Free Republic

Our Constitution is under constant attack.1 One of the most pernicious attacks is being waged by those who seek to override the constitutional provisions under which The States, as political entities, elect the President; and to replace it with a national popular vote (NPV) under which inhabitants of major metropolitan areas will choose the President. What Form of Government Did We Create In Our Constitution? Before you can see why it is so important that The States elect the President, and why the NPV is so execrable, you must understand how our “federal” government was structured and intended to operate....

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.

SACRAMENTO - California would cast its 55 Electoral College votes for the winner of the national popular vote under a bill designed to change the way the president is elected and increase the state's influence in national elections. The bill, approved Tuesday by the Senate, would help draw candidates to the nation's most populous state for intensive campaigning, said Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who carried the bill in the Senate. California is a crucial stopover on presidential candidates' fundraising tours but often is otherwise ignored because it is considered to be safely Democratic. The bill's supporters want candidates to...

Conservatives slammed the campaign to effectively end the Electoral College’s role in presidential elections, saying that the National Popular Vote Compact circumvents the Constitution, saying it resembled President Barack Obama’s abuse of the law through his extensive use of executive orders. […] Under the National Popular Vote Compact, each state would award its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. The effort has been quietly winding its way through state governments, needing 270 votes to take effect. …

LANSING, MI -- A Republican presidential candidate hasn't won Michigan since 1988, but with 2016 on the horizon, GOP lawmakers are proposing bills that could help a second-place finisher win some electoral college votes here. • Rigging? State Rep. Cindy Gamrat, R-Plainwell, this month reintroduced legislation that would award Michigan's electoral college votes by Congressional District, ditching the winner-take-all model that most states use and diminishing the influence of large cities that can swing a vote. David Weigel of Bloomberg News, calling the bill part of the "electoral college-rigging movement," noted that Republican nominee Mitt Romney would have won nine...

With little fanfare and nearly no national media attention, the National Popular Vote effort is now 61 percent of the way toward its goal of legally bypassing the Electoral College established in the U.S. Constitution. The NPV campaign seeks to obtain the consent of the majority of the 538 votes in the Electoral College to award electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the popular vote in each state. The group, the Center for Voting and Democracy, received original seed money in 1997 from the Joyce Foundation, a nonprofit that boasted President...

Just another group of New York lawyers: “Let’s see if we can find a loophole in the Constitution of the United States and amend the Constitution without a Constitutional Amendment.” “Let’s skip any vote required by Congress, let’s skip the required vote of the states and let’s skip a Constitutional Convention --- oh, and let’s not even ask the people of New York.” Looking for a loophole. That is what we just love about lawyers, isn’t it? Governor Cuomo has signed, on behalf of the people of New York, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This Compact would result in...

The movement to change how presidents are elected is gaining steam and proponents of the long-stalled popular vote initiative are predicting victory by 2020. Eleven states/jurisdictions have enacted the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill, giving the proposal 165 electoral votes — 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to trigger the new voting system. Legislatures that passed the law include California, Illinois, New Jersey. Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a popular vote bill into law last week. All of these states, as well as the nation’s capital...

New York has joined the campaign to effectively end the Electoral College’s role in determining winners of presidential elections. Under the National Popular Vote Compact, which Gov. Cuomo signed off on Tuesday, the state has agreed to award its electoral college votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the national popular vote. Currently New York’s electoral colleges votes go to the winner of the state’s popular vote. …

(UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL VIDEO) A national group that wants the popular vote — not the electoral college — to decide presidential races began airing an ad in Kentucky cable markets targeting U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader. The 30-second spot paid for by the group Support Popular Vote urges Kentuckians to “send Mitch a message” because McConnell has opposed the concept of moving to a national popular vote system for the presidential race. The ad is airing in Time Warner markets across Kentucky. cn|2 is a division of Time Warner. During a December speech to the Heritage Foundation,...

