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."

Comments

One way to get more registered voters

[Vandil X]

If the popular vote truly counted, that would be a very compelling reason to register and/or go out and vote.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[TubeSteak]

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.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[rho]

You're making the--quite absurd--assumption that people are not voting because of the Electoral College.

You could drop a daisy-cutter on Chicago and probably not kill anybody who knows what the Electoral College is, much less why it's there.

People don't vote because people are generally lazy and apathetic about things outside their immediate sphere of reference. Which is not to say that they don't have opinions about things outside their sphere--they just don't do anything about those opinions.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Lord Ender]

The real reason to do this is to fix a flaw in the Constitution. The founders (perhaps for pragmatic reasons--no public education at the time) considered "common" people to be too dumb to vote. They decided only free, land-owning males have enough education or intelligence to make such an important decision.

Furthermore, they considered even these people to be easily fooled, and put in the electoral college so that the few political elites could override the peoples' vote if the people screwed up.

We now have public education and mass media. Anyone who feels so inclined can now be as politically inclined as the electoral college. Let's get rid of this relic of an unjust time.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[SatanicPuppy]

The electoral college was put in place so that there would be a check on the power of the uneducated masses...Originally the EC didn't have to vote with the state!

Winner take-all-vote distribution is disgusting. If I live in a state that goes 49% for party X, and 51% for party Y, you can't even argue that giving 100% of our states votes to party Y makes the least bit of sense.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[SatanicPuppy]

Why not? I've lived in plenty of states where my vote for any national election was absolutely pointless, because 80% of the population always voted the other way. If you don't care about local politics, and you can't change national politics, why vote?

(I personally do care about the local crap, but if I didn't, I don't know that I'd bother going out without a close senate/house race)

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Jhon]

you can't even argue that giving 100% of our states votes to party Y makes the least bit of sense.

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.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[pz]

In what way does the popular vote not count? As far as I understand, and bear in mind that I've been a US citizen for only 4 decades or so, and my only exposure is living here for that time and going through the primary, secondary, and tertiary educational system, including state-mandated civics classes, the popular vote is what determines which electors will vote and (by pledge) how the electors will vote. While there are some exceptions, and different states have different rules, the electors are understood to vote for the candidates indicated on the ballot, and are determined by, wait for it, popular vote.

Of course, you probably meant the national popular vote. And by focusing on that, you clearly have no understanding of why the electoral college was created in the first place.

Perhaps you've noticed that most presidential elections in the US are pretty close (maybe you're not old enough to have noticed, but it's true). We don't have 80% to 20% popular vote splits. A 5% margin is considered good. The 1972 landslide was barely 60-40. And yet Nixon won 49 of 50 states. (That should give you a clue right there.)

The standard story is that the electoral college was invented because at the time of the creation of the US as a nation, long-distance communication happened largely by horse. Sending results from each state to a central location to tally up meant sending a person in one form or another, to drive the horse carrying the results if nothing else, so instead of sending the votes, they sent people. Easy enough, not any slower, and it helped ensure that the votes weren't tampered with along the way.

But that's only part of the story.

The more important part is that the founding fathers were really, really smart. They saw how hard it was to organize and galvanize disparate peoples. They recognized that for leaders to be followed, they needed to be widely recognized by the larger populace as leaders. A nation, especially a younger nation, exists only because its citizens all agree it should. Broad dissent, particularly when the nation is still gaining its legs but also once it's strong, can be hugely deleterious. It leads to civil unrest and civil wars.

So, when most elections are close, barely much beyond 50-50, how do you convince the HALF of the population who voted for the losing candidate that they should give up and follow the winner? The answer, THE answer, is to arrange things so that elections are never close to 50-50. The electoral college is designed to do this, to amplify small differences, so that marginal elections become mandates. With a mandate, the winner can lead.

