Bills have been introduced in at least three states to provide that each U.S. House district should elect its own presidential elector. In Mississippi, SB 2889 was introduced by Senator David Jordan (D-Greenwood), but it died in Committee on February 3. In Indiana, Representative Dennis Avery (D-Evansville) introduced HB 1712. In South Carolina, Senator Phil Leventis (D-Sumter) introduced SB 365.
In Alabama, HB 265 would provide that the state’s presidential electors should be apportioned according to what percentage of the total vote they received, so that a Republican who received 55% of the popular vote would get 5 electoral votes and a Democrat who received 45% would get 4 electoral votes.
The National Popular Vote Plan bill has now been introduced in eight more states: Alaska (SB 92), Arkansas (HB 1339), Maine (LD 56), Mississippi (HB 1360), Missouri (HB 452), Nebraska (LB 623), Oregon (HB 2588), and Rhode Island (SB 161). This blog had already noted that it had been introduced this year in Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. There is also a bill pending in New Jersey to repeal the National Popular Vote Plan law.
But the NPV plan has already been enacted in NJ.?!
The New Jersey bill is a repeal attempt — with its backers boldly standing up for the 20% of their state who oppose a national popular vote for president where every vote is equal.
Thanks for these good clarifications. I’ll amend the post.
An even worse NATIONAL gerrymander for electing each Prez using U.S. Rep. gerrymander districts — to allow lots more local ballot box stuffing and vote stealing ???
Half the votes in half the gerrymander districts = about 25-30 percent MINORITY RULE — even worse than the current minority rule ??? Duh.
P.R. and A.V. — before the gerrymander MONSTERS cause Civil WAR II to happen.
Good for New Jersey.
Perhaps people will wake up to how evil this National Popular Vote plan is. It’s the plan for a permanent S o c i a l i s t D i c t a t o r s h i p for America.
We need to keep single member districts and plurality elections. We need to keep the Electoral College system and promote the Maine/Nebraska system of allocation. We need to repeal all limits on contributions, expenditures and reporting rules. We need to simplify and drastically reduce ballot access rules, or eliminate Government printed ballots altogether. This will give us the best electoral system.
To reduce government power, we need serious term limits on office holders: 3 terms for US House, 1 term for US Senate, Pres and VP 2 terms, Governors 2 terms, other state reps and senators 6 years (8 in some states) and, most importantly, most judges should be limited to 2 years and out.
We must abolish eminent domain and judicial contempt of court powers. We have to expand the power of both judges and juries to overturn bad laws – FIJA.
We should quit wasting our time and energy on crazy, stupid ideas that will actually reduce our liberty such as direct election of Pres and VP, National Popular Vote, PR, IRV and other schemes that will make things more confusing and give more power to the State and the S o c i a l i s t s.
Actually, in all seriousness, if everyone simply acted with kindness and decency to their neighbors that would have 100x more positive impact than all of the ballot reforms put together. In the end, no system of laws or government can survive unless people have goodwill towards each other.
Great news, hopefully the NPV will be passed into law in numerous states this year.
As to the Mississippi bill: Sen. Jordan’s Delta hometown of Greenwood is in House District 2, a black-majority district represented by Bennie Thompson. The state has gone Republican in the last 8 presidential elections, but District 2 votes Democratic, so Jordan’s proposal would have provided at least one more electoral vote for the Democratic nominee.
#6 Half the votes in half the gerrymander areas = about 25 percent minority rule.
Actually much, much worse minority rule due to primary math — some EVIL powermad leftwing / rightwing MONSTERS get a plurality nomination and later get elected in the mainly 95 plus percent one party *safe* gerrymander areas.
#7 The nonstop WAR for 6,000 plus years continues between NET taxpayers (tax slaves) and NET tax getters (aka TAX PARASITES — all elected officers, bureaucrats, govt contractors and welfare persons) — sorry NO goodwill involved at all — just getting M-O-N-E-Y from the tax slaves for the life style benefit of the NET tax getters — living large off the work and investments of the tax slaves.
The MINORITY RULE gerrymanders maintain the EVIL power of the NET tax getters in the U.S.A., U.K, Canada, etc.
