Nebraska Senator Beau McCoy, a Republican from Omaha in his first term, has introduced LD 777. It would provide that all presidential electors from Nebraska be elected on a statewide basis. Currently, Nebraska lets each U.S. House district elect its own presidential elector. In 2008, the Omaha district chose the Democratic elector, so the Nebraska electoral vote in 2008 was four for John McCain and one for Barack Obama. Thanks to Tony Roza for this news.
The E.C. is a total gerrymander political time bomb.
Went off in 1860 — 620,000 DEAD Americans in 1861-1865 – Civil WAR I.
Quite fortunately the NE Obama E.C. vote was NOT the margin that got Obama elected — pending the natural born cases.
Abolish the time bomb E.C.
Uniform definition of Elector-Voter in ALL of the U.S.A.
Nonpartisan nominations and elections of ALL elected executive officers and ALL judges using Approval Voting — even the Supremes (to lessen the number of party hack Supremes).
P.R. for legislative bodies.
The 1787-1789 folks blew away the 1777 Articles of Confederation with its many, many defects.
Can history repeat ??? — Merely to save Western Civilization from the EVIL party hacks ???
Nebraska’s legislature is elected on a non-partisan basis.
I think that the system used in Nebraska and Maine should be used in all 50 states, or at least in all the states that have more than 1 representative. That way there would be more incentives for the candidates to campaign in all parts of the country.
For a useful analysis of why doing the Nebraska system nationwide would be highly problematic and not create incentives for candidates to campaign in all parts of the country, see FairVote’s 2007 report “Fuzzy Math”:
http://fairvote.org/fuzzy-math-wrong-way-reforms-for-allocating-electoral-college-votes/
Although Nebraska legislators are elected on a non-partisan basis, Nebraska has registration by party, so anyone can see which Senators are registered Republicans, and which are Democrats, and the press in Nebraska does report that.
#3 Half the votes in half the gerrymander districts = about 25 percent indirect minority rule.
NOT exactly high tech math.
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About 97 percent of the U.S. Rep. gerrymander districts are ONE party *safe seat* rigged gerrymander districts.
See the 2008 gerrymander math on the FEC website – library link.
Federal Elections, 2008
There would be nonstop new Rep. district gerrymanders after each Prez election.
See the recent Texas Rep. district gerrymander machinations by the EVIL Tom DeLay.
P.R. and A.V.
The text of the bill is here:
http://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LB777.pdf
Since originally the House was elected by and represented the people and the senate was elected by the state legislature and supposedly represented the state’s interests, wouldn’t it be consistent for the the two “senate” electoral votes go to the candidate who won the state and the “house” electoral votes go to the candidate who one the CD???
http://genomega1.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/turning-point-couric-rips-obama-newsmax/