Posted on 03/03/2019 5:38:03 PM PST by yesthatjallen
A plan to circumvent the Electoral College is gaining momentum among blue states after Democrats suffered two crushing defeats in presidential elections over the past two decades.
The plan has been given new impetus after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said this week that he will sign a bill to have his state become the 12th state along with the District of Columbia to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
The states making up the compact, which already includes New York, Illinois and all the New England states except for New Hampshire, would commit to awarding their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote nationally, regardless of the results in the Electoral College.
So far, these states, with Colorado, add up to 181 electoral votes, well short of the 270 needed to ascend to the White House.
Advocates are doubtful that enough states can join the compact for it to take effect by 2020, but hold hope of garnering enough support by 2024, as a handful of states like New Mexico also consider the measure, though proponents acknowledge the path to get to 270 will be far from easy.
Colorado state Rep. Emily Sirota (D), one of the sponsors of that state’s legislation, said she sees the compact “as a way to ensure that every vote is counted equally” and force candidates to campaign nationwide instead of targeting a few battleground states that can deliver success in the electoral math.
“If we had presidential candidates campaigning across the country, instead of a handful of swing states, you'd see a lot more participation from across the country and I think that is good and healthy for our electoral process,” Sirota told The Hill.
The renewed push comes after 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost the election that year despite winning the popular vote, the second time it has happened since the turn of the century.
The defeat was especially crushing to Democrats after a similar loss suffered by former Vice President Al Gore in 2000.
All states that are now part of the compact voted for Gore in 2000 and Clinton in 2016.
Colorado voted for Clinton last time but picked former President George W. Bush in 2000.
Critics of the Electoral College system have long argued it incentivizes candidates to target swing states with a bounty of electoral votes, while discouraging turnout by voters in states that are reliably red or blue.
Opponents of the current electoral system also say that electing a president through a popular vote could improve how presidents govern in office.
John Koza, the chairman of the National Popular Vote, a group that advocates for the compact, said the Electoral College “distorts” public policy by incentivizing presidents to cater to key swing states while in office, particularly in their first term.
"It's not only unfair that the second place candidate can win, it's also not good for the office of president or the country,” he said.
“When you're sitting in the White House … you say, ‘What states do I have to win and what do I have to do to win them?' That's just not a good way for public policy to be set,” Koza added.
Advocates of the compact are holding up hope that more steps will follow Colorado in joining the compact, which was first introduced in academic research papers as a way to effectively get rid of the electoral college system without going through the daunting process of a constitutional amendment.
The most promising is New Mexico, which has already passed a popular vote bill through one chamber and has a Democratic Governor.
Should it pass, the state would add 5 electoral votes to the compact, bringing the total to 186.
Meanwhile, legislators in 16 states have introduced bills this session seeking to join the compact, according to National Popular Vote.
Of those, Democratically-controlled Delaware, Maine, Nevada and Oregon look the most promising, with a total tally of 20 additional votes that could bring the total to 206 – though even there, the prospects are far from guaranteed.
Oregon state Rep. Diego Hernandez (D), a sponsor of the state’s popular vote bill, said there may not be enough momentum in the current legislative session to pass.
“We have so many big issues we're tackling this session, when it comes to housing and the environment and education and revenue reform, that although the conversation's happening, I'm not sure that it's the top priority in terms of the collective agenda,” Hernandez said.
But the prospect of passage in some of the other 16 states where a popular vote bill has been introduced look far less certain given many have split powers or are deep-red, like South Carolina or Mississippi.
Republicans are mostly opposed to any measure to derail the Electoral College system, seeing as unconstitutional.
Opponents of using the popular vote to elect presidents have long argued it would result in candidates catering to large cities and large states to rack up votes, which tend to have a bigger share of Democratic voters, ignoring smaller or rural areas.
Rose Pugliese, a county commissioner in Colorado, said in a tweet she had petitioned the Secretary of State not to award the state’s votes to the winner of the popular vote, saying such a move “allows California and New York to decide Colorado’s votes for President.”
Nonetheless advocates of the compact remain hopeful.
