The map shows us that those old dead guys who established our constitutional democracy were very perceptive. The founders were concerned that the states of Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania could run the nation, and the 10 smaller states would suffer, so they came up with the concept of a House and Senate dividing power between the states with both large and small populations. The Bill of Rights was also a vehicle to separate power, allowing the brakes to be put on a dominating federal government.
The call for the popular vote to replace the electoral college is currently being made by those who would benefit from it. The will of the people is being cited as the reason we need to change the U.S. Constitution. Interesting that the folks pushing for the change are not filing an amendment to the Constitution, which is the proper and legal way to change our base founding document?
The reason for not advocating for the necessary amendment is that it would not pass, never happen, and the map shows us why. The amendment would never get the two-thirds of the states to ratify it. The large states, California, New York, Texas, Florida and a few others would have an advantage in the process, and the less populated states would be disproportionately less powerful. The city folks placing environmental restrictions on the rural folks’ way of life is already showing its ugly head. The tyranny of the majority could easily run amok with the cities imposing their values on rural Americans.
City dwellers in New York State are driving Remington Arms out of the state and proud of it, not considering the 2000 jobs many small towns in upstate New York have depended on since 1816. The New York governor’s mantra is that firearms are bad, and those who make them are also bad, so they need to be punished. The seven generations of small-town Americans who worked for “The Arms,” as the locals call it, be damned.
Remington, a union shop with a strong history of providing for its rank and file, is moving to a less populated state where they are welcome. Small towns in upstate New York are dying; Mohawk, Ilion, Herkimer, solid blue collar, God-fearing American towns are filled with good union folks who must leave to find work or go on government support.
Farmers, miners and factory workers, along with drillers, lumbermen and others face restrictions when the government only listens to the large city dwellers. After all, food just appears at the supermarket and lumber comes from the big home centers; oil is not needed all, as Americans can take mass transit; coal should not be used, and mining/drilling is a sin against mother Earth.
These sound like dumb statements, but if you have lived in a megalopolis you know folks who believe it and will not be persuaded that it is not a fact. Farming has become so alien to city folks that agri-tourism is becoming an ever-expanding industry. Local townships studying the need to regulate agri-tourism is proof.
So, do we change the American Constitution and send the Electoral College to the ash heap of history? Not a chance in hell, and thank God for those old dead guys who wrote our Constitution.
The world’s population is on track to exceed 9 billion by 2050. Food production needs to double by then, but the folks in the mega-cities are not going to vote for or invest in agriculture or to allow the necessary expansion of farming. It is good we have a power balanced between the massive coastal urban centers and the farm-rich heartlands. The electoral college protects the few from the tyranny of the many, a good system that has worked well for 242 years.
American farmers can continue to feed the world, provided the government allows them to grow and expand at a rate many socialist democrats (mostly city dwellers) will object to. The socialist democrats will cite environmental and animal cruelty reasons to restrict agriculture, mining, drilling and forestry. Who grows the food, refines the oil and mines the ore? It is not the city folks’ concern until they run out of the “necessities of life,” like cream for their lattes.
Once again, many thanks to our founders.
Many Americans are upset that the Electoral College gave the 45th presidency to morally bankrupt, corrupt, unfit, compulsive liar, Donald Trump. Of those that voted, almost 3 million more voted for hugely unpopular Hillary Clinton than for Trump. That’s why you’re hearing so much much about scrapping the Electoral College.
SAD!!!
The most disturbing aspect of the debate about the Electoral College is that seemingly educated people can’t understand that States, not people elect the President and the sheer genius of the engineered compromise that forms our Government. The fact that Americans today can’t elect a Government that will compromise and run the country wasn’t created by the founders, we did that.
With the alternative to the Electoral College being tyranny by simple majority rule and possible civil war, we had better think really hard before tossing it aside as a relic.
Need new writers, Dave. Same junk all the time. Socialists Dems the left “Army Boob” (please don’t remove my extra o) is a broken record. The Ranger needs to spend more time with Yogi and Booboo to see the real world. Took you off my home page.
Mr Longstreet
Of course you can do as you please… let’s look at what you are upset with.. Socialist Democrats…if we remember correctly Bernie ran on a platform ad a Democrat promoting a Socialist agenda…hence Socialist Democrat sounds about right.
Democrats equal the left….well for years there has always been the left and right….you may not like the terminology but it is what it is.
You have the right to label Army Bob a Boob and say Ranger Rick needs to see the world as you do.
That is the beauty of our Country no one is going to come knocking on you door and drag you off for your criticism of the writers….
The sad part is by deciding to leave you and your opinion will never be heard on subjects that are important to you.
That has and always will be the downfall to the silent in our Country. Even if you are a lone voice…the world needs to hear it.
Well, for one thing Harry I am not a Dem or a Rep. According Bob, all Sems are socalists. If that is true all Reps are nationalist.
