The leader of the Republican Party in the Maryland House, Anthony O’Donnell, has introduced HB 472, to repeal the National Popular Vote Plan bill passed in the last session. Maryland was the first state to pass the plan. HB 472 has 34 co-sponsors, all Republicans. See this story.
Finally, people are starting to fight back against the f a s c i s t – s o c i a l i s t NPV.
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.â€
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 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.
It’s not going to pass. The Democratic supermajority which passed it the first time is still there.
Back to the LP-
How does NPV take away liberty? You still vote, and your vote still counts. Only 4 times have the popular & electoral vote winners been different, so it’s unreasonable to expect it to reoccur soon. The electoral college violates the 1 man, 1 vote rule that runs every other election in this country. For example, each voter in California has a smaller share of an electoral vote than each Wyoming voter. California’s share of electoral votes is smaller than its share of the population, while Wyoming is overrepresented. It doesn’t give the state more power. The state gets more power with the electoral college, since the state legislature can pick a slate of electors without oversight, which almost happened in 2000 in Florida. NPV requires that the electors go to the popular-vote winner.
Matt,
“The State” means the national government of a country, or just the government as opposed to the people.
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
What the Founding Fathers said in the U.S. Constitution is “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
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 rule) 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.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote, and only 3 states used the winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state’s electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). Since then, as a result of changes in state laws, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the winner-take-all rule is used by 48 of the 50 states.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified 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.
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, along district lines (as is currently the case in Maine and Nebraska), or national lines.
When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area.
Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate won 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.
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.
#10 In 1789, 10 States appointed electors. North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified the Constitution, and New York failed to appoint any.
Of these 10, voters in 6 either indirectly or chose their presidential electors, including the 3 States most closely associated with the Founding Fathers, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. 6 of 10 is most.
The number of votes cast was comparable to that cast in the congressional elections. That is, the voter qualifications were the same as voting for the lower house of the legislature, and likely the same as voting for delegates to the constitutional ratifying conventions.
You are confusing at-large elections with winner-take-all elections. The presidential electors from New Hampshire, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were elected as individuals by the voters in those respective states. In Massachusetts, Virginia, and Delaware, the electors were chosen by district (except two in Massachusetts were chosen by the legislature).
You have failed to address the issue of what would happen in an election like 1880.
You have not explained why we should maintain the national party conventions, especially when, as in 2008, the candidate who was nominated by one of the major parties did not receive the most “popular votes” from the voters of that party.
You have not explained why we should have different candidates on the ballot in different States. Imagine if the two Dakotas decided to enter into a regional popular vote pact similar to the proposed NPV. Do you think that they would not even bother to make sure the same candidates are on the ballot?
And why is “most” the criteria used for election? Why not hold a runoff when no candidate gets a majority?
Didn’t Barack Obama campaign in 60 States (and that wasn’t even counting Berlin)?
Poor Susan. You do not understand the issues.
1.No matter what the rules are, the candidates will focus their attention only on those areas essential to victory. They will never campaign equally in all areas.
It is certainly counterproductive to destroy what’s left of our Federal system based on the faulty logic of making campaign efforts more evenly distributed. That would never happen.
2. There has never been a popular vote for President. Aggregating the State votes is not the same as a popular vote. When you keep repeating this claim, which is a proven lie, you become a proven LIAR.
NO ONE NEED EVER BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU WRITE.
As you yourself admit, candidates focus on winning electoral votes, not in amassing the greatest aggregate number of votes. Because of that, we have no clue what the popular vote would have been in any election.
It is no more valid to claim that some past candidate would have been elected based on popular vote than it would be to compare baseball teams based on total runs scored instead of total games won. Teams do not try to run up the most points once victory is assured. They even end the game 1/2 inning early when the home team is ahead in the 9th inning.
You, Susan, now know better. Yet, you keep repeating a lie.
3. There is nothing more fair about counting each voter’s single vote equally and ignoring any weight for the value of each State, than there is in a system that would give each State an equal vote.
The systems are different, but fair, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Ignoring the interests that the States have, and the interests the the peoples of each of the respective States have to be represented as a group is totally unfair. I believe that this is MORE UNFAIR, that the matter that the weights of the voters share of an electoral vote are slightly different.
4. You obviously have failed at logic, math, and reading comprehension. If you want to compare the Maine/Nebraska system to the present you have to recognize that there would still be statewide electoral votes – 2 for each State, that represent the interests of the States. So, you claim, 1/3 of the States are competitive. They still would be.]
In addition to the competitive States representing 100 electoral votes. There would be 435 electoral votes based on population. If 55 of those districts are competitive, then that increases the competitive areas. Some of those would be in states that are already competitive, but if would add to the competitive regions, not reduce them. Plus, being mostly small areas, by campaigning in them the candidates would draw people from neighboring districts since the travel distances would be measured in feet and miles instead of hundreds and thousands of miles.
5. Reducing all the important issues to the trivial and banal mantra of “every vote counts the same,” is childish, foolish, and shows a complete lack of comprehension of the importance of liberty, of maintaining liberty, and the compact that it takes to keep a large nation of competing interests bound together.
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!