Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee Chair, seems inclined to support the National Popular Vote Plan for presidential elections. See this story.
Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee Chair, seems inclined to support the National Popular Vote Plan for presidential elections. See this story.
GOP leaders appear to be willing to embrace any new issue which might add to their party’s base.
Abandoning the traditional and constitutional Electoral College, is not to be taken lightly. With a very few exceptions, most presidential elections have reflected the winner having won both(at least a plurality of)the popular vote and the electoral vote. And even in those few instances where the candidate did not win the popular vote, there was never any possibility that anarchy would result among the people. This is a reflection of the strength of this great nation.
I predict, that in time the politicians of both major parties will argue for the popular vote by amending the Constitution to do away with the Electoral College. Among this advocacy will be some 3rd parties. But it could be decades – or perhaps a particular presidential election – which will provide evidence if such change became a liability against our republican form of government.
I do not see this as a pressing issue. This is why I will reserve judgment on this new issue for the time being.
I will never forget the Berkeley County West Virginia Republican party Lincoln Day banquet held in the spring of 2002 when Michael Steel, then the Maryland GOP Chair, was the guest speaker. Jerry Mays was the county GOP executive committee chairman and as Mr. Steele was speaking, Mays was going around the banquet hall with a black plastic trash bag collecting anonymous cash donations. Michael Steele just looked on and kept talking and smiling. Now this year, Alex Mooney, another former Maryland GOP Chair, ran for U.S. House of Representatives here after he got into ethics trouble trying to run for Roscoe Bartlett’s old, and now redistricted, seat. Must be something in the Potomac River water.
This stuff just exemplifies how ignorant the establishment political hacks are. Washington, DC was still a swamp when the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 (OK, yeah, it still is now, but there were no man-made roads or buildings there then) – NYC was the designated national capital then. And, the Electoral College never actually meets as one body (something I think needs to be changed), but in their respective state capitols. Yet, Howard Dean says: “The Electoral College was put in for a good reason, it took a long time to get from Philadelphia to Washington. Now we don’t have that problem, with the accuracy of vote counting that we have today and the size of the population, the popular vote ought to elect the president.” Accuracy of vote-counting, eh? Well there’s another can of worms.
The comment regarding time required to travel in the 18th century was directed, I believe, to the problem of counting popular votes and aggregating the totals from 13 states to determine a popular vote total, which would have been problematic then.
One more Const Amdt for election reform —
Uniform definition of Elector-Voter in ALL of the USA.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
In the USA regime elect the Prez/VP, Marshals, District Attorneys and ALL Fed judges.
The Sun will continue to rise and set if the TIMEBOMB Electoral College is sent to a political grave along with slavery and divine right of kings.
National Popular Vote does not “abandon the traditional and constitutional Electoral College.”
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country. It does not abolish the Electoral College.
The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), to a system guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
The bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. 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.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count.
When states with a combined total of at least 270 electoral votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founders. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) in 48 states, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation’s 57 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore’s lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. In 2012, a shift of 214,733 popular votes in four states would have elected Mitt Romney, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of 4,966,945 votes.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founders in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
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).
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently. In virtually every of the 39 states surveyed, overall support has been in the 70-80% range or higher. – in recent or past closely divided battleground states, in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
Most Americans don’t ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it would be wrong for the candidate with the most popular votes to lose. We don’t allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
There is no requirement that the presidential electors meet in the state capitols, or even in the capital city. Alaska electors usually meet in Anchorage, because it takes such a long time to get to Juneau.
The November election date we currently use in part is based on how long time it takes to get to the state capital.
The Constitutional Convention was irregular in that it ended up overturning the existing constitution of the Articles of Confederation.
But General George Washington was the President of the Convention, and the delegates had him write a letter to the Continental Congress, which was meeting in New York, and was the legitimate government of the United States of America in Congress assembled, asking that they pass the proposed Constitution on to the legislatures so that they might call State conventions. In addition the Continental Congress was given the role of determining if the document had been ratified, and if so, to trigger its implementation. Both the Continental Congress and legislatures were being bypassed, but by giving them a role, they would go along with a process that would eliminate the Continental Congress, and transfer authority from the State legislatures to the national government.
In the Summer of 1788, the Continental Congress had received 9 ratifications, and they proposed a schedule of the Congress first meeting on the first Wednesday in February 1789, the meeting of presidential electors occurring on the first Wednesday in January 1789, and the electors being chosen on the first Wednesday in December of 1788. The Continental Congress would not have even contemplated setting election dates for the Congress.
