Audacity of Truth
Rahmbo:
"Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive."
-Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) on Obama's COS, 3/7/10
Velvet Lair- Legends March 18, 2010
- Some things are just not cute March 18, 2010
- The adventures of the lady spider killer continue March 11, 2010
- Intermission February 19, 2010
- People who allow their dogs to poop in other people’s yards February 16, 2010
The “National Popular Vote” plan?
This is a horrible idea:
RALEIGH – Legislators in North Carolina, and other states across the country, are taking a look at changing the way voters elect a president.
Under a bill approved by the N.C. Senate last month, North Carolina’s 15 votes in the Electoral College would go to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote instead of the winner of the North Carolina vote. The change would take effect only if enough other states pass similar bills.
The bill is part of a small but growing national movement to make sure that the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide wins the White House.
Take the election of 2000, for example.
Al Gore won the popular vote by a small margin, but George Bush won the presidency in the Electoral College. Under the proposed changes, Gore would likely have been elected president.
Supporters in the General Assembly argue that the plan serves North Carolina voters because it would encourage presidential candidates to spend more time campaigning here, rather than focusing most of their energy on a few highly contested battleground states.
The proposed change, known as the “National Popular Vote” plan, requires states to enter a multistate contract and agree to assign their electoral votes to the nationwide popular winner, regardless of which candidate wins in individual states.
Legislative chambers in seven states have approved bills that would form such an agreement. The agreement would not take effect unless it were signed by a sufficient number of states so that their electoral votes taken together would make up a majority of the 538 members in the Electoral College.
That won’t happen by 2008, and it has generated plenty of skepticism. Some people say that the proposal favors Democratic candidates or that it would cause candidates to campaign only in major-media markets. Critics also say that it is nothing more than a clever way to get around the U.S. Constitution.
Sen. Pete Brunstetter, R-Forsyth, said that there are good arguments on both sides for changing the Electoral College system and moving to a popular vote for president. But he said that any change should be made through a constitutional amendment, not through a haphazard collection of state laws.
“As people raised in a democracy, it’s just difficult to embrace the fact that the party that loses the popular vote (could win) the presidency” Brunstetter said. “But when you say, ‘This is a clever way to get around the Constitution,’ that’s just hard for me to get warm and fuzzy about.”
Thanks to reader TB for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea that such a movement was taking and am alarmed that it is gaining in popularity in certain states. I encourage readers to contact their state reps to voice their opinions on this issue, no matter whether or not it’s being debated in your state. If it’s not, it doesn’t hurt to go on the record in advance to oppose it. If it is being debated, your reps won’t know how you feel until you let ‘em know.
Check out the main for and against arguments here. Rick Moran makes a compelling against argument here.
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12 Responses to “The “National Popular Vote” plan?”
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I think this plan makes a lot of sense. If I understand it correctly, it boils down to the simple premise that the candidate that receives the most votes should win the election.
It will also force candidates to campaign everywhere. Currently they ignore most of the country and focus exclusively on battleground states. This skews the campaign so they discuss issues like the US-Cuba relationship because it is important in Florida. The US-Mexico relationship is virtually ignored because candidates don’t have to campaign in California, or Texas.
The solution to the electoral college problem that I have touted for quite a while is pretty simple. If a state has, for example 2 Senators, and ten Representatives then they have 12 electoral votes. If Candidate A gets 60% of the vote and Candidate B gets 40% then Candidate A gets 2 electoral votes for winning the state election. Candidate A then gets 6 electoral votes and Candidate B gets 4 electoral votes. This would make states like California, New York and those that have large amounts of electoral votes more competitive. As it is say the state of California, which has 55 electoral votes has a candidate that wins 53% of the vote. Because it is a winner take all system 55 electoral votes goes to that candidate. Say the candidate wins 70% again same result. Under my plan said candidate would receive 2 electoral votes for winning the state, then 28 more for a total of 30 votes. The opponent, who won 47% would then get 25 votes. I think that would put every state in play, thus making it more fair, and would be more accurate to the way the country had voted in the popular election.