How does the electoral college do this? By taking the results from each state and, effectively, turning them into winner-take-all results. Not every state will vote for the nationally more popular candidate (except as was nearly true in 1972), so some states will vote for the ultimate winner, and some will vote for the ultimate loser, but by quantizing the results on a per-state basis, the small differences get amplified.

In our most recent election, Obama won the national popular vote 53-46. That's damned close to 50-50. Nearly half of the US population voted for the fellow who didn't win. They aren't happy with the results. And yet, Obama is called one of the most popular presidents ever. He has a clear mandate. Why? Because the electoral college results were 67-32, or over 2-to-1. Landslide. Mandate.

By taking the results from each state individually and turning them into winner-take-all, small differences (51-49 percent of the popular vote in a hypothetical example state like Kansas) are amplified into large differences (6-0 votes in the electoral college). And this creates a definitive result from the electoral college, and a mandate for the elected candidate.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[SatanicPuppy]

Maybe originally, but the Civil War put an end to any pretensions of state's rights. That being the case, everyone should have an equal say on the election of a chief executive.

The problems you state already exist. California goes with its big cities, New York goes with New York city...New york state is as red as a damn stop sign, and the entire state has gone democrat since forever because the city has more votes than the whole rest of the state. Those states have more electoral votes than nearly all the midwest combined.

I'm not even against splitting the electoral college votes based on the votes of the population of the state. But winner take all disenfranchises people who aren't the majority, and it doesn't reflect the actual views of the state.

And, frankly, the small states have such an inordinate amount of legislative clout in the Senate, I really don't care if they don't get a lot of say in the Executive. Executive branch representation should be based on the wants of the majority of citizens.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[gfxguy]

You think "public" (i.e. government) education has made things better? Then why do so few people even understand that we're not a true democracy or that we have an electoral college at all?

We now have public education and mass media.

The laughable thing (and yes, I realize some will think this flamebait) is that you think this is a good thing... that this has actually helped.

What we have now is American Idol politics, where every month or so contestants are booted off in state by state popularity contests; the one that promises us the most at everybody else's expense wins... woohoo!!!

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[nightsweat]

So you'd rather just tell the big state city voters to shut up and keep paying for the small state rural voters to get outsized representation? Nonsense.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Tenek]

That might be better than the current situation, where the people in large cities are ignored because they're safe for one party or another. California (55), Texas (34) and New York (31) get zero attention during the campaign despite having over 20% of the electors. Instead the targets are states like Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), Iowa (7), New Hampshire (4), etc. They don't care about the 'country as a whole' now, and they wouldn't with a strict popular vote either, but at least more people would be looked at.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Sloppy]

The electoral college makes sense when you consider that the States are supposed to be semi-independant.

But the people vote against that very idea every single time, by electing strong-fed candidates that move more and more power away from the state to DC. Sure, you could send all that tax money to your state capitol (or event city government) instead; you could let your state legislator or city councilor (who has relatively few constituents -- your vote matters more) represent you in important policy decisions. But we'd rather send the money further away to a less accountable bureaucracy, and let decisions be made by less accountable reps in DC who have more constituents so that each us us has a weaker voice.

This move by Iowa is just another step in democracy's goal: to eliminate democracy, to weaken every voter's voice (in this case: Iowa's voters' voices). It's the all-too-common scream of: "Stop listening to us!"

And it makes sense: can you imagine the horror of actually being responsible for our government's actions? Do you want that crushing burden on your kids? Please think of the children, and keep moving the power away from the people, so that future generations can can say, "It's not my fault, and I can't do anything about it." Give them the freedom of powerlessness, so that their apathy will be a virtue, instead of the vice that we still somewhat suffer from.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[digitig]

I agree completely...I think I have a solution for the best of both worlds... each state should award all of it's electorate votes to a single candidate, but that candidate should be selected via instant run-off.

As an honest question is if someone can really find anything wrong with this... it would require no changes to the U.S. constitution (although state constitutions may need to be amended). I submitted this suggestion to my state rep and was completely blown off. It seems to me it simply doesn't suit the people in power to entertain the idea of actually having to compete with more than one other party.

