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With the next Presidential election almost four years away, the Electoral College gets little attention but it is always worth pointing out what a horrible institution it is. According to Gallup, by a greater two-to-one margin Americans want to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote. From Gallup:
The Electoral College doesn’t just distort our political debate by having candidates focused only on voters in “swing states.” It has repeatedly resulted in the candidate who got the most votes actually losing the election.
Most insidiously, the Electoral College makes it theoretically possible for parties to change how a state assigns their electoral votes to essentially steal. legally, an election. The head of the RNC has even openly talked about doing this to make it basically impossible for a Democrat to win the White House.
Fortunately, effectively stripping the Electoral College of any power is relatively easy. The National Popular Vote campaign is pushing an interstate compact that would make sure our Presidents are elected by all the people by having states agree to give all the electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. It will go into effect when enough states to make 270 electoral votes sign on and so far it is halfway to its goal.
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why do Republicans hate democracy?
Because they can’t win in a fair democracy.
The sad thing is, the Democrats don’t deserve to either.
I have long advocated for the end of the stupid electoral college. The fact is, in the 21st century, the citizens of the United States of America do not get to vote for their President. That’s a sad state of affairs in a so called “democracy.”
Before anyone claims that yes we do get vote for the President, you need to do some research. The election held on a Tuesday in November for President only elects the people that vote for President. The ONLY election that matters for President is the one that takes place in December among those electors.
If Obama (or anyone else) won a landslide of all 50 states and a popular vote of 85% to 14%, and the electors that meet in December decided to vote for Rush Limbaugh, then Rush Limbaugh would be President. ANd there would be NOTHING that could be done about it.
It’s far past time we were given the right to vote for the President ourselves, instead of voting for others to have a vote for President.
Sorry, this makes me nervous. I don’t want the electorate in Kansas or Western PA or Alabama deciding who has the power of the White House.
Make it proportional representation by congressional district or population, get rid of stoopid gerrymandering, etc. Maine has the right idea (even if not the right governor, but that is sure to change).
Proportional representation by congressional district would only work if we simultaneously got rid of gerrymandering.
It still leave the fact that the Electoral College serves no legitimate purpose.
My GOD, what kind of jackbooted, despotic Hellhole of a country is it where two people are allowed to outvote ONE? Do we really want to go this way?
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states with 243 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions with 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
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