There is virtually no chance this will go anywhere….
There are other on going efforts to get rid of the electoral college also….
A group is suing two red states and two blue states to change the Electoral College system.
Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig and David Boies, who served as former Vice President Al Gore’s lawyer in Bush v. Gore, make up the group according to the Boston Globe.
The group is suing two predominantly Democratic states (California and Massachusetts) and two predominantly Republican states (Texas and South Carolina.)
They argue the winner-take-all format of the Electoral College disenfranchises numerous voters and that it violates the principle of “one person, one vote.”
Boies said the Electoral College system leads to candidates only campaigning to certain groups of voters and ignoring others.
“You shouldn’t have voters going to the polls knowing their votes don’t count,” Boies said to Judge Patti B. Saris. “That’s why political candidates don’t come here to campaign the same way they go to Ohio or Florida or other so-called battleground states.”….
There was an oh so brief chance to have gotten rid of the Electoral College.
It happened in the 2004 election where a change of 60000 votes in Ohio would have made John Kerry President even though George W Bush would have outpolled him by over three million nationwide.
If such had happened I believe Democrats and Republicans ,both who would have been screwed by the EC,Republicans arguably more so, may have united to to do away with it.
There would have been no argument in the “more so” if it happened in regards to the popular vote in 2004 as compared to 2000, but no, I don’t think the EC would have been done away with. You are never going to get enough of the small states to agree, after all this time in our history, to give up the influence they have in picking a President.
In regards to 2004 though, if Kerry had won Ohio, I have a feeling that Republicans and their lawyers would have challenged the results in Wisconsin for irregularities and might have prevailed. Since GWB won OH, it was not necessary to do so but Republicans at the time believed that some shady stuff went on in Wisconsin.
The EC is what it is and is not going away. If it did, people would really complain about how campaigns are run.
Everyone knows the current system going on. Al Gore just needed to win his home state, which he completely took for granted, despite years of warning signs suggesting the opposite could happen.
Hillary just needed to visit Wisconsin maybe once or not have assumed that Michigan was in the bag months earlier.
“Republicans at the time thought some shady stuff was going on in Wisconsin”
Of course they did. They always do when lots of minorities and urban dwellers vote.
I recall there were even Republicans who thought McCain won the election.
Republicans always believe that when they lose the election was somehow “stolen.”
It’s simply the instinct of the beast.
The above is in keeping with that tradition.
True THAT….
Sore losers!
I didn’t Think Gore took his home state for granted. I think he expected to lose there.
I do agree that the electoral college is here to stay.
Trump was against the Electoral College for 5 minutes in 2012 when Obama had won the Electoral vote and his guy Romney was then leading the popular vote.
In the unlikely event that Trump would win the popular vote but lose the Electoral vote in 2020 he’d be against it again–and so would Republicans.
trump will contest the election if he loses in 2020. I would bet on it (but not against Corey)!
My feeling continues to be that Donald Trump will NOT President come January 21, 2021….
Trump, April 26, 2018 on “Fox & Friends”
“I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
“I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”
Trump, October 12, 2017 in Sean Hannity interview
“I would rather have a popular vote. “
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.”
The National Popular Vote bill is 64% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency 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.
It simply requires enacting states with 270 electoral votes to award their electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes.
All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
Candidates, as in other elections, would allocate their time, money, polling, organizing, and ad buys roughly in proportion to the population
Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting, crude, and divisive and red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes, that don’t represent any minority party voters within each state.
No more handful of ‘battleground’ states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable winner states that have just been ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
We can limit the power and influence of a few battleground states in order to better serve our nation.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with 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.
I agree the that the small states will NEVER give up the college….
But NOTHING is impossible…
Most Americans do NOT know that their US Senator”s where NOT elected directly until 1913 with the passages of the 17th Amendment….
With the National Popular Vote bill, when every popular vote counts and matters to the candidates equally, successful candidates will find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Ohio and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support. Elections wouldn’t be about winning a handful of battleground states.
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.
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), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
The bill has been enacted by Connecticut (7), the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Maryland (11), California (55), Massachusetts (10), New York (29), Vermont (3), Rhode Island (4), and Washington (13). These 12 jurisdictions have 172 electoral votes – 64% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
It would change state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), to guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes, without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
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. 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.