But Virginia had not ratified the Constitution, and it was considered essential; and neither had New York where the Continental Congress was meeting. The Continental Congress could not decide on a meeting place for the new Congress. New York City was out, and delegates from the 4 non-ratifying States believed they should not participate in the decision. Under the Articles of Confederation, and abstention was effectively the same as a No vote.
By the time Virginia and New York had ratified, the schedule had to be slipped a month, and the initial meeting date of the first Wednesday in March 1789, was March 3.
When the new Congress assembled it did not have a quorum. Some representative and senators had not arrived, and New York not only hadn’t chosen electors, it hadn’t chosen representatives or senators.
Eventually, a quorum was achieved, the Congress was able to count the electoral votes, and determined that George Washington and John Adams had been elected. It took Washington until June to reach New York City and be inaugurated. Adams had reached New York City early, so busied himself presiding over the Senate, and wondered whether he should introduce himself to the President of the United States as President of the Senate.
The Constitution set terms of two, four, and six years, and the Congress being filled with constitutionalists had determined that terms would begin on March 3, which they did until the 20th Amendment was added roughly a century-and-half later.
But Congress recognized the problem with the new Congress meeting to count the electoral votes, and likely having to choose the president among the Top 5. So they determined that the outgoing, lame duck Congress would count the electoral votes, and possibly choose the President, and set out a schedule that would permit meeting of the electors in each state and the transmission of the votes to where Congress was meeting; and for selection of the electors along with time for it to be determine who had been chose, for them to be notified, and for them to assemble.
If the electors were popularly elected, there would have to be an election, some time for the votes to be collected statewide or districtwide, the electors-elect be notified, and for them to travel to Richmond or Philadelphia or Harrisburg or wherever.
Congress eventually set a date in December for the meeting of the electors; and set the time for appointment of the electors in November.
States that appointed electors on the basis of a popular vote tended to hold their elections in early November, since this would give them time to hold the election, count the votes statewide, have a procedure for handling non-majority elections, inform the electors, and travel time for the electors.
In 1845, when Congress restricted time of appointment to a single date, they chose a date in early November, that was a uniform time from the December meeting date. They happened to choose a Tuesday (because New York used that day). The convoluted construction of first Tuesday after the first Monday in November ensures a uniform 6 weeks (41 days) before the meeting of the electors on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
If Congress really wanted to ensure national participation in the presidential election, they would repeal the uniform national election, and permit states to choose their own date. It would be like the primary schedule where candidates go to each state in turn to campaign.
Dear Susan,
What about the elections of 1880 and 1960? How would the NPV scheme have handled those.
How frequently do I have to ask before you add those to your FAQ?
The Amar brothers have argued that the electoral college was sexist since voting was restricted to male voters, and that if a national popular vote scheme had been in place in the 19th century, states would have rushed to debauch the electorate by permitting non-property owners, illiterates, non-whites, even women, and non-adults to vote, to give them more power (see the 1896 election to see the effect of female suffrage in Colorado on the popular vote totals).
What is to prevent a state from enfranchising aliens, whether in the United States illegally or not from voting?
Where does NationalPopularVote does stand for giving automatic ballot position for all organized 3rd party candidates and legitimate Independent candidates, assuming such have paid a reasonable filing fee as the necessary requirement for having a spot on the ballot?
It seems like there are all kinds of organizations out there advocating for election reform of one kind or the other, and yet one of the greatest discriminations toward 3rd parties and Independent candidates is a “look the other way” attitude by the leaders and promoters of these other reforms.
When will we ever get your attention?
Serious candidates for President generally qualify for the ballot in all 50 states.
● Ross Perot was on the ballot in all 50 states in both 1992 and 1996.
● John Anderson was on the ballot in all 50 states in 1980.
● Lenora Fulani, the nominee of the New Alliance Party, was on ballot in all 50 states in 1988.
● The Libertarian Party got its presidential nominee on the ballot in all 50 states in 1980, 1992, and 1996.
● Ralph Nader was on the ballot in 48 jurisdictions.
The National Popular Vote is intentionally “minimalist” in the sense that it does not attempt to solve “problems” that the current system does not address or where there is no public consensus that there is a “problem.”
In a presidential election with the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country would be guaranteed the majority of Electoral College votes
The NPV scheme is intended to solve the “problem” of 2000 Florida. Where it is perceived that Ralph Nader cost Gore the election. It does not concern backers in the least that voters in all states might not be permitted to vote for the same candidates.
When it has been pointed out how absurd it would be to have different gubernatorial candidates on the ballot in different counties, Susan herself replied that equal protection only applied within States, and not between States. In other words, “equal protection” is not a principle, but just a law to be obeyed. The original NPV schemers were lawyers who figured out a away to get around the the Constitution, without changing the Constitution.