P.R. and A.V. — before it is too late.
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground†states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 “battleground†states. Similarly, in 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Dividing a state’s electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of our antiquated Electoral College system of electing the President. What the country needs is a national popular vote to make every person’s vote equally important to presidential campaigns.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would less be less fair and accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
The district approach would not cause presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the state. Under the winner-take-all rule (whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state’s 53 districts. Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Under the present deplorable state-level winner-take-all system, two-thirds of the states (including North Carolina and California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, seven-eighths of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every vote equal.
Every vote would not be equal under the proportional approach. The proportional approach would perpetuate the inequality of votes among states due to each state’s bonus of two electoral votes. It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.
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 would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.
The bill is currently endorsed by 1,246 state legislators — 460 sponsors (in 48 states) and an additional 786 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has been endorsed by the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, Miami Herald, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Sacramento Bee, The Tennessean, Fayetteville Observer, Anderson Herald Bulletin, Wichita Falls Times, The Columbian, and other newspapers. The bill has been endorsed by Common Cause, Fair Vote, and numerous other organizations.
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). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in Arkansas (80%), California (70%), Colorado (68%), Connecticut (73%), Delaware (75%), Kentucky (80%), Maine (71%), Massachusetts (73%), Michigan (73%), Mississippi (77%), Missouri (70%), New Hampshire (69%), Nebraska (74%), Nevada (72%), New Mexico (76%), New York (79%), North Carolina (74%), Ohio (70%), Pennsylvania (78%), Rhode Island (74%), Vermont (75%), Virginia (74%), Washington (77%), and Wisconsin (71%).
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 22 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A. — States, D.C., colonies.
Obviously U.S.A. citizen, 18 plus, NOT in jail for crimes, NOT crazy (like ALL New Age gerrymander monsters).
The States will continue to survive.
“The States will continue to survive.”
This is the main point, for this statement is patently FALSE.
We need to keep the Electoral College to help preserve the relative power of the states. The Federal Government is already too strong. We need to Smash the Monster down to size. Give more power to the monster will move us in the opposite direction.
As has been suggested in another thread, we might benefit from having Senators elected by their State Legislatures again as well.
Democracy is not a goal. It is not a perfect system.
Our goal should be LIBERTY.
Government is evil. It is always evil. It can never be anything but an evil monster and we have to keep it contained.
Limited democracy is a method of containing the monster. It has no virtues or benefits on its own.
Unlimited democracy always leads to f a s c i s t s o c i a l i s m.
To advocate for unlimited democracy, or any further movement in that direction demonstrates that the advocate is completely unaware of the realities of political systems or the advocate is one of the proponents of F a s c i s t – S o c i a l i s m as their preferred outcome for the people of America.
Lover’s of Liberty will have to emigrate to a new land if the NPV or any form of direct election of Pres and VP should be adopted.
#16: “… we might benefit from having Senators elected by their State Legislatures again as well.”
A few years ago, Thomas DiLorenzo wrote an excellent essay on repealing the 17th Amendment. It’s a good idea, in my view, but it simply isn’t going to happen.
We should spend our time and energy fighting attempts to abolish or circumvent the Electoral College.
Remember originally the Electors themselves campaigned
such as it was to represent their District at a state
wide meeting to consider who should be voted on for
President. As the states transitioned to direct voting
of these electors many and eventually nearly everyone
no longer considered who the electors are. The people
were now voting for a slate pledged to a particular
candidate. In 1960, Alabama voted for an unpledged
slate which gave those electors the flexibility to
wheel and deal for the best deal they could get for
Alabama. If a state decides to choose its Electors
by District it opens up the possibility (however its
unlikeliness) to occur of sometimes unpledged electors
being elected. It would make for an interesting count
in the House in January if unpledged electors could
do so without revealing who they voted for before the
official count. Voting by District also eliminates the
current imbalance particularly within larger states
where some Districts have up to or over twice the
total voters than others. Some states can be closer
than expected if one party is successful in running
up the total vote in those areas where they are very
dominant (over 60% of total registration).