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Iowa Seeks To Remove Electoral College
Zebano writes "Since changing the US constitution is too much work, the Iowa senate is considering a bill that would send all 7 of Iowa's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in a presidential election. This would only go into affect after enough states totaling 270 electoral votes (enough to elect a president) adopted similar resolutions."
If Iowa adopts this measure, it would be noteworthy, but the summary seems to imply that this is a new idea or something unique that Iowa is considering. It is not. See the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact:
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Read the article....
The votes go to the winner of the NATIONAL popular election.
Once 270 votes worth of state agree then a vote in Florida of Ohio will be worth just as much as a vote in Texas or California.
By doing this, the winner of the national popular vote will always win. By distributing the electoral votes along the popular vote of the individual states you still have the potential of a 2000 result. PLUS you still have thoes purple swing states.
If the popular vote truly counted, that would be a very compelling reason to register and/or go out and vote.
The popular vote counts on a State by State basis, not on a national one.
The electoral college makes sense when you consider that the States are supposed to be semi-independant.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Stop verbing nouns. Or nouning verbs in this case.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
And we've all seen how well THAT worked out.
To wit: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=194983 (Howard Stern Interviews Obama "Policy" Voters)
Sure, it happens on both sides, but that was the most striking example that comes to mind when I think of uneducated voters.
Disclaimer: I'm a political blogger from Minnesota, and I ain't on your side, M1rth. That being said, the WSJ article to which you link was ghost-written by Norm Coleman's campaign -- it includes several spurious claims, and it's from the WSJ's editorial board. Their newsgathering operation is top-notch, but their editorial board is about as vicious a bunch of right-wing corporatists as you can possibly find. So, consider the source before using it to support your claims. You might also refer to The Uptake for continuing coverage of Coleman's election contest, in which several plausible scenarios have been presented by witnesses which would have caused the "more votes than voters" claim to look true. If I were feeling self-promotional, I might direct readers to my site -- MN Progressive Project -- for some countervailing points, especially in the Recount Report tag.
#2 - The logistics of holding a "national recount" are simply not possible. Recounting a state alone is bad enough (look at the Dem vote fraud efforts for Franken and the "targeted recounting" of counties, which magically has more votes than voters in several Dem-heavy districts trying to steal the Senate election).
Show me a single county in Minnesota that's reporting more votes than voters. It shouldn't be hard, because you say that there are several. The data are freely available from the Minnesota Secretary of State http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20081104/ so there's nothing standing in your way.
Note: a county that reports more valid votes after a recount than it did on election night is an entirely different thing than a county reporting more votes than voters. The former is a natural result from going back over the data more carefully, the latter is a huge red flag that someone screwed up and would be actual news, instead of a throwaway line muttered by wingnuts.
I'm not saying that the Minnesota recount has gone perfectly, both sides have been pretty childish, but if you're going to complain about it at least complain about real problems.
Be careful presenting that WSJ "article" as fact. It's an op-ed piece in their Opinion section, which means there's no implication of journalistic impartiality there.
I think you guys missed the last bit: "This would only go into affect after enough states totaling 270 electoral votes (enough to elect a president) adopted similar resolutions."
So, until enough other states have similar resolutions, Iowa votes will be counted exactly the same way as they are today. When (if) Iowa is joined by enough other states that together their electoral votes will dominate those of the remaining states, then you'll have a president elected by popular vote. Even in the holdout states, votes will still count: they're part of the popular vote that Iowa and friends will be evaluating.
According to the wik, 24 states have laws binding an elector to vote for the candidate they're told to vote for, and some states have laws that render their elector's ballots void if they don't follow directions. The Supreme Court has upheld these laws.
The electors are party operatives chosen for their loyalty. Attempts to make the office anything but a ceremonial role are very rare.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Instant run-off would have you selecting second and third choices; for the candidate that gets the least votes, his voters go to their second choice, then the next lowest is eliminated, until there is only one.
So in your example, either B or C would end up with 60%.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Iowa isn't going to award all 7 of its votes to the winner of the election in Iowa. That would be "winner take all" as you're complaining.
Instead Iowa will give its 7 electoral votes to the candidate with the most votes *nationwide*. But ONLY if enough states adopt the measure.
That would mean that the candidate with the most votes nationally would always win the electoral vote.
So it's "winner takes all" in the sense that the winner wins, instead of sometimes losing like in recent history.
This was more true before 2008. In 2008, Obama won 36 counties and McCain won 25. In the House races, Democrats won all but three districts in New York state.
Excellent tool for looking at electoral results: http://scoreboard.dailykos.com/map/
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
It's hardly inarguable, since it *was* argued, and successfully, 150 years ago.
First, your argument has the time wrong, because the time of unconstitutionality wouldn't have been when the gold standard was abolished, but rather when the government started printing money during the Civil War.
More importantly, your argument claims that, because states are prohibited from making anything but gold and silver coins legal tender, that the federal Government's act of making paper money legal tender is unconstitutional when states use that money. This is, to put it bluntly, stupid. Article 1 Section 10 is a limit on state power, not federal power. Article 1, Section 8 allows Congress to coin money, and further allows borrowing in the credit of the United States, and therefore allows for the printing of fiat money.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Wikipedia has a pretty good list of all 158 of them. They range from accidents (flipping the VP/Pres votes), protest votes, and changing of votes because the candidate died between the election and the electoral college vote, to outright just plain voting for the other side. The entry has a few citations to sources, but in general these are pretty well known.
