Interesting (electoral college)

I haven't heard anything about this. I kmow there's always been detractors of the EC ,and I highly doubt it'll ever change, but this was is an interesting attempt to circumvent it. I mean I know it's a long shot but a helluva lot easier than changing the constitution. It's a snippet from an article on the whiners contacting electors and trying to persuade them to change their vote.

".. Eliminating the Electoral College entirely would require a constitutional amendment, which is nearly impossible. The last major attempt to abolish the electoral college that way ended in 1969, when a proposed amendment died by Senate filibuster after overwhelmingly passing the House.

Instead, today's reformers have rallied behind a clever work-around that's merely very hard to achieve.

It's an interstate compact in which state legislatures agree to assign their electoral college votes to whoever wins the national popular vote, regardless of how their state went. If enough states sign on, it has the effect of circumventing the Electoral College and making sure the winner of the popular vote is the next president.

So far eleven states with 165 electoral votes have signed on to the plan, which will only be activated once 270 electoral votes-worth of states pass the compact. The campaign had been making steady progress in both red and blue states, with recent wins in the state legislatures of Oklahoma and Arizona, and real gains in Georgia, where 55 out of 61 state senators sponsored the bill.."

The whole article for those interested.


Partisan Opposition to Electoral College May Make it Harder to Change

by Alex Seitz-Wald

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/partisan-opposition-electoral-college-may-make-it-harder-change-n686041

Imagine the outcry in Oklahoma if their electoral votes went to Hillary instead of the person their populace overwhelmingly voted for.

OK wouldn't be the only one. Actually I'd fear that the results of that would be worse than what's happening now.

Hillary did not win the popular vote! You can not take the vote total as a popular vote total. The results would be completely if people knew that the vote total was going to determine the winner. The whole election would have been different. Where the candidates spent their money and campaign time would have been completely different. There are millions of people that did not vote because they live in a state that their party is a minority. Republicans in California or Illinois and democrats in Texas or Missouri. You can not change the rules after the game to make your candidate win. What a losers way of winning.

Hillary did win the popular vote. No one is trying to change the rules after the game.

Yes, the election would be campaigned differently if the object was popular vote instead of electorate votes. There are always going to be millions that won't vote. I think the electoral college has little to do with that.

Seems ripe for a legal challenge to circumvent the Constitution. Don't our legislatures take this vow:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Derby makes a good point. In NY there are many districts (including mine) where the democrat runs unopposed, so there is no point for somebody who is a Republican or independent opposed to democrats to vote. With Ca, Ill, NY Oregon, Wash so populous there could be many Reoublicans/independents who don't vote, which would change the totals. If the media that wasn't 90% in the tank for clinton & made an attmpt to be fair, that would also change the vote totals.

The democrats should be careful what they wish for, much like reid's nuclear option, which is about to backfire on them.

Remember the democrats have lost over 900 elected officials in the last 6 years. They currently control only a handful of states.

The Electoral College was specifically written into the Constitution to prevent domination of elections by more-populated/more-urban States over less-populated/less-urban States, . . . the same reason that every State gets 2 Senators to balance the bicameral legislature.

If there were no Electoral College or Senate this is how Government power would be distributed:



Why, heck fire ! Poor old DonDiego cannot even make out Appalachia !

DonDiego prefers keeping things as the Founding Fathers planned it.

Liberals are always smarter than our founders.

The ONLY reason others propose changing what works is that they did not get their way. Liberal crybabies are too stupid to know how good they have it.

I think that the electoral college does several good things.

Gives states the same say based on population. If two states have the same population they should have the same say in who the president is. Because of a number of things if they used popular vote this would not happen. Here is a list of some of the things that effect this.

Weather – could have bad weather in a state or states that effect the turn out. This could also be past weather like flooding, hurricane etc that an area has not recovered from.
Voting rules – they vary all over the place from state to state thing like the hours the voting polls are open to if you can vote ahead of time or how long before the election you can register.
Other elections – Turnout is effected by the other elections in a state so a hot governor or senator races can greatly effect turnout. Not to mentioned special propositions like voting on marijuana usage.

It isolates cheating to one state. If North Dakota had 20,000,000 votes for Trump he would win ND and get 3 electoral votes but the cheating (ND lonely has 300,000 people in the whole state) votes would be isolated to North Dakota.