On March 11, the Alabama House Constitution & Elections Committee passed HB 265. It would provide that the number of electoral votes received by any presidential candidate would be in proportion to that candidate’s share of the popular vote inside Alabama. Thus, since Alabama has 9 electoral votes, a presidential candidate who got 33% of the popular vote in Alabama would get 3 electoral votes from Alabama.
The bill passed on a party line vote, 5-4, with all Democrats supporting the bill and all Republicans opposed. Alabama has a Democratic majority in each house of the legislature, but the Governor, Bob Riley, is a Republican.
I like this idea. Can you provide a link to the bill to help see what apportionment system they use?
It’s easier for me to just quote the bill, since it is so short. It says, “Beginning with the 2012 presidential election and continuing thereafter, within 15 days after the time for making the returns, the Governor must certify the returns (that is old language)(the new language starts here) and ascertain which electors are elected by the total number of popular votes for each presidential and vice presidential candidate. The number of electors for each candidate shall directly correspond to the percentage of the popular vote received by that candidate. The Governor shall then notify by proclamation each presidential elector as elected.”
The bill has been criticized for not being specific enough. For example, in 2008, both Obama and McCain ended up with a percentage of the popular vote such that, if the bill had been in effect, McCain clearly got 5 electoral votes, and Obama clearly got 8 electoral votes, but how to award the 9th elector is left undecided. None of the three minor party or independent presidential candidates got enough to entitle them to an elector.
I meant to say McCain would have had 5 and Obama would have had 3.
Abolish the timebomb Electoral College NOW. Count the 620,000 dead in 1861-1865 due to the minority rule election of Lincoln in 1860.
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A. — including Dumb City and the U.S.A. colonies.
P.R. for legislative bodies.
NONPARTISAN A.V. for elected executive officers and all judges — vote for 1 or more, highest win.
I’m good with this idea. It utilizes the Electoral College as a proper function of representative government.
It sounds good. Another idea would be to give each candidate the congressional district they win, 1 senate seat to the popular vote winner, and 1 senate seat to the most congressional district winner (popular vote if tie)
At least this idea keeps the people in Alabama in charge of how their electors are divided.
I was going to ask if there was a threshold, as I believe there is in some multi-member PV systems. But I guess not. Which would mean that some other way to counter “rounding errors” would be needed.
Maybe an IRV-like approach? Cut out the lowest candidate and try apportioning the EC votes again — until you have a calculation that doesn’t have any rounding error. Or else drop all candidates with less than half the number/percentage of popular votes needed to get one electoral vote and apportion among the remaining candidates. (Here, that threshold would be 1/2 of 1/9 or 5.555555…%.)
Of course, you could do that and also actually have voters *use* IRV in case of rounding errors. . . .
The “legislation” is completely absent of details, not only how the electors would be apportioned, but which electors would be chosen.
In 2008, based on the 2-party vote, McCain would be entitled to 5.428 electors, Obama 3.487, Nader 0.029, Barr 0.021, Baldwin 0.018, and write-ins 0.016.
So you could give McCain 5, Obama 3, and 1 not-appointed. Or if you used D’Hondt it would be 6:3; or St.Lague 5:4.
I suspect the sponsors are just grandstanding. But there are several teachers or former teachers among the sponsors, so it could possibly be that they are mathematically incompetent.
I don’t know if there’s necessarily a problem with having “non-appointed” electors. It at least shows there are people voting for other options on the ballot, even if the results just end up looking like Democratic, Republican, and Other.
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 congressional district method of awarding electoral votes (currently used in Maine and Nebraska) would not help make every vote matter either. In NC, for example, there are only 4 of the 13 congressional districts that would be close enough to get any attention. A smaller fraction of the county’s population lives in competitive congressional districts (about 12%) than in the current battleground states (about 30%). Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
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 passed 24 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, 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
This bill needs to be specific on what mathematical formula it would use to apportion the electoral votes to state vote totals.
Also, as pointed out above, this method of awarding electoral votes is a step up from winner-take-all, but is still not as good as a national popular vote plan in making every vote count.
“The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
This, of course, is NOT a good idea. It sounds lovely, and all flowers and sweet, innocent nonsense.
The fact is, the US is a nation of states. It is not in our interests to break down the states to elect our national leaders.
#14 The Prez happens to be the Prez of all of the People of the *United* States of America.
All Prezs have been de facto elected by a minority of the voters since 1832 — a plurality of the votes in the gerrymander State/DC areas having a bare majority of the gerrymander Electoral College votes — i.e. about 30 percent of the popular votes.
A Prez does NOT give ANY [special] attention to the States/DC in which he/she lost by any *large* margin — circa 4 percent.
The 3 minority rule gerrymander election systems in the 1787 Constitution (even with all the band-aid constitutional amendments since) are all super- dangerously obsolete — gerrymander House of Reps, gerrymander Senate, gerrymander Electoral College.
All State legislatures and many local regimes are mini-copies of the gerrymander House of Reps.
See 4 above.