I'm not sure how the US run-off system works, but a problem with having more than one party in a race with a simple first-past-the-post system is that a minority can get their candidate in against a majority. Suppose candidate A is highly polarising. 40% of the active electorate support candidate A, but 60% would rather have pretty much anybody else. Unfortunately, running against candidate A are candidates B and C, who are much alike so they split the remaining vote equally. That gives 40% for candidate A, 30% for candidate B and 30% for candidate C. Candidate A wins even though 60% of the active electorate wanted anybody but candidate A. That's normal everyday political life here in the UK, where it's the norm for govenrments to get in on a minority. There are systems such as single transferable voting that would overcome this, but they have problems of their own. In fact, as Arrow's Impossibility Theorem proves, no voting system is fair if there are more than two candidates, for quite modest meanings of "fair".

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[commodore64_love]

Yes because anyone who believes power belongs to the People, and in individual freedom/rights, should be willing to do jailtime. That is the price of liberty - a willingness to stand-up to the state. Example:

When I was in Texas I encountered a checkpoint. A Homeland Insecurity official tried to search the trunk of my car. I calmly said no. He asked why. I said that I did not cross an international border, therefore he needs a search warrant to invade a private citizens' home or car, and since he does not have a search warrant the answer was "no". He called a couple buddies and they asked if I want to spend the night in jail. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Okay." They seemed stymied by that answer, made me wait 5 minutes, and then left me continue my journey from Texas to Maryland. (Nice vacation; I go for a fun summer trip and get threatened with jail.)

Freedom requires a willingness to serve jailtime. That is the price. Democrat Thomas Jefferson said the price is even higher. He said the price is blood, which is the Tree of Liberty's natural fertilizer. I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far, but I Am willing to go to jail rather than give-up my rights.

I would vote my conscience.

 

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[rev_sanchez]

This plan raises the possibility that the votes of Iowans (more specifically their electoral proxies) could go to someone with almost no support from their voters.

A more serious problem is that if this were to pass the best national campaign strategy for dealing with Iowa voters would be to ignore them in favor of wooing voters from swing states as it would give candidates a sort of Iowa multiplier. There are arguments for and against the electoral college but this is a bad plan for Iowa.

We can't do this one state at a time so we'll need to amend the constitution to switch over. That's not going to happen as long as the western states remain over-represented.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[gfxguy]

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%.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[rwven]

Voting requires registering to make sure you only vote once ;-)

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Dirtside]

New york state is as red as a damn stop sign

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/

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[bigstrat2003]

Hint: the Civil War was not about slavery, it was about secession.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[tuxgeek]

"Voting requires registering, which is just more new world order crap. Not thanks."

No, voting isn't the same as "New World Order" crap. Voting is how most countries elect a President/Leader/PM. New world order is something different, like "One World Government". Bush Sr. used the new world order phrase in some of his speaches. The American people used voting to remove him from office.
Now, do you see the difference?

If you're worried about the act of registering puts you into the "System", hell, you're already there. Have a bank account? Have a social security #? Credit card? Driver's license? Library card? You have been just another name/number in a data base since you were born. You might as well register to vote so you can have a say as to who gets to be president, otherwise you have no ground to complain when your government starts unnecessary wars in far off lands to acquire access to vast oil fields for the benefit of friends & family in the oil industry.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Androclese]

Power should be local, not national.

Which is why the 17th Amendment should be repealed. The House should continue to be elected by the people (No taxation without Representation... that is why the House controls the purse strings, not the Senate) and the State Legislatures should be appointing the Senator's NOT the masses. Think I'm crazy? Go look it up and read how it was and WHY the Founding Fathers set it up that way... Balance of Power.

