Bills have been introduced in Colorado, Louisiana and Missouri, similar to bills already introduced in California and Illinois, in support of the “National Popular Vote” plan. This plan calls for states to pass bills, pledging to appoint presidential electors who will vote for whichever presidential candidate polls the most votes nationwide. The Colorado bill is SB223; Louisiana’s is HR 927; Missouri’s is HB 2090.
We really need to look into why the founders decided to use the electoral college. I hope that we stick with it. By doing oway with it the smaller states will have even less imput in our nations future. Also do we really want to be ruled by the majority or by a written constitution. Lets look into it more before we rush into this.
As usual, Joe Murphy is right.
May I refer everyone to my comment above, in the RIP article?
There were very good reasons the Founders invented the Electoral College.
None of the small states except New Hampshire have any “imput” into presidential elections as is.
It’s no mystery why the founders “invented” the Electoral College in its current form. A handful of small states could make or break the new Constitution, and they used that power to extract disproportionate influence.
Now things have changed. The country is not in danger of falling apart, and even if we cared about preserving small states’ disproportionate influence, the Electoral College is no longer a vehicle for it, due to direct election of presidential electors, “winner-take-all” elections (clearly incentivized by the system the founders designed, of course), the party system and the resulting “swing state” phenomenon.
The constitution protects the minority. It is essential to protect what little rights the states have left. The states are supposed to be in control of what happens in Washington not the other way around. We need to get rid of the 17th admendment which also takes more power away from the states. The country has fallen apart, in that it is completely the opposite of how the founders had envisioned it. Do you really want the major cities dictating who our president will be. Also remember we are a republic not a democracy there is a huge difference.
California has 55 electoral votes and 36,132,147 people in 2000. 1 vote per 656,948 people.
Wyoming has 3 electoral votes and 509,294 people in 2000. 1 vote per 169,765 people.
So a person voting in Wyoming has roughly 4 times more voice in a presidential election.