Electoral College

[Kajun Gal]

The electoral college vote is the reason we are where we are today. The popular vote was for the democratic but the electoral college over rode the popular vote. Should we really start campaigning for the removal of the electoral college with regard to our presidential elections? I think we should. THIS should be our fight. My humble opinion...

[Angry Dragon]

1. I could get behind that

[rzemanfl]

2. That is not realistic at this point. n/t

[Kajun Gal]

3. What does n/t mean?

[rzemanfl]

4. No text. So you don't have to look for any. n/t

[Kajun Gal]

5. And why is this not realistic?

OR important?

[rzemanfl]

8. It requires a 2/3 vote in both houses of congress and ratification by 38 states.

Have you looked at how many red states there are and who controls Congress?

It may be important but it is totally out of reach at present.

[Voltaire2]

13. Actually that is just one way to get rid of it.

The other way is for states with a total of at least 270 electoral votes to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. No constitutional amendment required.

[rzemanfl]

14. That is much more realistic, but it doesn't "get rid" of the electoral college, it

circumvents it.

[Voltaire2]

18. Why quibble. The result is direct popular election.

[rzemanfl]

6. You may also see "eom" (end of message). n/t

[BigmanPigman]

7. I asked that about 9 months ago since I do not text

and do not know abbreviations. Someone said it means "no text". I guess it is sort of like saying "Nothing more to add". Of course this may be incorrect so do not assume this is true.

[Kajun Gal]

9. Thanks

[Princess Turandot]

10. If someone is reading a topic with a lot of responses in it..

they may just open the topic itself, rather than using 'View All', then open some individual replies. 'nt' tells them there's no reason to expand that particular reply. I've seen this in other web forums; it harkens back to when many people were using dial-up to access the internet.

[rzemanfl]

11. Make me feel old. Not that I am not. n/t

[rzemanfl]

25. I wasn't talking to you. n/t

[Poiuyt]

12. It may not be realistic to abolish the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment

But the are other proposals that would bypass it if enacted by enough states. Of course Republicans won't go along with any of those since the EC favors them.

[mvymvy]

19. Republican State Legislatures have passed the National Popular Vote bill

The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 35 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Maryland (11), California (55), Massachusetts (10), New York (29), Vermont (3), Rhode Island (4), and Washington (13). These 11 jurisdictions have 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

It changes state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), to guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes, without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

[Garrett78]

15. It's a vestige of slavery but I'm afraid it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Link: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/electoral-college-slavery-constitution

California has 67 times as many people as Wyoming but only 18 times as many electoral votes. There's no reasonable argument for that. It's tyranny of the minority.

But, alas, the electoral college isn't going away. Better to focus, for now, on voter suppression, gerrymandering, media consolidation and the influence of Big Money. And doing whatever we can to address the white supremacy that is undergirding/enabling the kleptocracy.

[CK_John]

17. The 10yr census provides the count for each elector in the ec plus 2 for each senator.

The thing where I find a problem with the amount of electors; in the census I believe both citizens and non citizens are counted to decide the count per elector.

[mvymvy]

20. States are enacting the National Popular Vote bill

The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.

The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

[brooklynite]

16. Campaign all you want; absent a sea change in opinion, it won't make a difference

To get rid of the EC, you'll need a change in the Constitution, including the votes of smaller Republican States who have a disproportionate influence in Presidential races. Why would they give that up?

[mvymvy]

21. Small State Realities

With National Popular Vote, when every popular vote counts and matters to the candidates equally, successful candidates will find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Ohio and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support. Elections wouldn't be about winning a handful of battleground states.

Fourteen of the 15 smallest states by population are ignored like the big ones because they’re not swing states. Small states are safe states. Only New Hampshire gets significant attention.

Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group

Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.

Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.

State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.

In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.

Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections.

Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.

Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

[mvymvy]

22. Republican State Legislatures have passed the National Popular Vote bill

In 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the The National Popular Vote bill 40-16-4.
Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the bill.
In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the bill.

In 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill by a 28–18 margin.

It was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 35 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9), New Mexico (5)

[mvymvy]

23. States are enacting the National Popular Vote bill

The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
Candidates, as in other elections, would allocate their time, money, polling, organizing, and ad buys roughly in proportion to the population

Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting, crude, and divisive and red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes, that don’t represent any minority party voters within each state.
No more handful of 'battleground' states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

[MarvinGardens]

26. Another way to circumvent without abolishing the EC

is to increase the size of the House of Representatives. Each state gets a number of electoral votes equal to Reps plus Senators. As the number of Reps increases, the EV more closely approximates the popular vote. This would have the added benefit, I believe, of making it more difficult to gerrymander the House.

The size of the House is set by federal statute, not the Constitution!