The problem with just going by the national popular vote, or apportioning electoral votes based on percentage of the popular vote won, is that presidential candidates would only need to carry about 6 states to win. The rest of the country would become irrelevant.
Michael says “The problem with … national popular vote… is that presidential candidates would only need to carry about 6 states to win.” That’s THE problem with the current system — NOT with a nationwide vote for President in which every vote is equal throughout the country. Under the CURRENT system, it matters who CARRIES the closely divided battleground states. Under a national popular vote, the idea is not to carry any particular state, but to get the most votes throughout the country.
The major shortcoming of the current system arises from the winner-take-all rule (currently used by 48 states) under which all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state. If the partisan divide in a state is not initially closer than about 46%-54%, no amount of campaigning during a brief presidential campaign is realistically going to change the winner of the state. As a result, presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the concerns of voters of states that they cannot possibly win or lose. North Carolina is among the 40-some states that are totally ignored in presidential campaigns. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of “battleground” states. 88% of the money is focused onto just 9 closely divided battleground states: Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and New Hampshire.
I love how the Liberals spin. The Founding Fathers had it right. The Sorelosermen want to have it that large cities like NYC and Chicago where they can manufacture votes will elect the President since they can’t play by the rules in the first place.
I’d say arcman and joreko have it just right. Thanks guys.
Respectfully, PCB is reiterating conventional wisdom that doesn’t hold up when you look at the numbers. If one presdiential candidate were to receive 75% of the vote in the 100 largest cities in the US, that is still less than 1/2 the votes necessary to get elected President under a national popular vote plan. Do the math.
Candidate will have to compete for every vote. It will not matter to them if they get it from a big city or a rural area. Any candidate who focuses all or even a significant majority of their time in big cities is destined to lose.
Sooo the top 200 cities out of the 25,000-30,000 cities in the United States are going to be able to pick the President?? Nice!!! All a Candidate would have to do is pander to the larger cities, and bada boom bada bing they are the next President of the United States. This is completely illogical, the whole point of the electoral college is to neurtalize the effect of the larger states over the smaller states. Also, any and all state laws along these lines are going to have to go under constitutional muster, and they ain’t gonna make it. This is more waste of time from polititians who apparently have too much time on their hands.
I just checked an Electoral College Map and you would have to win the top 11 states in order to be over the 263 Electoral Votes to win.
55 California
34 Texas
31 New York
27 Florida
21 Illinois
21 Pennsylvania
Are the top 6 and only get you 189 votes
You would also have to win:
20 Ohio
17 Michigan
15 New Jersey
15 Georgia
15 North Carolina
The home state of my Very Favorite Blog Mistress
Those states put you over the top Electorially, so to speak. With the popular vote you could have California and New York conspire together to vote for a specific candidate and trump virtually every other state in the union. Just CA and NY have a voting population that is over half of the votes that John Kerry received in 2004. Why should the rest of the states be held hostage to what those two states want??? I know this is a simplistic analysis, and I completely understand that not everyone in CA or NY are going to vote for a specific candidate, but I also only see this as cry baby antics cuz Al Gore lost the 2000 elections. – Lorica
Who is PCB, Lard???
First of all, the idea of getting rid of the Electoral College is not going to happen. To do that, you need a constitutional amendment, which requires approval by 38 states. There’s no way the smaller states are going to voluntarily surrender their say in national elections. So this idea is DOA anyhow.
Beyond that, the idea loses sight of the fact that we have a federal government. The individual states are supposed to have some power over the process. If a so-called National Popular Vote plan were put in place, citizens of states like Delaware and South Dakota could forget about ever seeing a presidential candidate. Why bother, when you can concentrate on running up a bigger majority in LA or NYC?
Bruce Bartlett makes several good points, among them this one:
That doesn’t mean individual states can’t alter their own laws on distribution of electors. Maine and Nebraska currently have laws close to what arcman proposes. That’s fine if that’s what the citizens of the state want, and it doesn’t run afoul of the constitution. But the whole idea of direct popular vote election of the president is a can of worms we should not think about opening.
Bad idea, the loons would be stealing every election if they are from big states.
POTUS or POTCalif-NY