Once the Senators become beholden to their respective STATES and not the special interest groups, the balance of power will start shifting back towards the States & their local legislatures, and the People of those States and away from an over-reaching Federal Government. As it stands now, there is little difference between a House Rep and a Senator in terms of who they serve. (read: themselves)

Have you ever wondered WHY State Governors got to appoint an open Senate seat but open House seats get a special election? We are supposed to be a Republic, not a pure Democracy. Repeal the 17th and we'll start getting back to that.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Monchanger]

In this clip we have three given examples, which are used to suggest, but do not actually constitute a meaningful statistic. There is no sample size- how many interviews were required to obtain this clip? There's no control group- do McCain supporters respond the same way with similar replies? Where these individuals chosen randomly out of the population being studied (black Harlem residents), or were they targeted in some way to make this case? Presented in a different context, these same clips could be used to imply that the entire American population was stupid. Plenty examples of this can be found on YouTube- just search for "stupid americans" (substitute "americans" for members of any other nationality for more examples of such silliness).

The main problem I have with this clip is that it was done with insincere intent- as is often the case with Stern. There's nothing scientific or objective about tricking people into saying something contradictory. Stephen Colbert is a master at getting politicians to do that; but as much as I love watching him cause Republicans to look like idiot this sort of tactic does not invalidate their political ideology. Nor does a lousy argument made by a layman lessen it- I can be an Obama supporter and say the dumbest thing you ever heard; how can you honestly say that reflects badly on Obama? I require an honest debate involving the actual candidate to dismiss their views, and believe Stern's (and the rest of TV&radio pundits') listeners are the uneducated ones to do otherwise.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Al Dimond]

Here's the thing: there are lots of people in big cities. And most of them are really "little" people. But the specific needs of urban people are hardly mentioned in Presidential campaigns, and rural America is touted as "real" America. Why? Well, what are our 10 biggest urban areas? NYC, in a safe Democratic state. LA, in a safe Democratic state (at the moment... it was Republican not long ago). Chicago, in Illinois, once a battleground that recently has been solidly for the Dems (some suburbs in WI and IN, which tend to be closer to the middle, but not many). Dallas-Ft. Worth, in solidly Republican Texas. Philly, in battleground Pennsylvania (minus some of its suburbs). Houston, back in Texas. Miami, in wacky battleground Florida. D.C., solid blue but with many suburbs in Virginia, which was pretty much median this last cycle but usually more Republican. Atlanta, in Georgia, which was fairly close last election but far more Republican than the national average. Boston, which hardly needs discussion.

So two-and-a-half out of our ten biggest urban areas count in national politics. None out of the top four. The only reason you'd visit any big city in America save Philly, Miami, and D.C.'s Virginia suburbs is for fund-raising, and then you're only talking to the big-wigs of those cities. So the issues the politicians take on are skewed, not towards what's best for most people, but towards what's popular in a few states that tend towards the "political median". While those things generally pull politicians to the middle on major issues, it means they pander like crazy on things that will get them votes in these places (plus Iowa because of its early primary). What we need is policy that takes into account all the little people in our big cities. What we get is corn ethanol. I'll take a popular vote, please.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Ioldanach]

Would you happen to have an example, citation, or photograph of this event?

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.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Endo13]

He actually has a good point for once. The Civil War really is a case of "history being written by the victors". However, if you do a lot of digging, you can find some things out there that give you a little more perspective on what really happened. Yes, there was a problem with slavery. However, the way the northern states went about getting rid of it was completely wrong. It probably made things worse for everyone (at least short-term) including the slaves than if they'd done nothing. However, something had to be done, and long term, I'd say the slaves and their descendants are better off now than they would have been, but the country as a whole could be in much better shape if it had been dealt with better at the time. The key point though is that because the north dealt with it poorly, they forced the southern states into a position where they could see no solution other than secession, which (as parent pointed out) is what the war was really about. Slavery was the hot-button issue that catalyzed it. Or in other words, the war could probably have been avoided by dealing with slavery in a good way, and we probably would not still be dealing with racism issues now.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Reziac]

Or more accurately, about the rising class of Northern industrialists seeing a handy way to put the South out of the economic picture by removing its major labour force. Naturally, the South objected to being made economic pawns overnight. Everything else followed from that.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[revery]

I really wish this comment could be at the top of every political discussion to come up on Slashdot. Losing the representation of state's as entities cost this nation a great deal.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[painandgreed]

I'm not sure how the US run-off system works, but a problem with having more than one party in a race with a simple first-past-the-post system is that a minority can get their candidate in against a majority.