One reason lawyers are despised is because they are often seen as clever schemers. Criminal lawyers are required to represent their clients interests, which is usually to have them avoid prison or fines. They are taught to overlook or lead jurors to misinterpret evidence, rather than seeking the truth. Engineers can not afford to ignore facts, or their bridge may fall down.
If the NPV schemers wanted to do something more principled, they would have states form a compact that would ensure uniform nomination procedures.
They would hold a primary on a single date, and ensure that all parties could participate, and that there were uniform ballot presentation, candidate qualification, counting and recounting, and canvassing procedures and voter qualification, all the things necessary for a real national election.
This would not require participation from all states or counting of votes of non-participants. Once several states began putting Hillary Clinton rather than Barack Obama on the general election ballot (she received more votes in the 2000 Democratic primaries), the other states would rush to fall in line.
Political parties would abandon the national conventions. The Democratic Party would have simply selected Clinton as their nominee. In 2008, Alabama Democrats supported Obama over Clinton in the indirect presidential preference primary.
If the national Democratic Party said that Clinton was the nominee, Alabama Democrats would have fallen in line and place her on the general election ballot.
The Alabama legislature would rush to join the national primary compact. In a few short years, New Hampshire and Iowa would be seen as irrelevant straw polls, which many candidates would bypass.
At that point the national primary compact would switch to a party nominating primary in June, which would include an opportunity for independent candidates to advance to an August Top 2 primary, which named the two candidates for the November final election.
At this point, people would wonder why don’t we do the same for the final election, and a constitutional amendment would be passed, which would include Congress setting time, place, manner regulations, as well as uniform voter qualifications for all federal elections.
“Serious candidates for President generally qualify for the ballot in all 50 states.”
That’s just a lie. In the last election alone a former Governor, former Congressman, and former Mayor of a large city were unable to qualify for the ballot in all 50 states & DC. I would say anyone with those kind of credentials is a serious candidate for the Presidency.
Regardless, I do support National Popular Vote.
Susan –
In the 1960 election, Kennedy won the electoral college with a total of 303 EC votes to Nixon’s 219. The national popular vote was extremely close, as we all know, and by one count the totals there were 34,221, 344 to 34,106,671.
Opponents of the NPV will point to that election as an example of how the NPV would fail because, after all, the popular vote tally was sooooooo close.
A few questions come to mind, however.
1) How do we come to know the totals of popular votes in the first place? Yes, the national popular vote was close, but we only know that the national total was close because we know what the popular vote totals were by state.
2) How were the individual states’ electors determined? Weren’t they decided by 50 separate tallies of popular votes? If we can rely upon the accuracy of those tallies by state by state, and add up a column of numbers that can’t reach four digits, is it so impossible to believe that we can’t add up numbers that go to seven figures? Are we that math challenged?
3) Why do we, apparently, so fear close elections? Will there by riots in the streets because an election is decided by a small tally of popular votes nationwide? Sure, Republican officials descended on Florida in 2000 to stage a mini riot outside the offices of the board of elections in Miami Dade County, but they can only riot in so many places, right? Does the EC total of 1960 somehow convince us that the election wasn’t really close, since Kennedy won by over 100 EC votes? Are we collectively, as a nation, really that dimwitted?
4) And sticking with the 1960 election, Kennedy won Texas by only about 46,000 votes, for 24 EC votes, and Illinois by only about 9,000 votes for 27 EC votes. Swing those states won by slender popular vote percentages and 51 EC votes move into the Nixon column. Kennedy would have had 252 EC votes, Nixon 260. So Nixon would have won, right? Um…maybe not. The problem would have been that neither would have had a majority of the EC votes since Mississippi was won by an “unpledged” slate of electors for 8 EC votes, and Harry Bird (who ultimately received those MS votes in the EC tally) also received 6 EC votes from Alabama and one from Oklahoma. The total EC votes cast that year was 537, and therefore the majority required to win the election outright was 269. So neither Nixon nor Kennedy would have won the EC majority, and the election would have been thrown to the House to decide. The question then becomes, for all who love the EC as presently employed – would you have wanted the election of 1960 to have been decided by those 15 electors? What deals might have been struck to obtain their support? Would you not have worried how the majority would have ultimately been decided? Andrew Jackson sure did once upon a time (the “corrupt bargain” of 1824).
