As previously stated, it is also important to remember the three other state legislatures that approved the scheme but met with gubernatorial vetoes (California, Rhode Island, Vermont). A reasonable legal argument can be made that the gubernatorial vetoes are irrelevant. Thus, NPV may have as many as 138 electoral votes.
At its heart, NPV is a blatant strike at the Constitution. It tears apart a well-established institution that was admired by the Founding generation and that has served America successfully for centuries.
Second, NPV achieves its objective only because its plan does an end-run around the constitutional amendment process.
The Council’s action gives constitutionalists in both parties an excellent opportunity to highlight their allegiance to the Constitution during this election season. Constitutionalists in the House and Senate should sponsor resolutions of disapproval if and when NPV is signed by D.C.’s mayor. Those congressmen who fail to defend the Electoral College — and thus our Constitution — should be held to account at the polls.
7 comments:
It makes it easier to hide voter fraud and steal elections. Not to mention the millions of voters who will be disenfranchised !
Democrates> GET them OUT
!
Didn't the founders create the Electoral College? Or are we all suddenly treating Article II as a evil, liberal, socialist conspiracy?
10:59 - but what about the DemocrATS?
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote:
"To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election—and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Which, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?"
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2010/08/jason-cabel-roe-npv.html
The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all rule (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but now used by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided "battleground" states and their voters. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just six states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). 19 of the 22 smallest and medium-small states (with less than 7 electoral college votes) were not among them. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states, and candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
I never did understand the electoral college. I always thought the one who got the most votes ( popular election ) should win.
After all, that's who the MAJORITY of people wanted to win in the first place.
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