Yes you can -- if you understand why it was designed to do what it does.
States are supposed to pic a executive. The select an executive to represent the STATE. They send electors (the number of which is weighted by population) to vote for that executive. How can a state pick 51% of an executive? And 49% of another? They pick a SINGLE executive, not two, three or more.
By removing this system, you effectivly remove any executive representation to small states. Preseidents will be elected by large cities (Los Angeles, New York City, etc) of a handfull of states. Executive decisions will be based on the needs of those few zones rather than the country as a whole.
But right now, small states have FAR MORE voting power per person than large states. Why should a Wyoming resident's vote count for more than a California resident's?
Actually, when you do the math, the states that really get screwed in the current system are the mid-population states. The largest states tend to be represented proportionally, while the smallest states are over-represented, taking the share from the middling states.
To do the math yourself, go to www.census.gov and get state populations (don't forget DC). Then put those in an Excel spreadsheet next to the electoral votes for each state. Divide pop by votes, then sort those numbers. Also calculate the total population by 535, then divide the representation for each state by that number. You'll see who comes out ahead and behind.
I last did this years ago, so I don't have it to hand now, but it's very interesting. There's about one electoral vote per 700,000 people in the US, but Wyoming gets something like 1 per 500,000. California, Texas, and New York each came out at about 700,000, but states like Ohio etc. were more like 800,000.
I think the notion that the states elect the executive is somewhat outdated, given the shift to greater Federal control over individuals (while at the same time, civil rights granted by the national government have been conferred on individuals as well). Keep in mind, also, that this system predates states the size of Texas and California... it doesn't account for the idea that a single state might be large enough that they take on an unfair economic burden, as well as housing a disproportionate population.
This whole f'ed up system is why some of us would like to see California declare independence. Trade deficit? WHAT trade deficit? California exports more than it imports (in spite of housing the largest port complex in the country). There are reasons other than our gigantic population why the federal government should, now and then, have to make us happy. As it now stands, they practically never do.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
There is no run off system here in the US. Let me try to explain the differences between the US and British systems as I understand them.
The British have a parliamentary system and your parties actually stand for something. Since your parties are formed around issues, there needs to be a run off system so that the lesser issues also get their say. IIRC, your current government leaders must form a majority of total parties to maintain in power. Gross oversimlification I know.
The American system is a factionalized system and our parties don't stand for anything. They might have issues they believe in right this moment, but they are not beholden to those issues but rather to the voters who want them. There are two parties and they add and drop issues as they get or lose votes. Thus, both parties fight over issues and people to have the majority. This means that the process of forming the majority is done at the party level rather than the government level. This is further complicated because there is no national election except for president that is done by the electoral college who represents their state. So almost all government officials, no matter where they stand in the government, are beholden to people back in their state, not the government or even party as a whole. Since the parties don't stand for anything besides red and blue factions, you can end up with a socialist Republican in one state and a free market capitalist Democrat from another even though such beliefs go against the general trend of their party.
In the American system, any 3rd party, as the lesser parties are known, whose issues gain enough of a following to become a sizable vote, will be absorbed by one or both of the major parties. Either their candidate will join a major party to gain the contacts and influence it gives them, or the major party will adopt their platform planks into their own to gain their voters. Likewise, anybody in the in the major parties whose issues don't get them enough votes and power they want, break away and form a 3rd party. These 3rd parties act as a sounding board and pulpit for new and old ideas for the major parties. To either be picked up as their issues resonate with the larger population or be forgotten as they become radicals that nobody wants.
I believe the 17th amendment passed because, as great as that balance and distribution sounds in theory, the practical reality was different.
In practice, the appointment rather than election of Senators provided a wide-open avenue for corrupt appointees, seat buying (see Blagojevich), and a nepotistic entrenchment of political power.
Found a link for ya: http://www.liberty-ca.org/repeal17/states/montana2003oneil.htm It is a place to start anyway...
Hint: You're wrong, it's an amalgam of issues.
Slavery is what divided the nation. That was the issue that got Lincoln elected, and that was the issue that provoked the Southern states to secede. Lincoln always stated that he had no intentions of forcing abolition where it already existed but they seceded anyway (some before he was inaugurated even) because they did not trust him. Southern media depicted him completely contrary to his nature to inflame the public that he would free their slaves. He only agreed to free the slaves once he needed to boost northern morale and to gain black soldiers which he needed badly.
State's rights is perhaps what enabled the war to occur. If nation were more centralized then secession wouldn't have occurred despite Lincoln's election, and if it were more decentralized than the north wouldn't have cared. Certainly southerners fought for their 'state's right' to slavery but northerners fought for either union or abolition. (sometimes just one, sometimes both)
There's a lot of revisionism trying to shrug off slavery as part of the war but it still was the idea that set off the war and many died purely for abolition. I will concede it could have been another issue later, and that is the state's rights problem that the war settled, but to say it was not about slavery is just ludicrous.
"I only speak the truth"
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