Former vice-president Al Gore continues to speak out for electoral college reform. He was interviewed by Bill Maher about that subject recently. See this story.
One might think it is obvious that Gore would support electoral college reform. But, one doesn’t see other nationally recognized Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid talking about the issue.
Related:
Electoral College = One more evil giant minority rule gerrymander system
— loved by the HACK MONSTERS like Clinton, etc.
1/2 votes x 1/2 EC areas = 1/4 or less control.
—
PR and AppV.
I support Electoral College “reform” but not the abolition of it, as many who use that term often are pushing for.
There are much bigger fish to fry than the EC WRT ballot reform. Everyone whines that Hillary got more votes than DJT. But how many Rs stayed home in California because they knew their vote was irrelevant for the two biggies – Pres and Senator.
And if you think voter fraud in the big cities is rampant now, wait until EVERY VOTE COUNTS!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-05/california-has-11-counties-more-registered-voters-voting-age-citizens
Uniform definition of Elector-Voter in ALL of the USA
PR and AppV in ALL regimes — NO more irrelevant votes.
The reason that other prominent Democrats aren’t talking about it is likely a combination of:
1. It comes across as kinda whiny… which is a trait that really hurts Democrats.
2. The EC is in the Constitution, so there really isn’t much that can be done given how amendments are nearly impossible.
3. Even if the EC is thrown out, that doesn’t guarantee Democrats victories. Lot of people in safe states that don’t vote.
@Brandon Lyon Ok
@Vulpes
1. Yea (but maybe in future if one Republican become first to support abolishing Electoral College)
2. For now, it’s impossible but overtime (and also if depends) that both parties can do is getting one-two amendment(s) passed once of while (since last time this happen in 1992 for twenty-eight amendment).
3. Yeah, They need to get votes by being original and giving new ideas for American folk.
I’m not in favor of abolishing the Electoral College. I believe that this system encourages campaigns in states of all sizes. A direct popular vote would favor large urban centers, in my view, and not give rural areas the voice they need in national politics. Although Trump carried rural areas (which may be viewed by some as a reason to ignore their concerns), it is important that a cross section of geography be represented in national politics. America needs the small states population states to be successful (i.e., Kansas and Nebraska) every bit as much as they need New York and California to be successful.
Although I would not abolish the EC, I think we need some reforms:
– I think WTA needs to be reformed. Proportional allocation of electors would be great, but I don’t think that is achievable. I think a system with WTA for the candidate who gets an outright majority of votes cast in the state, and proportionate allocation otherwise, would be achievable and more fair.
– I think we also need to increase the size of the House of Representatives. This will put the representatives closer to the people. It will also mitigate some of the misallocation of electors that we currently see in the EC between the various states.
I think the best kind of reform that can be done without an amendment is increase the number of House members to a really large number, like 1,000. Add in the Senate and DC, and the electoral college would then have 1,103 members, which is more Democratic than 538.
OMG 1,000 swamp creatures in the lower house? The stench… Capitol Hill would need to be classified as an EPA superfund site.
If one defines a “small state” as one with 3 members of the US House or fewer, then Hillary Clinton carried exactly half the small states and Donald Trump carried half. By contrast, among the largest states, Trump won the most.
Monarchy or Oligarchy or Democracy —
nothing new in 5,000 plus years.
Democracy NOW — regardless of ALL the MORONS who love minority rule stuff — kings, tyrants, oligarchs — see ALL the rotted stuff due to such minority rule – international wars, civil wars, genocides, slavery, insane govt debts, etc., etc.
PR and AppV
2016 – Trump de facto *elected* by 30.0 percent of the popular votes in 30 states and ME CD 2 —
306 of 538 EC Votes — ignoring the faithless MORON Prez electors.
Same minority rule Prez math going back to at least 1832.
@TomP: Arguably at least, combining Section 2 of the 14th Amendment with Supreme Court caselaw on denying voting rights by dilution leads to the conclusion that states should already be apportioning their electoral votes proportionally — on penalty of losing the unrepresented portion of those EC votes and seats in the House if they don’t.
Answer to ALL our problems… California secession; re-establish the CSA minus Texas which also secedes; sell Alaska back to Russia; find anyone in direct line of succession to throne of Hawai’i and give them independence; give Puerto Rico independence; give DC back to Maryland less the mall… did I forget anything? 😉
C.O. — add to the anarchy list ??? — Repeal the USA Const
— and watch some monsters in some State regimes try to wipeout other State regimes, in whole or part
— ie Europe type stuff for about 1,500 years.
CO
We don’t want DC back!!!
The impact of Top 2 in the vote totals for President had to be significant. Both candidates on the ballot in the General Election for Senate were Dems and you can’t write in. Additionally, iirc, there were 9 of 53 House seats that didn’t have a Rep. DJT wasn’t going to win CA but what a great hidden voter suppression technique. I believe I read on BAN that 1 in 6 voters cast no ballot for Senate in CA. One must ask why isn’t that a news story instead of AlGore and his attempt to end run the Constitution.
In previous threads, I’ve mentioned the original 1st Amendment which was never ratified. In it there is a method to grow the size of the House of Representatives. One of the side, albeit minor, benefits would be to mitigate the impact of the Senate on the EC. Thus lessening but not eliminating the chances of a PV/EC mismatch. But Top Two in the most populous state in the union is the real bastardization, imo.
IIRC, the margin of Hillary’s win in California was greater than her total margin overall. In other words, Hillary won California and DJT won the other 49, collectively, in terms of votes cast.
I wonder if Al Gore has any thoughts about reforming the Supreme Court, so that it doesn’t perform another travesty like the Bush v. Gore decision on anyone ever again?
@Stuart Simms,
The unratified 1st Amendment would not force an increase in the number of representatives. It provided a growth curve until the House got to 200 members. It would simply replace the current minimum of 30,000 persons per representative, with a minimum of 50,000 (eg the theoretical cap of 11,000 members for 330,000,000 US residents, would be replaced with a cap of 6,600).
There is nothing that prevents Congress from increasing or decreasing the number of representatives. Following the 1910 Census, the size of the House was increased to 433, with an additional two representatives added when Arizona and New Mexico became States (the apportionment bill had provided for that contingency).
In 1920, Congress failed to reapportion, in part because industrialization was shifting the population to cities, and back east, and away from the farms in the Midwest and South. Before the 1930 Census under President Hoover’s leadership, Congress agreed on a way (this is simplified) to apportion automatically, so that they didn’t have to consider the size of the House. Previously, after every Census but 1920, they had passed a reapportionment bill that actually specified the number of representatives for each state.
Congress has got in the habit of doing nothing. They added a temporary two representatives for Alaska and Hawaii, to increase the House to 437, before reverting to 435.
The best way to increase the size, would be pass a Constitutional Amendment that would decrease the size of the House by 10% every year that there was not a balanced budget, and increase it by 1% every year there was.
How far away is the last Rep from the Speaker ???
— ie have to have TVs for mob scene legislative bodies ???
How many Reps are allowed to speak on any important stuff – bills, etc. ??? — about 20 at most.
IMO the HR became a mob scene in 1873 after a major increase in Reps due to 13 Amdt (ie repeal of infamous 3/5 slave math in census in Art !, Sec 2)) and 14 Amdt, Sec. 2.
NO need for mob scenes with P.R.
Not one word said by Al Gore regarding his support for the Clinton Administration’s 1994 Crime Bill and the massive disenfranchisement that resulted in the state of Florida, and possibly contributed to Gore’s loss in 2000. There is a massive petition effort underway to re-enfranchise thousands of voters in Florida.