Slashdot Mirror
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.
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..
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.
--Jim (me)
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..."
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.
#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.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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!!!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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):
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...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Hint: the Civil War was not about slavery, it was about secession.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
"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.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
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.
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.