How many nations manage to survive by having national executive officers directly elected by all of the nation’s voters ???
I think the system how it is now is flawed and a popular vote wouldn’t work much better.
I think it would be best if all states had the Nebraska system where the Rep votes are distributed and the Sen votes are winner take all in the states.
The NPPV scheme would not provide identical ballots. Susan may be trying to deceive readers by referring to identical bills. At best she is indifferent to the policy implications.
It would not count votes cast for elector slates that are not affiliated with a presidential candidate. If a voter casts a vote for such a elector slate, it would simply be discarded, while a vote for Daffy Duck and Mickey Mouse would be counted.
The NPPV scheme would not result in a requirement that a majority of voters supporting the winning candidate. Could this be why Susan juxtaposes the “majority” requirement for enactment, next to “most” requirement for election under the NPPV scheme?
The NPPV scheme could result in the total disregard of ballots cast in a State where presidential electors are chosen by district rather than statewide.
The NPPV scheme would not permit the voters to choose which candidates appear on the ballot. In 2008, the 2nd place candidate in the Democratic primaries was placed on the November ballot.
The NPPV scheme has no national recount mechanism for a close election, such as 1880; where the national “popular vote” plurality was less than the change in the vote totals in a single congressional election conducted on the same day and by the same election officials who were counting the “popular votes” for President.
The NPPV scheme may incentivize election officials to be less diligent in checking credentials of would-be voters, to permit persons younger than 18 to vote, to let felons vote, to let non-citizens vote.
If a State permitted a voter to cast a number of votes equal to the State’s number of electors, then other States would be obligated to count all such votes.
For example, if Texas allowed each voter to cast 34 votes for President/Vice President, then McCain/Palin would have 152,297,152 votes to 119,973,522 for Obama/Biden giving McCain/Palin the most “national popular votes”
Clearly Texas is within its Constitutional rights to use such a method for appointing its presidential electors.
(1) McCain/Palin are a presidental slate as defined by the NPPV compact.
(2) There would be a slate of electors in Texas that was associated with that presidential slate.
(3) Individual Texas voters would cast (34) votes for the presidential slates, and these would be counted on a statewide basis.
(4) The Secretary of State of Texas would certify the popular vote totals (McCain/Palin 152,297,152 to Obama/Biden 119,973,522).
(5) The chief election official of each member State would be obligated by law to accept the vote total reported by the SoS of Texas, and appoint their States on the basis of the NPPV including those from Texas.
3 of the Alabama legislators that the National Popular Vote lists as being supporters of the NPPV scheme are sponsors of HB 265 which would apportion Alabama’s electoral vote in proportion to the popular vote in Alabama.
Have these legislators abandoned support of the NPPV scheme?
Actually, from my reading of the Constitution the original method was that the populace actually voted for the electors which were elected by population and by district. The state’s which actually are more populated would naturally then have a larger input…..which is why also people are free to move in this country if either your state government or their “voice” disagrees with your personal political “bent” or power. Since the Senate actually is supposed to be the second “check” and there are equal senators for all states, it appears people are splitting hairs here once again.
Better to get the entire 17th Amendment rescinded so that the state’s once again gain their voices and become also the representatives of the people they were meant to be rather than simply lobbyists for earmarks and pork.
And get the campaign election laws strengthened so that the only campaign donations candidates can accept are individual donations from citizens in their legislative districts – since “corporate personhood” is a fantasy and a fallacy from the outset. There is now such animal as “corporate personhood” and they should be precluded across the board from any influence in our election system.
#19 presidential electors were chosen by a variety of methods. Some were elected by district (though usually not congressional district). In some cases, these were multi-member districts.
Others were elected at-large, though as individual candidates. If your State had 8 electors, you could vote for 8 persons. The 8 candidates with the most votes would be elected. Over time, with the development of political parties and party-prepared ballots voters tended to vote for all 8 (or whatever number) candidates of one party. Gradually, especially since the advent of the Australian ballot, voters have been forced to vote for an entire slate of candidates, running under the name of the presidential candidate.
At-large elections were not particularly unusual at that time, representatives to the 1st Congress (1789-1791) were elected at-large in 8 of the 13 States.
Some States required majority election. In the absence of a majority, either a runoff election would be held, or sometimes the legislature would choose from between the Top 2. This system was used in 1848 in Massachusetts and 1860 in Georgia.
When Congress set the uniform election (appointment) date for president in 1845, they specifically authorized appointment after that date in case a State wanted to hold a runoff election.
At that time, South Carolina was the only State where the legislature still appointed electors, and they made their appointments when the legislature met in early November. Consideration was given to letting a legislature appoint electors at a later date (than the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November), but that was rejected, while the option for a runoff remained.
This option is still available, and the contracting states could incorporate a runoff into the compact. The persons pushing (think of pushy real-estate brokers pushing subprime mortgages or egregious insurance salesmen) this agreement between the State, don’t seem to want to let the legislatures understand that it is the States that are the actual parties to the compact, and should be negotiating the terms of the agreement directly.