Koza, the National Popular Vote chairman, said garnering the necessary support by 2020 was “theoretically” possible, but believed it was more likely by 2024.
"You never know how a bandwagon can get rolling,” he said. “So at the moment, I couldn't name states that would get us there in time for 2020, although there's theoretically ways to do it. It seems perfectly plausible that we should get there by 2024."
A change to the electoral college itself, yes.
But how each state's E.C. voters vote? No.
"What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes.
Under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College. For this reason, in the following discussion, the word “state” also refers to the District of Columbia.
Each candidate running for President in your state has his or her own group of electors. The electors are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party, but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are. Read more about the qualifications of the Electors and restrictions on who the Electors may vote for.
....
Most states have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.” Read more about the allocation of Electors among the states and try to predict the outcome of the Electoral College vote."
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html
Anyone reading this who is NOT in a border state, still think illegal immigration isn't that important?
idiots...same would happen with popular vote
You mean steenkin’ constitutional amendment
So, the smaller blue states want to dance to any tune called for by California and New York?
Let’s just party like it’s 1861 again.
The worst part is that you will have states like CA and NY with illegals openly voting + all kinds of other voter fraud.
Also, suppose the national popular vote were within the “margin of error” (less than 0.50%). Imagine the spectacle of a recount on a NATIONAL level??
bump
Your right. And people "on our side" who laugh at this notion, will be shocked when it happens (unless our current course changes....drastically).
One doesn't need to look further than the following two examples:
1. Where Ted Cruz’s close victory over Beto O’Rourke stands among Texas' historical election results
"With a loss Tuesday night by about 2.6 percentage points or around 223,000 votes, U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke got closer to toppling an incumbent Republican senator than anyone has in 40 years, which could portend a shifting Texas electorate."
2. On a Typical Day in Fiscal Year 2017, CBP...
CONDUCTED:
SEIZED:
IDENTIFIED:
In FY 2018, an average of more than 33,000 were apprehended on the southern border EVERY month. A small cities worth of population, month after month after month after month.
Nearly 400,000 were caught FY 2018 alone.
**** Keep in mind, these numbers represent those who were caught. How many were not caught? ****
Southwest Apprehensions By Fiscal Year
| Total Apprehensions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Sector | FY 2018 | FY 2017 |
| Big Bend TX | 8,045 | 6,002 |
| Del Rio TX | 15,833 | 13,476 |
| El Centro CA | 29,230 | 18,633 |
| El Paso TX | 31,561 | 25,193 |
| Laredo TX | 32,641 | 25,460 |
| Rio Grande TX | 162,262 | 137,562 |
| San Diego CA | 38,591 | 26,086 |
| Tucson AZ | 52,172 | 38,657 |
| Yuma AZ | 26,244 | 12,847 |
| USBP Southwest Border Total | 396,579 | 303,916 |
Texas apprehensions FY 2018 - 250,342
Texas apprehensions FY 2017 - 207,693
Arizona apprehensions FY 2018 - 78,416
Arizona apprehensions FY 2017 - 51,504
California apprehensions FY 2018 - 67,821
California apprehensions FY 2017 - 44,719
Note: For the Las Cruces (NM) station, see El Paso Sector.
How many actually showed up for any kind of immigration hearing? Less than 10%? How many are actually deported? Less than 5%? Of those deported, how many try to sneak back in again, 100%?
That also doesn't take into account those who are NOT apprehended.
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration
We were told for years that there were 11 million foreign nationals in our country unlawfully. It was a lie.
Yale, MIT study: 22 million, not 11 million, undocumented immigrants in US [1]
And 22,000,000 undoubtedly, is under estimated as well.
That's more people than the ENTIRE state of Florida, and darn near as many as the whole state of Texas! An entire large state's worth of foreign nationals who have disrespected our sovereignty and rule of law and are living here illegally, many (most, who really knows?) receiving taxpayer paid for housing, food, medical, dental, legal, schooling and other "welfare."
Five Million Latin Americans Coming to U.S. in Next 12 Months
and an estimated 42 million more say they want to enter the country.