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.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[ffflala]

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.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Joe the Lesser]

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.

Re:One way to get more registered voters

[Petrushka]

No, voting isn't the same as "New World Order" crap. Voting is how most countries elect a President/Leader/PM.

Most countries that I've lived in -- with a couple of notable exceptions -- don't elect a leader; they elect a government. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of absolute power vested permanently in one individual.

Finally!

[clonan]

Finally us white aristocratic land owners won't be the only ones electing the president!

Headline wrong

[drinkypoo]

Uh, sending all their votes for a single candidate is the OPPOSITE of removing the electoral college. It makes much more sense to award them proportionally if your goal is to mitigate the problem of its existence. The fact that you can win some states and avoid others is what makes it a problem in the first place - the electoral college is basically a system for ignoring the needs of most of the nation based on geographical boundaries, and as far as I can tell was designed to make it easy to game the system. Only FOUR times in history (IIRC) has the EC actually ever overridden the popular vote. One of those times was GWB (well, the counted popular vote, which is known to have been intentionally gamed, but let's put that aside for now.) If the other times the electoral college actually had an effect were like this time, then it is pure evil and must actually be destroyed.

It's long past time for a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college. Let's decide to be a democracy.

Re:Headline wrong

[clonan]

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.

Re:Headline wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell no. As my old poli sci prof put it "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner".

We are not, and should not be, a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. The founders did that very deliberately to make sure that the minority (however defined) could not be trampled by the majority.

Tne founders had a great (and valid) distrust of pure democracy, as well as a great distrust of an overpowerful government.

Sadly, their goal of small sane government has been swept away. But for now we have a constitution that protects the minority.

And no matter what they taught you in school, we are not a democracy. Never have been. I vaguely recall something about "...and to the Republic for which it stands..."

This pact is old news

[thirty-seven]

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:

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among U.S. states that would effectively replace the current electoral college system of presidential elections with a direct, nationwide vote of the people. As of September 2008, this interstate compact has been joined by Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey; their 50 electoral votes total amount to almost 19% of the 270 needed for the compact to take effect. Bills to join the compact are currently pending in ten additional states.

The compact is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors. ... States joining the compact will continue to award their electoral votes in their current manner until the compact has been joined by enough states to represent a controlling majority of the Electoral College (currently 270 electoral votes). After that point, all of the electoral votes of the member states would be cast for the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. With the national popular vote winner sure to have a decisive majority in the Electoral College, he or she would automatically win the Electoral College and therefore the presidency.

Yawn.

[M1rth]

Backers of this idiotic scheme have been pushing it for years.

The problem is, the "national popular vote" is anything but uniform. Liars like to claim Al Gore "won" the popular vote, but that is a false claim; he had less than 1% difference, and the average error rate of voting machines across the US is somewhere between 2-3%. If you go by the actual vote and work with the number of counties where there were voting irregularities and counting irregularities, there's a major question of how many votes anyone had.

In other words: voting equipment is not perfect. This is why we have recounts.

Now, can you imagine the scale of someone having to do a national recount based on the fact that Gore's supposed "win of the popular vote" in 2000 was under the threshold to trip an automatic recount in every single state that has such a law?

We apportion the votes by state for two reasons:
#1 - The US is supposed to be a union of self-sovereign states. The Federal government is supposed to have only a limited set of powers, with each state independently deciding the rest of the issues for itself. Yes, this has been eroded badly away in recent decades, but it's still true.