5) Now, returning to Illinois, which was famously delivered by Kennedy’s daddy. That result may have been an example of the sort of “cabal” and “intrigue’ the Founding Fathers feared, and attempted to counter by establishing the EC. Let’s not forget, shall we, that the EC was decided upon by the Constitutional Convention only a matter of hours after the group had generally settled on the Legislature selecting the Executive. They moved to the EC, not to support the rights of the small states as some argue, and not even primarily because of the difficulty of tallying popular votes nationwide in a reasonable timeframe (the problem to which Dean was actually alluding) but rather mostly for fear of an Executive being beholden to Congress (see “cabal” and “intrigue” above). And furthermore, what happened in Illinois in 1960, and in four states in 1876, and Ohio in 2004, illustrates why the EC as presently employed presents more ripe opportunity to steal an election, or at least attempt to do so, than would be the case if the election were to be determined by a national popular vote. Give me a choice of tasks – shifting ten or twenty thousand votes to win a “battleground” state, or ten or a hundred times that number nationwide – I know which one I’d opt for.
Oooohhhh! – Illegal aliens! Boo!
Is DemoRep ghost-writing your submissions these days, Jumbo?
But you may have a point. There’s almost nothing that would stop states from mounting a voter registration drive focused on encouraging illegal aliens from signing up to vote…at the risk of deportation.
Nothing, except perhaps reason, intelligence, common sense…
Ralph Nader was never on the ballot in 48 jurisdictions. The highest number of jurisdictions was in 2008, when he was on in 45 states plus DC. In 2008 he missed Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia. In 2000 he missed 7 states, although he was on before a higher percentage of the voters in 2000 than in 2008, because in 2000 he had Texas.
You didn’t address the question about 1880 and 1960. How frequently must I ask?
What exactly is a “popular vote”? Surely Texas may permit each voter to cast 38 “popular votes”.
Barry Scary,
Texas permitted Mexican citizens to vote until 1927. They would be given color-coded ballots (Colorados y Azules), and given barbeque and liqour and perhaps cash.
Barry Scary,
In 1960, there were 537 presidential electors appointed. You gave numbers that total 522, please correct your mistake.
We don’t know that the popular vote total in 1960 was 34,220,984 to 34,108,157. Certain elements have promoted that mythical result for political reasons.
How many popular votes did each candidate get in each State in 1960. Start with the ‘A’s. I will stop you when you make a mistake.
Barry Scary,
The comment was by Howard Dean. It more than a little likely that he was totally clueless.
I remember when he was brought as a figurehead supporter for keeping IRV in Burlington. He was holding a press-conference, and someone asked about the dirty tricks that the Kiss campaign had played against the Democratic candidate. He claimed that Burlington had only used IRV once. The smiling supporter had to explain that no, Burlington had used IRV twice. Dean then claimed that voters didn’t like the “rough stuff”. But it was in fact the rough stuff in an IRV election that denied election to the Condorcet winner.
“…where there is no public consensus that there is a “problem.””
How does National Popular Vote know there is no public consensus regarding having fair election laws which allow 3rd party and Independent candidates to obtain ballot position simply by paying a filing fee?
This is what “they” want you and I to believe. They know (and fear) if serious presidential candidates were allowed on the ballot via filing fee ($500 for each state plus District of Columbia – $25,500.00 – with 540 live citizens certified as presidential electors), turnout would be greater, and if there were any qualms after the election, it would be if the candidate with the majority of the popular vote had won – not whether popular vote reflected electoral vote.
Jimbo –
You’re making my point, sweetheart. States allocate their electors based on a popular vote count. The count may reflect exactly what popular votes were cast for whom, or the count may not. But a count…some count…is used to determine how electors are ultimately allocated. THAT count is the count that will be used to tally the national popular vote count. Now, we may argue forever about whether THAT count was accurate or not (see FLA 2000) but the fact is THAT count was used, accurate or not, to allocate electors. That is how the system that you hold so dear is run. If you feel that it is wrong to allocate electors on the basis of a number that may be less than perfectly accurate, then your problem is with the EC system as it is currently implemented by all of our states. You should therefore be arguing for a return to the method of the state legislators appointing electors, which our FF’s intended, and in which precise counting would not be a problem.
Good luck selling that idea to the American voters.
And please note…I said “by one count.” You think that count is a “myth…?” Prove it, and apply the same standards of rectitude that you demand of the NPV scheme.
Also…your electoral math sucks. Or are you starting that nasty habit again of just flat out lying to make your case?
As far as we can tell, the people at Google have deleted the original history of when they began in October of 1997, when they bought DejaNews, obliterated the original posting perimeters and re-named it Google Groups.