Why the Electoral College? In 1789 our elected Executive, the President, was unique among nations. We recently won a costly revolution against a King who was armed with extensive executive powers. They were not unlimited, but enough to take his country to war. Most of our Declaration of Independence consisted of accusations against the British King. Beginning largely with “He has . . . ,” the Declaration specified twenty-seven charges. The Framer’s generation was understandably cautious and suspicious of executive power. Peruse Revolutionary era State Constitutions and you’ll find the people dominated their governments through elected, representative Assemblies. Given the...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) - The state capitol was the scene of two events promoting distinctly different ways of changing the way Pennsylvania’s presidential electoral votes are awarded. Actor and former Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson is part of a bi-partisan effort to create a compact agreement among states to award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter who wins the state vote for president.

National Popular Vote is good for conservatives, the GOP, and public policy. Period. Having been active in support of the initiative for over a year now, I have met and talked to hundreds of conservative leaders, activists, and elected officials. I have found most of those who reflexively oppose it do so because they think it is a process to amend the Constitution, don’t understand how it works or how it would affect outcomes, or are convinced of some grand conspiracy to turn America into a permanent Democrat hegemony. The reality is the current system disenfranchises millions of conservatives from...

Golden State legislature says it will give its states electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. Providing a significant boost to an effort to end-around the Electoral College, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation on Monday that would award the Golden State’s 55 electoral votes to the presidential candidate garnering the most votes nationwide. California, which has more electoral votes than any other state in the nation, is the eighth state to join the National Popular Vote compact, an effort to end the Electoral College's role in picking presidents.

California could eventually award its presidential Electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. It's one of several election-related bills Governor Jerry Brown signed today. Right now, nearly every state awards its Electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins that particular state. California's 55 Electoral votes nearly always go to a Democrat these days, so candidates typically don't campaign here much. The National Popular Vote movement seeks to change that dynamic. With the governor's signature, California now joins eight other states that have pledged to award their Electoral votes to whoever gets the most votes nationwide. But...

Popular-vote pact picks up steam A once-sleepy movement that would upend the Electoral College, reverse two centuries of constitutional practice and elect presidents by direct popular vote has quietly picked up momentum in recent days, with Republican Party leaders scrambling to stanch a steady stream of defections by GOP state lawmakers to the plan. *snip* Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s...

Lawmakers have taken a step to make California more relevant in presidential politics, voting to give the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. The state Assembly passed AB459 on Thursday on a 43-18 vote, sending it to the state Senate. . . .

Just as every Christmas brings the same tired argument over nativity scenes, Christmas trees and Santa Claus, every election cycle brings forth a fresh attempt to ignore the Constitutional establishment of the Electoral College, and allow the city centers to run roughshod over rural Americans. The 2012 election is no different, but it does bring a fresh approach to the age old problem of a "popular vote" Presidential election... by having the state legislators pass a law, obligating their EC votes to the national popular vote winners. Under this scheme, state legislatures would pass legislation that would bind them to...

California is a population powerhouse that's home to 1 out of 8 American voters and a political ATM that pumps millions into presidential campaign coffers. But the state's solid-blue status and election rules make it "irrelevant" in the presidential sweepstakes every four years, state Assemblyman Jerry Hill says.Hill, a San Mateo Democrat, and Republican Assemblyman Brian Nestande of Palm Desert (Riverside County) want to change that. The legislators are part of a growing crowd of bipartisan backers of a nationwide campaign to elect presidents by popular vote. The drive has some powerhouse supporters, including Tom Golisano, the billionaire philanthropist and...

Election Night 2012. President Barack Obama has easily won the backing of Massachusetts’ voters for a second term in office, but Republican Sarah Palin, riding a national wave of anti-incumbent sentiment, captures a narrow lead in the popular vote. As a result, Massachusetts’ 12 electoral votes go to … Sarah Palin, and with those 12 votes, Palin is elected president. Sound impossible? Not under a National Popular Vote system, which Massachusetts is one step closer to implementing now that Gov. Patrick has signed legislation authorizing the commonwealth to join a multi-state compact to change the way we elect the president....