#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).

Re:Yawn.

[Overzeetop]

#1 is true only on paper, and we both know that (you even admit it yourself)

#2 a national recount is trivial, actually, since it's not really a national recount, but simply tens of thousands of individual precinct recounts. In other words, it's a parallel process. Sure, it would be expensive due to the manpower, but it's a trivial process.

Finally, the US doesn't apportion federal votes by population, but by slightly weighted version which gives additional weight to the least populous states (reps + senators). It would shift the balance slightly to change the voting. It's not a perfect system, but unless we start giving out fractional electors even a proportional representation electoral college could anoint a winner due to round-off error (which is already the case when the electoral and popular votes don't match). With the unbalanced weighting, even a split to 6 significant digits could result in a popular-electoral mismatch.

I would prefer a representative electoral system, but I'd be even more happy if there were a way to undo the gamemanship of the whole process.

Re:Yawn.

[MNCampaignReport]

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.

Re:Yawn.

[allanc]

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.

Re:Yawn.

[MNCampaignReport]

Ah, reductio ad absurdum: I am on the side of fair elections, I say Franken pulled some sly tricks based on a ghost-written editorial in the WSJ, and you disagree, therefore you are not on the side of fair elections.

Cute. Still not a good argument though.

Look, Franken's team said from day 1 of the recount that their goal was to count every valid vote. Coleman, during the recount, sought repeatedly to have voted held back from the count, and now that he's down, he's seeking to get some of those exact same votes added back in. Naturally Franken wants to win just like Coleman does, but the difference is that Franken's message about the conduct of the recount and the election contest has been consistent from day 1, while Coleman has flopped around like a fish out of water.

the electoral college is a useful tool.

[stgray98]

As a former history major and a election junky I think the move to kill the electoral college is a stupid move for several reasons. I personally like the Nebraska solution (house districts go to the candidate winning the district, senate votes go to overall winner in the state).

With California, NY, and a few other states becoming huge, with even more illegals etc why would we want to make sure that candidates only have to promise goodies to city dwellers on the coasts?

We are talking about stripping something that harkens back to the "representative republic" nature of the starting of our country in favor of pure democracy.. Pure democracy gave us TARP 1, the Porkulus bill, Tarp2 etc..

Federal Republic

[Balthisar]

I'm getting the idea that just because GW wasn't a very good Republican, we're now willing to give up our federal system? We're not a tiny, little homogeneous European country; we're a huge friggin' landmass with diverse wants and needs. Keep power as close to home as possible.

Re:Federal Republic

[houghi]

Fun is that in those tiny homogeneous European countries you have much more choice to whom you want to elect then in your huge friggin' landmass with diverse wants and needs.

Call me antiquated

[zehaeva]

I side with the Founding Fathers on this issue. The common man, even 200+ years later, is not educated enough, or even intelligent enough, to make an informed decision about who should lead the US.

All you have to do is watch the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and catch his, I believe its called Jay Walking now but I recall it as "The Great American Pop Quiz", quiz of the common man on the streets of NYC to see that the vast majority of Americans have NO business selecting who should lead the US.

Re:Great way to get LESS registered voters

[jonathanhowell]

Well, one thing I can assure you is that your vote will NOT count in Iowa, should this bill pass into law.

Your vote will count in Iowa, as long as you don't vote there.
--
Oh, wait.

Re:Great way to get LESS registered voters

[McGregorMortis]

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.

Into affect?

[xtracto]

Well... I am no English expert, in fact it is my 2nd language (Âprimero Español amigo!) but I found the sentence:

"This would only go into affect after enough ..."

Very strange... is it that confusing "effect" vs "affect" for native English speakers? for me they mean completely different things "afectar" vs "efecto"

Ignoring the Constitution is easy

[mi]

Since changing the US constitution is too much work

Fortunately, ignoring the Constitution is very easy — as long as you have "bipartisan support". And no, I don't mean the Guantanamo and the like, which are, actually, arguably legal (however distasteful).

