16 States to Abolish Electoral College

US News & Politics
182

The state legislatures never lost the power to appoint electors as they wish.

Maine (only since enacting a state law in 1969) and Nebraska (only since enacting a state law in 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.

The normal way of changing the method of electing the President continues to be by changes in state law.

Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation’s first election in 1789. However, now, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.

In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state’s electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all method is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.

In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state.

In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.

The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes.

183

In total New York state and California cast 16% of the total national popular vote

In total, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania cast 18% of the total national popular vote.
Trump won those states.

With the National Popular Vote bill, 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 medium and big states where the statewide winner is predictable, 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.

184

Ignore the Supreme Court all you like, they were very clear in Bush V. Gore. Yes, they can reclaim their plenary power to appoint the electors, if they end elections. No way they will be able to hold what amounts to a sham election and then appoint electors in defiance of the results. You can dream though.

1 Like
185

If you say so.

Constitutional lawyers seem to think it’s a problem but your probably far smarter than they are.

1 Like
186

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.
The electors are and will be dedicated party activist supporters of the winning party’s candidate who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.

There have been 24,067 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 31 have been cast in a deviant way, for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party (one clear faithless elector, 29 grand-standing votes, and one accidental vote). 1796 remains the only instance when the elector might have thought, at the time he voted, that his vote might affect the national outcome.

States have enacted and can enact laws that guarantee the votes of their presidential electors.

In Arizona, HB2302 went into effect in August 2017. Electors must cast their vote for candidate and vice president candidate who jointly received the highest number of votes in the state. If the elector refuses to cast that vote, they will no longer be eligible to hold their position as an elector.

April 10, 2018 - A federal appeals court judge has ruled that Colorado’s presidential electors must vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote.

Pennsylvania law empowers each party’s presidential candidate to nominate all elector candidates directly. The presidential nominee is, after all, the person whose name actually appears on the ballot on Election Day and who has the greatest immediate interest in faithful voting by presidential electors.

North Carolina law declares vacant the position of any contrary-voting elector, voids that elector’s vote, and empowers the state’s remaining electors to replace the contrary-voting elector immediately with an elector loyal to the party’s nominee.

The Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act has a state-administered pledge of faithfulness. Any attempt by a presidential elector to cast a vote in violation of that pledge effectively constitutes resignation from the office of elector. The Act provides a mechanism for immediately filling a vacancy created for that reason (or any other reason).

The National Popular Vote organization has endorsed this proposed uniform law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).

187

There would be nothing “sham” about state elections.

Candidates and voters would be well aware that because of the new law in effect, the winner needs to win the national popular vote, of which every voter in the country would be included and matter equally.

Federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers. You can see the Certificates of Ascertainment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia containing the official count of the popular vote at the NARA web site.

The states enacting the bill will simply add them all together, and award their electors to the winner of the national popular vote.

Every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.

The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire, Ohio, or Florida. The National Popular Vote plan would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.

The National Popular Vote bill would give a voice to the minority party voters for president in each state. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.

In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don’t matter to presidential candidates.

Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.

Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 – larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).

8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).

Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.

Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0

The current system completely ignores conservatives presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.

188

That is the history, but you failed to mention … No legal action was carried out against those 31 aberrant electoral college voters. The worst that can happen to them is that they get kicked out of the college.

Its one thing for a State to pass a law saying that the electors must vote with the majority of the State’s public vote, but if a State passed a law saying that the electors must ignore the vote of the citizens of the State and instead, vote in accordance with the majority of the national popular vote, you can bet that the “deviant” votes among the electors would become common.

1 Like
189

Like I said, ignore what the court said in Bush V. Gore all you like. In addition, you aren’t going to get enough states to sign on to begin with so it’s kind of a moot point.

190

Plagiarism is a sin.

Post your sources or get the hell off this site.

1 Like
191

So is lying… what’s your point?

192

https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-national-popular-vote-bill-do

Source for his latest post

193

Use your brain for once, you think he had all those numbers memorized?

1 Like
194

Source:
Quora User

Anonymous

Answered Dec 17 2016

195

Clearly you’re familiar with lying and could care less.

196

The point is people pretend to have a handle on an issue when they cut and past it into a thread as all his rhetoric. Straight from their national vote web site. IS h fraud to just post the web site?

One persons myth is another persons fact.

197

Does he need to memorize them? This isn’t debate class. He has the internet you know

198

Now I have to explain what citing your sources is? And why are we even arguing this after we showed you he lifted his post word for word from somewhere else?

1 Like
199
200

electrl

5 Likes
201

Elimination of the electoral college, which was established due to the wisdom of the founding fathers, would mean we are no longer a republic, but would become a mob rule democracy.

1 Like