What bothers me is every article is the same degrading of one group of people. The Ranger’s articles are written with anger. Just what this country needs more of? Neighbors don’t talk to each other, kinfolk argue about politics. Articles written in anger are not worth reading. AMEN
There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the Electoral College and the presidency.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
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 is states replacing 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), in the enacting states, to guarantee 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 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.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire, Ohio, or Florida. The National Popular Vote plan would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
Please correct me if I’m in error. So instead of calling it victory by popular vote, you are saying the electoral college would cast it’s vote according to popular vote . So why even have the electoral college?? It would be nothing but a figure head….because in reality the electoral college becomes the name for popular vote.
Explain how this helps the smaller states? At least now those states by majority vote choose a candidate. Seems to me the larger states benefit otherwise.
Fourteen of the 15 smallest states by population are ignored, like medium and big states where the statewide winner is predictable, because they’re not swing states. Small states are safe states. Only New Hampshire gets significant attention.
Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.
State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.
In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).
In 2012, 24 of the nation’s 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.
The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections.
Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.
Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don’t matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.
With the current system of electing the President, none of the states requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state’s or district’s electoral votes.
Since 1828, one in six states have cast their Electoral College votes for a candidate who failed to win the support of 50 percent of voters in their state
Now, a presidential candidate could lose despite winning 78%+ of the popular vote and 39 smaller states.
With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with less than 22% of the nation’s votes!
But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political candidate. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included 7 states that have voted Republican(Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia) and 4 states have voted Democratic (California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey). The big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.
With National Popular Vote, it’s not the size of any given state, it’s the size of their “margin” that will matter.
In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% R), 1,691,267
* New York (59% D), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% R), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% R), 426,778
* California (55% D), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% D), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% D), 211,826
To put these numbers in perspective,
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) generated a margin of 455,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
Utah (5 electoral votes) generated a margin of 385,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004.
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
Mr. Smit,
Sir,
The folks pushing for this will never get a constitutional amendment so this is a way around the constitution. The goal is to have the coastal mega cities run the country. The will of the hicks in the middle be damned. We do not need farming it pollutes, we do not need factories they pollute, we do not need drilling/mining/limbering/refining they pollute and the city folk feel we do need any of it.
It looks like one way or the other the power of a person’s vote means very little on the national level. Looks like our State is headed down the same road .
Where is this all headed ??? Dictatorship, Socialist, Communist form of government. It sure looks like our current form is slowly being undermined.
National Popular Vote is a nonpartisan coalition of legislators, scholars, constitutionalists and grassroots volunteers committed to preserving the Electoral College, while guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who earns the most votes among all fifty states.
The U.S. Constitution says “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The normal way of changing the method of electing the President is not a federal constitutional amendment, but changes in state law.
Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation’s first election in 1789. However, now, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.
In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state’s electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all method is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.
In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state.
In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.
All Democratic voters on the coasts do NOT outnumber Republicans in the country.
Voters in the biggest cities in the US have been 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.
The rest of the U.S., in suburbs, divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.
The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 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), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
Susan Anthony certainly is interesting and enlightening. I wish to thank her for sharing her expertise.
Bob, you are so spot on with this attempt to take away the electoral college as it is now. Ms. Anthony is a good Socialist that gets angry every time their candidate can’t win the individual state popular vote. I like how she tries to equate the little states against the larger ones. Her argument sounds good to either uneducated masses or Democrats. The whole idea of the electoral college was to not have large population states overpower little ones. It was an ingenious plan by the founding fathers.
Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“ I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”
In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
“The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”
There have been hundreds of proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College – more than any other subject of Constitutional reform.
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and various members of Congress who later ran for Vice President and President such as then-Congressman George H.W. Bush, and then-Senator Bob Dole.
In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until the 2016 election, 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 (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range – in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
There are several scenarios in which a candidate could win the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. It could reduce turnout more, as more voters realize their votes do not matter.
Most Americans don’t ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district or county. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don’t allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”
Eight former national chairs of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have endorsed the bill
In 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the bill.
In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the bill.
In 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill by a 28–18 margin.
In 2009, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed the bill
The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 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), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9), and New Mexico (5).
When enacted by states with 270 electors, the bill would change their 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, to guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes.
Now, a presidential candidate could lose despite winning 78%+ of the popular vote and 39 smaller states.
With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with less than 22% of the nation’s votes!
Anyone who supports the current presidential election system, believing it is what the Founders intended and that it is in the Constitution, is mistaken. The current presidential election system does not function, at all, the way that the Founders thought that it would.
Supporters of National Popular Vote find it hard to believe the Founding Fathers would endorse the current electoral system where 38+ states and voters now are completely politically irrelevant.
10 of the original 13 states are politically irrelevant now.
The Founders created the Electoral College, but 48 states eventually enacted state winner-take-all laws, and now may change them in the same way.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.