A lot more profound example is the requirement, that all the government can only use "gold or silver coin" as means of payment (Article 1 Section 10):

"No State shall make any Thing but Gold and Silver Coin a tender in Payment of Debts"

When the US abolished gold standard in 1971 and the dollar became "fiat money", all State tax-refunds, welfare payments, salaries of the State-employees, etc. became unarguably unconstitutional.

And yet, chances are very good, dear reader, you read about the issue here for the first time in your life... Now, I don't claim the economic acumen to argue whether or not Gold Standard was (or would be?) a good idea. But I have that "ideological rigidity" to be disturbed by a violation of the Constitution, that is so blatant and yet so ignored...

Re:Before we tag this as a bad idea...

[Shakrai]

The FF's didn't really trust the people to do the right thing.

And you do? "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it." (Agent K, Men in Black)

I've seen nothing in my ten years of being involved in politics that convinces me this isn't true. The vast majority of people in this country just vote for the person in the same party as them. The vast majority of those who aren't in a political party just vote for the person with the most name recognition because "he's experienced and doing a good job". Why do you think politicians make such an effort to bring pork (preferably the kind with photo-ops and construction signs that have their name on it) back home?

Democracy sucks. It really shouldn't have been allowed to get beyond the House of Representatives and the Lower Houses of the State Legislatures.

Re:Great way to get LESS registered voters

[NIckGorton]

Yes. Rural areas should not be held hostage by urban ones just because they happen to have more votes. This is the entire point of the US Senate and Electoral College.

So by your reasoning if there was a national (winner-take-all) vote for president, people who live in rural areas should have 1.5 votes (or some number >1.0). Your reasoning seems to be that they are a minority so they should have disproportionate power since they are otherwise vulnerable to the tyranny of the majority. If that is the case, why just use being rural as a minority status worthy of having ones vote count more than others? How about we also give 1.5 votes to the disabled? African Americans? LGBT people? Left-handed people? People with type AB-negative blood? Gingers?

I don't think you understand what this law's doing

[hudsonhawk]

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.

Re:I don't think you understand what this law's do

[Ironica]

What the hell are you talking about?

51% of the people of the country vote one way, and 100% of the people of Iowa vote the other way, Iowa's votes go to someone who no one in Iowa voted for. How the hell does that make sense to you, and how the HELL do you equate that with the relative "value" of a vote?

Ok, let's take your scenario: 51% of the popular vote in the US goes to one candidate, but Iowa mysteriously manages to vote 100% for the other candidate.

In the current system, Iowa's electoral votes go to the candidate who lost the popular vote. But, *depending on the distribution of votes in the other states,* that candidate may win OR lose. Now, here's the kicker: they can win or lose WITHOUT IOWA. Iowa has 7 electoral votes. Candidate needs 270 votes to win. That means they need to take just 11 states: Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Florida, New York, Texas, and California. In the 2008 election, those states made up 54% of the popular vote. If a candidate won exactly 51% of those 11 states, they can be elected president with less than 28% of the popular vote.

And without Iowa.

If you *lose* all the biggest states, you have to win in 40 states plus the District of Columbia to be elected. Those states account for 49% of the popular vote, and you need less than 25% of the total popular vote to get elected by them. At least some of that is from Iowa, though.

Iowa has no voice as it now stands. Not only that, but in LARGE states that tend to be foregone conclusions, many voters don't have a say... if you're going to vote for the republican candidate in California, why did you even get out of bed this morning?

One thing about the USA...

[Khyber]

"no voting system is fair if there are more than two candidates"

Our system was originally designed to be able to handle more than two political parties vying for votes. Our founding fathers warned against letting our system become bi-partisan.

Look where we are now. If you think restricting the number of parties helps a voting system, you're very wrong, and us Americans are the perfect example to prove that.