded the number of registered voters. Such a thing should never be allowed to dictate who is elected President. If the state of Washington wants to tolerate corruption that should not bind us all to such a fate.
If the national popular vote is suitable for electing the President, then why not for Congress. Anybody who wants to can run for Congress. The entire list will be voted on by every voter in the country. The most popular 100 candidates will constitute the Senate. The next most popular 435 will be the House of Representatives. Wouldn't that be great?
Exactly. Thanks for the post.
‘I do not support doing away with the electoral college, and this election result was a very good reason why.’
the NPV does not under any circumstances eliminate the EC; again, it only takes affect upon the candidate receiving 270 EC’s from the participating states, assumedly to ensure there be no discrepancy between the popular and electoral votes...again, in 2016 that threshold was not reached by Clinton, and could not have been; the participating states, including CA, totalled 165 EV’s, thus no activation of the plan...Clinton could have tallied votes from CA that put her 10 million, 20 million PV’s ahead, it would not have changed the result...
until other states totalling 105 EV’s ratify this plan, it is a moot point...
There is a movement out there to do away with the Electoral College. THAT IS WHAT I AM ADDRESSING.
“IF” there had not been an E.C. aspect “TO THIS ELECTION”, Hillary Clinton would have been elected president by the NPV.
I AM NOT ADDRESSING THE CURRENT SYSTEM.
I AM ONLY ADDRESSING THE SYSTEM OTHERS WOULD LIKE TO SEE.
I OBJECT TO THAT.
What part of this eludes you?
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