Click below which was a post in Usenet on 6/12/1994 which was made before Google Inc. bought this Usenet site and changed the name from Usenet to Google Groups (Google Inc. was founded in October of 1997):
Go to the link on the parliament’s site because the URL won’t link directly there on this facebook page:
http://usparliament.org/how-google-got-its-name.php
* * *
See the original post in June of 1994, more than three years before Google was founded in October of 1997:
http://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!searchin/alt.politics.reform/james$20ogle|sort:relevance/alt.politics.reform/P1LliQ2oeTA/_PLiYuOq3DcJ
Link won’t post either on WordPress or Facebook. Go to the main page for the link to the June of 1994 post:
http://usparliament.org/how-google-got-its-name.php
The election of a new Prime Minister of the International Parliament!
http://www.allpartysystem.com/day-to-day/
Barry Scary,
In 1960, Richard Nixon received 237,981 popular voters in Alabama; Orval Faubus received 4,367; Rutherford Decker 2,106; and Clennon King 1,485.
How many did John Kennedy receive?
Oh, didn’t know these people were the left-overs of the “Sore-Losermann” team of the 2000 Presidential Election.
“In 1960, Richard Nixon received 237,981 popular voters in Alabama; Orval Faubus received 4,367; Rutherford Decker 2,106; and Clennon King 1,485.
How many did John Kennedy receive?”
To this day, it is impossible to accurately establish just how many popular votes were won by John Kennedy in Alabama. You’d have to ask each voter (most of them are dead now) who voted, was their vote meant for Kennedy or for the unpledged electors. Each voter was allowed to vote for all eleven Democratic presidential electors.
Then, on the other hand, it could be argued they all voted for Kennedy (318,303), even though some of the Democratic voters – and not necessarily all of them – knew they were voting for a “split slate” of presidential electors, some of which might not vote for Kennedy in the Electoral College.
This is and will be one of the unanswered political questions in American history.
“At that point the national primary compact would switch to a party nominating primary in June, which would include an opportunity for independent candidates to advance to an August Top 2 primary, which named the two candidates for the November final election.”
Unless I’ve misunderstood your suggested rules, I don’t think we’d see many Independents advancing to the August Top 2 primary, any more than we’ve seen them advance to the Top Two November Election ballot in California.
Perhaps in a small constituency, where an Independent candidate can get to know the voters “one on one,” it is hard to get the voters to pay any attention to Independent candidates in a primary where there are more Democrats and Republicans candidates.
Still, compared to what we have now, I’d be willing to try it. But, unfortunately, like any election bill or suggestion which elevates the participation of the Independent candidate, the major party boys ain’t gonna give it any support.
But again, willing to try it!
In 2012, Governor Bentley certified that electors pledged to Barack Obama received 7,161,264 popular votes; and that electors pledged to Mitt Romney received 11,303,325 popular votes. The Certificate of Ascertainment has the state seal, and was witnessed by Beth Chapman, Secretary of State.
Jim Riley:
Are you serious about Alabama? I don’t believe there are 7 million people who live in Alabama, let along 11 million.
How many votes did the 2 or 3 3rd party presidential candidates receive, even though they were listed on the ballot as Independent candidates?
Did they accidently move the commas in the wrong place for these candidates?
The Alabama Certificate of Ascertainment is here.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/2012-certificates/pdfs/ascertainment-alabama.pdf
It looks pretty official to me.
There were around 18.5 popular votes (a popular vote is a voter cast by a voter).
A curiosity is that there were 10 presidential elector candidates for the Constitution Party. Electors pledged to Virgil Goode received 29,310 popular votes.
Electors pledged to Gary Johnson received 110,952 popular votes.
Electors pledged to Jill Stein received 30,573 popular votes.
There were 4,031 write-in popular votes. Alabama does not tabulate write-in votes on a statewide basis. They instead simply publish the reports from each election precinct.
Not surprised there were 10 presidential elector candidates submitted by the Constitution(al) Party. Does this suggest the Constitution(al) Party does not know how many Electors Alabama is entitled to, let alone know the proper name they should use as their party name? Am also surprised the Secretary of State did not use this (too many elector names) as a technicality for keeping their petitions from being accepted as valid.
Although I do not have a Elections Statute Book for Alabama at my fingertips, one could technically argue that voters were voting for each of the electors pledged to the candidates, and the votes could technically be totaled. This would make your totals valid!
And would this mean that Romney actually received some 4 million more votes nationally than did Obama? Wouldn’t have changed the results, but something future historians could play with. I’ll have to ask the folks in Montgomery someday, why they reported them this way.
Did any other states add up the votes for each of their electors this way?
Prescribed shades are shades that have your restorative prescribed inside the contacts.
Palming encouraged by Dried Bates focuses on eye-muscle
strengthening which presumes that the first faltering
step will be to relax these muscles beforehand.