Electoral College Reform to Preserve States’ Rights
State's Rights Friday, September 30th, 2011
By Bruce Walker, The American Thinker
Pundits and politicians are unhappy about how we elect the president. State legislatures, which have the constitutional power to determine how their states’ presidential electors are chosen, are currently looking at two different approaches to correcting perceived problems in the election process.
The National Popular Vote Compact is a state law which would require the presidential electors of each state that pass it to award all of the state’s electoral votes to that candidate who wins the national popular vote. The compact would go into effect when states with a majority of the Electoral College all pass this compact law.
The left wants a national democracy rather than a republic. It is pushing this “reform” hard. This plan is a bad idea. Consider Article III of the bill, which provides that “[t]he chief election official of each state shall designate the presidential slate with the largest national popular vote as the ‘national popular vote winner.’” The “chief election official” in most states is the secretary of state. George Soros’s “Secretary of State Project” was intended to plant “progressive Democrats” into this vote-certifying office.
This National Popular Vote Compact is supposed to solve two supposed problems. Voters in small states have — because the electoral votes are awarded according not only to House members, but also to Senate members — votes that count more than voters in larger states. This is not a “problem,” however, but rather an important safeguard granted in the Constitution to protect smaller states.
The National Popular Vote Compact is also supposed to encourage higher voter participation. Forty-eight states have a “winner take all” system of choosing presidential electors, and most of those states are not really in play, presumably discouraging voters from participating in presidential elections. But examination of the voter turnout rates for president in 2008 shows that voters were more likely than the national average to vote in some solid red states like Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, and Wyoming, or solid blue states like Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington.
To read more, visit: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/electoral_college_reform_to_preserve_states_rights.html
Short URL: https://reteaparty.com/?p=3580
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 method (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted 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 the current handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters. There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win. 9 of the original 13 states are considered “fly-over” now. In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree already, that, at most, only 14 states and their voters will matter. None of the 10 most rural states will matter, as usual. Almost 75% of the country will be ignored –including 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. This will be more obscene than the 2008 campaign, when candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
2/3rds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election. That’s more than 85 million voters ignored.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
Anyone concerned about the relative power of big states and small states should realize that the current system shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in the current handful of big states.
Under National Popular Vote, when every vote counts equally, because states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), would award all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC, 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.
Now political clout comes from being a battleground state.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are almost invariably non-competitive, and ignored, in presidential elections. Six regularly vote Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota), and six regularly vote Democratic (Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC) in presidential elections.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska — 70%, DC — 76%, Delaware –75%, Idaho – 77%, Maine — 77%, Montana – 72%, Nebraska — 74%, New Hampshire –69%, Nevada — 72%, New Mexico — 76%, Rhode Island — 74%, South Dakota – 71%, Utah – 70%, Vermont — 75%, and West Virginia – 81%, and Wyoming – 69%.
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls
By state (electoral college votes), by political affiliation, support for a national popular vote in recent polls has been:
Alaska (3) — 66% among (Republicans), 70% among Nonpartisan voters, 82% among Alaska Independent Party voters
Delaware (3) — 69% (R), 76% (I)
DC (3) — 48% (R), 74% of (I)
Idaho (4) – 75% (R)
Maine (4) – 70% (R)
Montana (3) – 67% (R)
Nebraska (5) – 62% (R)
Nevada (5) — 66% (R)
New Hampshire (4) — 57% (R), 69% (I)
New Mexico (5) — 64% (R), 68% (I)
Rhode Island (4) — 71% liberal (R), 63% moderate (R), 35% conservative (R), 78% (I),
South Dakota (3) — 67% (R)
Vermont (3) — 61% (R)
West Virginia (5) — 75% (R)
Wyoming (3) –66% (R), 72% (I)
Nine state legislative chambers in the lowest population states have passed the National Popular Vote bill. It has been enacted by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Vermont.
Voter turnout in the “battleground” states has been 67%, while turnout in the “spectator” states was 61%.