Had Hillary won the Electoral College and not the "popular vote" ...

[newwurldmn]

The states are weighted accordingly anyway. This allows California to have a much bigger impact than North Dakota. etc...

I could see the point of the popular vote if New York and Alabama were equally weighted. But they're not.

New York is given extra power through the house of reps and it's balanced in the senate (which is the more powerful of the two bodies). The sum of the legislatures = the electoral college.

The founding fathers were pretty good st balancing various structures to ensure no one ever gets control. The senate Protects the minority and the house fuels the will of the majority.

Same with states vs federal rights.

No system is perfect but ours is pretty good.

Trumps victory is a product of this system and while I am anti-trump I don't believe his victory invalidates the value of the electoral college system.

 

[gwb-trading]

95% of the U.S. population in 1790 lived in places of less than 2,500 people, and only a few states let males, with substantial property, vote

Now, voters in the biggest cities are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.

16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.

16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.

The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

The rest of the U.S., in Suburbs divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.

Support for a national popular vote has been strong in rural states

None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes ( not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution) does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states, and they are ignored. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.

If we changed the system to using a popular vote for President in the U.S. then presidential candidates would only need to campaign in the 10 largest cities in the U.S. while ignoring the rest of the country entirely.

The winner would be the candidate who promised the most "free stuff" to the people in the ten cities.

 

[jem]

that is also what I was taught when I studied the constitution in school.
The founders were afraid of concentrating power in the hands of a few. They wanted local rule not centralized rule. Their first attempt was the articles of confederation and that was too weak.


If the states did not adopt an all or none system what would happen?
What if the states allocated their votes on a county by county basis.


see the map here. http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/california/

Trump won almost half the counties here in CA.

so hillary could have gotten say 30 EC votes and Trump 25.

all or nothing helps the dems in California dominate the state.


Trump won 93% of the counties in the america.
If you divided up the EC vote by the county... a democrat would never be elected.

We were not set up to let the population of L.A. dominate the country. If we were I doubt even the sellout republicans would have let 40 million people into the country the last 30 to 40 years.

We are constitutional republic... That is how we were set up... for good reason.

Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1

“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.

In 1789, in the nation's first election, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.

The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.

The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.

States have the responsibility and constitutional power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond. Now, 38 states, of all sizes, and their voters, because they vote predictably, are politically irrelevant in presidential elections.

The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency in 2020 to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state. What the pundits dec

Except you and the pundits do not get to decide what is a battleground state. The candidate does - depending on their strategy and how motivated they are.

Maine has two electoral votes- apportioned by congressional district. The southern one is solid lefty and trump wrote it off. But you would be surprised how hard he worked for just that one vote in the northern district. He fought for every electoral college vote that he could get, regardless of how remote the impact or chances of getting it-within reason according to him. If Hillary had done that she would be president today and lefty whiners would not be talking about why we need to change the rules to help lefties. The lefties already have demographics in their favor bigtime. Get a candidate and a message and campaign for chrissake, rather that trying to read tea leaves on what Alexander Hamilton and James Madison meant in the federalist papers.


http://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/23/trump-explains-his-repeated-campaign-visits-to-maine/

 

[Tony Stark]

Trump won 93% of the counties in the america.


If you divided up the EC vote by the county... a democrat would never be elected.

Yeah,a bunch of empty land should override 3 million voters

 

[gwb-trading]

Yeah,a bunch of empty land should override 3 million voters

So say the founding fathers.

 

[ottootto]

Except you and the pundits do not get to decide what is a battleground state. The candidate does - depending on their strategy and how motivated they are.

Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws

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.

Battleground states are where they are not safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of three-quarters of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.

Over the last few decades, presidential election outcomes within the majority of states have become more and more predictable.

From 1992- 2012
13 states (with 102 electoral votes) voted Republican every time
19 states (with 242) voted Democratic every time

With that 20 year pattern, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect,
Democrats only needed a mere 28 electoral votes from other states.
If Republicans lost Florida (29), they would have lost.

From 1992- 2016
13 states (with 102 electoral votes) voted Republican every time
16 states (with 195) voted Democratic every time

Many states have not been competitive for more than a half-century and most states now have a degree of partisan imbalance that makes them highly unlikely to be in a swing state position.

