Last week Al Gore said he favors eliminating the electoral college. According to this article in The Hill, on December 5 he endorsed the national popular vote plan.
Last week Al Gore said he favors eliminating the electoral college. According to this article in The Hill, on December 5 he endorsed the national popular vote plan.
NO uniform definition of Elector-Voter in the NPV scheme from Hell.
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Sorry – Const Amdt required.
Uniform definition of Elector-Voter
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
I’m a little slow here so bear with me. My understanding by Al Gore’s position on the subject is he favors an election by popular vote, i.e., count all the votes, tally then your winner is by “popular” vote. If so, my vote will never count as I live in a mid-west state, that is unless I vote for a liberal. In that case the only states that should be allowed to vote are in the West Coast, all of New England and maybe a couple of other states. Definitely eliminate the 2nd Amendment, modify the First, hmm I’m not sure how many others, etc. Then we can join the confused countries in Europe and become a truly failed state. Oh and a one party socialist one at that.
elchucko??? Of course your vote would count because it’s based on raw vote totals. I’m not sure how you can logically reason anything else? If the national vote total is 65,000,000 Repub to 65,000,0001 Dem, and you vote for a Repub, you personally just tied the popular vote, regardless of where you live. It’s not a winner per state gets one point system or something like that… Every vote is combined from every state in the country to have a national raw vote total. There’s no way to logically argue that your vote wouldn’t count in a national popular vote.
Plus this would only be for president… nobody is suggesting we go to parliamentary system… thus congress would still have a check on the presidency just like it currently does. A parliamentary system is when there is NO executive branch to veto bills from the legislature.
Effectively it would be just like voting for your Senator, except you combine every state into one large state. That’s probably the simplest analogy I can come up with.
Your congressmen represents your district.
Your senator represents ALL of the DISTRICTS in your state.
The Presidential vote would follow the same mindset, except they would represent ALL the STATES.
Instead of a recount in one, two or three close states, under the NPV we could have recounts in all the states. Wouldn’t that be fun? If you want to get rid of the Electors just have the House choose the President from a list of people who declare for the job. Easy to poll the state delegations until enough palms get greased to pick a Boss Hog.
D. Frank Robinson… Sorry bud, but it’s been statistically proven that the odds of needing an actual recount in a national popular vote would be once in every 500 years (even then the odds are only 70%) because the vote totals are so ridiculously high when you have a country-wide vote, that no candidate would fall within more than 250,000 votes of another. That vote threshold does not warrant a recount under any circumstances.
Since the odds are so ridiculously astronomical, in the off chance you need a re-count, you have a new election for that office. You’re creating an arbitrary problem, that doesn’t actually exist. It’s never needed to be dealt with in any country that has a national popular vote. The probability that the US would need to deal with it, is even lower, because of our population totals. The larger the population, the smaller the probability of it being necessary.
Just a reminder: This doesn’t abolish the Electoral College, and that’s smart. It just pledges electors in the states that signed on to the national victor. If Hillary won and she died in the transition, then her electors could just pick a substitute like Biden or Sanders.
Does he favor IRV/RCV? Call back when he does.
The national popular vote plan (NPV) has just about reached the limit of the states that would likely pass it. All 10 of the states that have, are Democratic leaning in which Clinton won easily. No Republican leaning state has seriously considered it. The fate of the NPV is in the hands of the swing states. Given that any swing state that adopts it will lose enormous leverage, I think it doubtful that enough of them will.
I think 2 other ideas would be better and easier to adopt, as they can be made by individual states:
1. Have electors chosen in congressional districts, as in Maine and Nebraska. This makes it harder for a Presidential campaign to avoid or dismiss a state, and brings more electoral votes into play. Notice that Maine split its district votes in 2016.
2. Runoff voting in swing states, This can either be actual or instant runoff. Given that most swing states are decided with less than a majority, a runoff system will transfer votes until a candidate gets 50% there. This will hake it less likely that any candidate will win the election with less than 50% of the overall vote. Also, an actual runoff in this election in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania would avoid the need for a recount, and give voters in those states a chance to take a “second look.”
Al Gore is so not important and who cares what he thinks because he thinks the world is going to
go away if we don’t listen to him. You know he invented the internet Yes we believe that
I have a couple of observations about NPV:
– If enacted, would it bind the states participating if the “winner” was a plurality winner only (like Hillary this year), or would it be binding only if a candidate received a popular vote majority (like President Obama did in 2008 and 2012?
– What if the national popular vote were close? All states have recount laws for elections that are close, based on a percentage vote. A close national margin might create justification for a recount, but how does one state force another state that hasn’t adopted the NPV to participate in a recount? I think the answer to that is that it can’t.
