National Popular Vote Plan bills have recently been introduced in Iowa and Minnesota. In Iowa the bill is Senate Study Bill 1128. In Minnesota the bills are HF512 and SF446. At least 20 state legislatures now have bills to pass the plan.
National Popular Vote Plan bills have recently been introduced in Iowa and Minnesota. In Iowa the bill is Senate Study Bill 1128. In Minnesota the bills are HF512 and SF446. At least 20 state legislatures now have bills to pass the plan.
Richard; how does this iowa bill square with a proportional law?
Since the Iowa bill is a Study Bill, I haven’t found it yet on the Iowa legislature’s web page. So I haven’t read it.
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.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
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
There are many of us that are in disagreement with NPV. While those of you who are arguing for it like to argue that it allows every vote to count and is equal to everyone elses, are you so sure you want that. If having a majority vote and strict democracies are so good, why even have a President or Congress? If representative government is a failure as you argue by destroying the electoral college, then we should cease all our representative governments and rule as a whole.
The truth is, and most of you know this, that representativbe government works much better than mob rule. The Electoral College is representative government and allows for the balancing of the masses and their need of resources with those who maintain or control those resources for prosperities sake. If you can’t see that, then you are blind.
The Electoral College along with the Constitution’s process of having the House and Senate select the President and Vice President when no majority is achieved, accomplishes a process the NPV never can. The current process allows for, especially when the nation is equally divided, the ability of negotiating the President and Vice President offices by those who really run the country.
Furthermore, as opposed to the socialists who are behind this and their NEW WORLD ORDER, the EC and the Constitutional process protects the sovereignty of the states.
Also, NPV sets up for failure at the state level, when, the majority of the votes in a state select the opposing candidate and their state EC delegation goes to the other. A state population could vote 100% for the opposing candidate and have no representation of its EC delegation for the opposing candidate sent to Washington because the majority of the other states voted otherwise.
This tactic is deliberately being weaved into the NPV agenda by those who want to destroy our elections outright and move toward strict democracies.
One last statement. The NPV is being designed and advertised as fair when in actuallity it will allow for the drowning of the least populace states and will remove them and silence them from having a voice in electing the President. The only states that will matter will be the large states. Fairness and equality of the individual votes will be destroyed. This is an attempt of the large states to hi-jack the electoral process. Plain and simple.
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.
Direct election or NPV would cause candidates to focus all their efforts on a few heavily populated metropolitan areas and ignore the rest of the nation.
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.
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 even a good 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 unlimited government control: 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.
We must keep the federal system that limits the power of the national government. The Electoral College system of electing P and VP indirectly is an essential element in our federal system. It limits the power of the national government and the executive branch.
Lord Acton wrote:
“Of all checks on democracy, federation has been the most efficacious and the most congenial… The federal system limits and restrains the sovereign power by dividing it and by assigning it to Government only certain defined rights. It is the only method of curbing not only the majority but the power of the whole people.”
The 5 largest metropolitan areas in the US contain over 20% of the nation’s population. These 5 cities alone would become the kingmakers. The top 20 metropolitan areas contain over 40%. This bill is just an end run around the Federal Compact that makes America into a nation.
An overlooked fact under the National Popular Vote f a s c i s t – s o c i a l i s t takeover plan,
IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE FOR A CANDIDATE TO BE ELECTED EVEN THOUGH THAT CANDIDATE ACTUALLY DID NOT WIN THE MOST VOTES IN ANY STATE.
Under NPV, a candidate who carries the 40 bigest cities, but does not win the largest number of votes in any state, could still be elected President, even though prior to the application of the NPV reallocation of votes, that candidate would be entitled to ZERO Electoral Votes.
That’s right folks.
Under NPV, a candidate who has actually earned ZERO electoral votes could be elected President, after the computation determines that all the Electoral Votes earned by some other candidate should be flipped to the NPV candidate.
A candidate who has carried the overwhelming majority of states and Electoral Votes could have enough states Electoral Votes flipped to the NPV candidate to give the Presidency to someone who won NO states and just carried the biggest cities.
DO THE MATH!
There are thousands of possible scenarios under which this could happen.
Say NO to this evil, illogical, ill-considered numb-headed plan!