 38 States Won by Same Party, 2000-2016

 29 States Won by Same Party, 1992-2016

 13 States Won Only by Republican Party, 1980-2012

 19 States Won Only by Democratic Party, 1992-2012

 7 Democratic States Not Swing State since 1988

 16 GOP States Not Swing State since 1988

 

[ottootto]

Maine has two electoral votes- apportioned by congressional district. The southern one is solid lefty and trump wrote it off. But you would be surprised how hard he worked for just that one vote in the northern district. He fought for every electoral college vote that he could get, regardless of how remote the impact or chances of getting it-within reason according to him. If Hillary had done that she would be president today and lefty whiners would not be talking about why we need to change the rules to help lefties. The lefties already have demographics in their favor bigtime. Get a candidate and a message and campaign for chrissake, rather that trying to read tea leaves on what Alexander Hamilton and James Madison meant in the federalist papers.


http://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/23/trump-explains-his-repeated-campaign-visits-to-maine/

Maine had A battleground district in 2016.

Maine (since enacting a state law in 1969) and Nebraska (since enacting a state law in 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.

Nebraska in 2008 was the first time any state in the past centurygave one electoral vote to the candidate who did not win the state.

2016 is the first time an electoral vote in Maine was given to the candidate who did not win the state.

In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine's 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored).

In 2012, the whole state was ignored.

77% of Maine voters have supported a national popular vote for President

In 2008, the Maine Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill

Republican leaders in Maine proposed and passed a constitutional amendment that, if passed at referendum, would require a 2/3rds vote in all future redistricting decisions. Then they changed their minds and wanted to pass a majority-only plan to make redistricting in their favor even easier.

In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska's reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant.

In 2012, the whole state was ignored.

74% of Nebraska voters have supported a national popular vote for President

After Obama won 1 congressional district in Nebraska in 2008,Nebraska Republicans moved that district to make it more Republican to avoid another GOP loss there, and the leadership committee of the Nebraska Republican Party promptly adopted a resolution requiring all GOP elected officials to favor overturning their district method for awarding electoral votes or lose the party’s support.

A GOP push to return Nebraska to a winner-take-all system of awarding its electoral college votes for president only barely failed in March 2015 and April 2016.

The National Popular Vote bill is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes among all 50 states and DC becomes President.

 

[ottootto]

that is also what I was taught when I studied the constitution in school.
The founders were afraid of concentrating power in the hands of a few. They wanted local rule not centralized rule. Their first attempt was the articles of confederation and that was too weak.


If the states did not adopt and all or none system what would happen.
What if the states allocated their votes on a county by county basis.


see the map here. http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/california/

Trump won almost half the counties here in CA.

so hillary could have gotten say 30 EC votes and Trump 25.

all or nothing helps the dems in California dominate the state.


Trump won 93% of the counties in the america.
If you divided up the EC vote by the county... a democrat would never be elected.

We were not set up to let the population of L.A. dominate the country. If we were I doubt even the sellout republicans would have let 40 million people into the country the last 30 to 40 years.

We are constitutional republic... That is how we were set up... for good reason.

Constitutionally, the number of electors in each state is equal to the number of members of Congress to which the state is entitled,while the 23rd Amendment grants the District of Columbia the same number of electors as the least populous state, currently three. There are 538 electoral votes.

In 2012, under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), voters in just 60 counties and DC could have elected the president in 2012 – even though they represented just 26.3% of voters

Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.

Guaranteeing the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes (as the National Popular Vote bill would) would not make us a pure democracy.

Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.

Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy.

The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.

The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state's electoral votes

The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency in 2020 to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

Every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count.

 

[ottootto]

If we changed the system to using a popular vote for President in the U.S. then presidential candidates would only need to campaign in the 10 largest cities in the U.S. while ignoring the rest of the country entirely.

The winner would be the candidate who promised the most "free stuff" to the people in the ten cities.

The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States.

Voters in the biggest cities in the US are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.

16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.

16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.

The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

The rest of the U.S., in suburbs, divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.