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/246563/million-border.aspx?g_source=link_NEWSV9&g_medium=TOPIC&g_campaign=item_&g_content=What%2520If%2520There%2520Were%252042%2520Million%2520at%2520the%2520Border%3f
According to a recent Gallup "World" poll, 158 MILLION people would "immigrate" to the United States if they could.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-migrate.aspx
At a miniumum, every single illegal alien is guilty of violating federal law 1911. 8 U.S.C. 1325 -- Unlawful Entry, Failure To Depart, Fleeing Immigration Checkpoints, Marriage Fraud, Commercial Enterprise Fraud.
Every single illegal alien who was deported and illegally entered again is guilty of violating federal law 1912. 8 U.S.C. 1326 -- Reentry After Deportation (Removal)
The Constitution is very clear. Try to circumvent the electoral process and your votes will not be counted. The states EV is allocated when the state carries the vote. No indication is given for popular vote.
Not only their voters, the rights of all the states. This flies directly in the face of a guaranteed Republican form of government.
Hey! No Tennessee!
‘Doesn’t a change to the electoral college require a constitutional amendment?’
this doesn’t change the electoral college; electors will still cast votes to elect the president...what changes is the methodology behind alloting winner take all votes from the individual states, which requires no constitutional action...
This is appalling.
I am ashamed to admit I knew very little about this endeavor until the last few weeks, and even though I consider myself tied in politically though I don’t read newspapers or watch television, I had only heard passing comments about it, a faint echo. I had no idea they had that many states signed on, including my own.
This is appalling.
Maybe someone can correct me, but I have the distinct impression this has deliberately been run under the radar, which is the way Rats do things anyway. I had no idea this was this far along. 181 electoral votes is alarming to me.
I understand that this could ostensibly work in the favor of conservative Presidential campaigns as well, but in the same way things like gerrymandering and ballot harvesting are done mostly in leftist efforts to get by chicanery what they cannot get by an outright vote, this falls right into line with that.
There are two things that seem immediately apparent to me when I consider this effort:
1.) This is an end run by the Left around the Constitution.
2.) This has been done quietly as to avoid any national scrutiny of this.
Again, I am appalled by this. Living in a blue state, this is a repudiation and rape of my voting rights. It is not hard to understand why the Left wants this, as it has its foundation in large population centers.
It is clear that they are doing this in a reactionary mode against the the electoral college as it is currently constituted, simply because they lost. If the Left had won, you would not see this, end of story.
Now that I am aware of this, I have to find a way to oppose this. My opposition to this is not based on winning or losing elections. My opposition is based on the fact that my vote will now be the equivalent of having to jump off a bridge because a large number of stupid people jumped off a bridge.
This is even more destructive than the combination of loosening of voting procedures, harvesting ballots, voting fraud, and leftist litigation of elections.
> Doesn’t a change to the electoral college require a constitutional amendment? <
Not in this particular case. The Constitution gives the states great latitude in how they assign their electoral votes.
So if a state wants to give all its electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, that would probably pass muster with the Supreme Court.
And the argument that this would disenfranchise the state’s voters...that argument is weak. Because the votes would still count towards the national total.
But a smaller state would be stupid to agree to this. Any national vote scheme would shift the power to the big states, New York and California especially.
Only reason that democrats do well in the popular vote nationwide, is because republicans haven’t bothered to campaign in NY or California or Illinois or Massachussetts or other heavily liberal states.
If campaigning were to be required by regulations in every state, there is no doubt that democrats would end up losing there too, and they would rue the day they asked for the popular vote total to determine the presidency.
‘It’ll be interesting if Trump wins the popular vote and they have to give their states votes to him!’
as the article states, this compact will not go into effect for 2020...
Leftards hate America. Hate our Republic. Love communism, which is direct democracy. They know most voters on the coastal states are morons and vote with their emotions and how they are told to vote.
This is also a huge waste of time. They need a Contsitutional amendment to change the constitution. That ain’t gonna happen for this reason.
The Left-controlled states would escalate their vote fraud.
California alone would easily manufacture millions of extra votes.
‘They will never ever ever overrule their voters and give Trump the electoral votes.’
you couldn’t be more correct, as Trump will be ineligible to run by the time this compact ever sees the light of day...
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