My view is that we should keep the Electoral College, because it recognizes the federalism principle and gives all states a say. However, we need to reform it, so that voters in heavily blue or red states have some opportunity to have a voice. A system that allocates electors by congressional district like Maine or Nebraska might work, but a problem with that (mostly in larger states) is that the elector allocation can be skewed if Congressional districts are gerrymandered, as most currently are. An alternative to this would be WTA for electors a state level if and only if a candidate gets an absolute majority of the votes in that state; else the electors are proportionately allocated. A system like this could give third parties a greater voice in the election.
The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency in 2020 to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count.
bill was approved this year by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 34 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).
Of course he does.
What State or foreign nation had the largest recount for a candidate or ballot question ??? — and managed to survive.
Of course Mr. Gore wants to get away from the Electoral College, the only safety valve we have in elections. Mr. Gore forgets we live in a Republic, not a Democracy where majority rules takes over. When your constituency and your local counter parts in government prefer a system where anyone may vote even if not qualified to do so, (breathing?)Mr. Gore’s position is understandable. NY, LA, Chicago and SF would constantly decide all federal elections. The rest of the Country be damned!
Many forget…The Presidential election consists of 50 individual elections all held (more or less) on the same day. It is not one big election as Mr. Gore portrays it to be.
Mike Vee is right that a presidential election is actually 51 separate elections. Ever since 1845, federal law has required that all jurisdictions choose presidential electors on the same day.
It is frustrating to me that so many people don’t use the word “republic” properly. The original meaning of the word, going back over 1,000 years, is a government that has no royal ruler. Back in the time of the founding fathers, the only republics besides the U.S. were Venice and Switzerland. Every other country had an emperor, king, queen, prince, duke, or such. “Republic” and “democracy” are not incompatible. A republic is generally a democracy. The U.S. is a constitutional democracy, meaning the voters rule, but they are restrained by the constitutional limits on government power. The U.S. is also a republic because we don’t have a monarch.
@ Richard Winger:
It’s interesting to note that at the time of the American Revolution, there were actually 3 elective monarchies in Europe: The Holy Roman Empire, The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Papal States (the Pope actually had significant secular power at that time). I believe that idea for the electoral college was provided by these elective monarchies. The Holy Roman Emperor was chosen by a group of noblemen and archbishops who were designated “electors” In Poland, whenever a king died, there would be a huge assembly of noblemen who would chose the next king. And, of course, even today, the Pope is chosen by cardinal-electors, even if his secular power has been reduced to the smallest sovereign state on earth.
The National Popular Vote bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections.
Federal law requires that each state certify its popular vote count to the federal government (section 6 of Title 3 of the United States Code).
Voters in the biggest cities are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.
16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.
Suburbs divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.
Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
In 2000, a shift of 269 popular votes in Florida would have elected the candidate who led the national popular vote by 537,179 popular votes.
Less than 100,000 votes in 3 states determined the 2016 election, where there was a lead of over 2,5oo,ooo popular votes nationwide.
Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in 1, 2, or 3 states would have elected a 2nd-place candidate in 5 of the 16 presidential elections
Mr Gore has taken too long to come to this conclusion. You would think he would of reached it , the moment after he lost in 2000. But I don’t know why one person one vote is so complicated to people . Every election works that way except for president , every country that has elections uses it, you vote it counts as one vote,the one who gets the most votes, wins. Doesn’t matter if you live in Hicksville or a major population center your vote counts as one vote,every individual’s votecounts the same.. But then again I guess some Americans are a little slow.
Some math MORONS and HACKS do not like Democracy aka MAJORITY RULE but love monarchy/oligarchy aka MINORITY RULE (as in Stalin and Hitler regimes of death and destruction).
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
AMcCarrick
Austria just got through doing a revote for their President.
Ain’t going to happen ! The majority of the states don;t want the candidates to spend all their time in California and New York why ignoring the rest of the country. The electoral college was set up to ensure a President had broad appeal across the county and not just a regional appeal. The recent election just proves that. Clinton would have been elected because of appeal on the two coasts while not having majority appeal thru out most of the rest of the country.
New York state and California together cast only 15.7% of the national popular vote in 2012.
About 62% Democratic in CA, and 64% in NY.
So far, in 2016, New York and California Democrats together have cast 9.5% of the total national popular vote.
A successful nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of the 4 closely divided battleground states, that had 57% of total 2016 attention, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren’t so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.
The main media at the moment, TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. Candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
“The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,”
“The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.
Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.
In the 2016 general election campaign
Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).
Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country’s population).
In the 2012 general election campaign
38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.
More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states..
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.
Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
Issues of importance to non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
Richard- The only republics at the time of the formation of this country were Venice and Switzerland? San Marino has been a republic since the 4th century. I believe it is the first republic in the world and possibly the first to elect a communist government and then not re-elect it a few years later.