Popular vote? May 14, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government , trackbackBelow is a comment I received on another blog post. Do you agree or disagree with the premise of the poster and why ?
- The real issue is not how well Clinton, Obama, or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). 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 major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule which awards all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 17 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring the law into effect.
Comments»
I’ve yet to hear more than one good reason to keep the electoral college as is. I’ve heard about 4-5 good reasons to change the archaic system. This change is overdue.
I am all for another constitutional convention.
To see some more reasons, see the comments on this post:
http://reformedville.reformedblogs.com/2008/05/09/first-class-spin-bought-hook-line-and-sinker/#comments
Sorry, but I really don’t care to become disenfranchised by this scheme. My home state is North Carolina and let’s suppose, for an instant, that NC joins this compact. If the people of NC collectively vote for Candidate A, but Candidate B wins the nationwide popular vote - you are suggesting that the State overrule the people and award ALL of its Electors to Candidate B??!! THAT, sir, is TRUE disenfranchisement!!!
It would be far better if states adopted Maine’s approach: award each congressional district’s Elector to the candidate that wins that district and the two statewide Electors (representing the Senate members) go to the candidate who wins statewide. That would retain the full enfranchisement of the citizens of the state, would encourage candidates to compete for votes in every state, and significantly reduce (although admittedly not fully eliminate) the possibility of another Election 2000.