strib: How to drop out of the Electoral College

[question everything]

Editorial: How to drop out of the Electoral College

There's a way to ensure top vote-getter becomes president.

This country could form a more perfect union by accepting a novel idea: that the president of the United States should be elected by the people of the United States.

(snip)

But now comes a gaggle of bipartisan reformers with a cheeky idea worth considering. What if legislatures, one by one, entered their states into an interstate compact under which members would agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote? The compact would kick in only when enough states had joined it to elect a president -- that is, when a majority of the 538 electoral votes were assembled. As few as 11 states could ensure that the candidate with the most popular votes nationally would win the presidency. As a result, the Constitution and the Electoral College would stay intact, but the college's fangs would be removed.

That approach would be more democratic than current practice. Recall that Al Gore lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush despite getting a half-million more popular votes, and that Bush nearly lost the 2004 election despite getting 3 million more popular votes (a shift of only 60,000 votes in Ohio would have thrown the election to John Kerry). So, both parties have reason to fear the college's distortions.

That the Electoral College has "worked" in all but one election since 1888 isn't a good enough reason to stay with the status quo. The college has a perverse impact on campaigns. With no incentive to compete in states that are predictably red or blue, candidates concentrate on the battleground states -- only 13 of them in 2004, down from 24 in 1960. That's not the national campaign voters deserve. In the last election, 92 percent of campaign events took place in just 13 states, which also absorbed 97 percent of advertising during the campaign's final month. Three dozen red and blue states as large as California, New York and Texas and as small as Delaware, Utah and Wyoming were mere spectators.

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/329375.html

[serryjw]

1. Who ever wrote this knows ZERO about politics

I read it before and I didn't post it because it's a stupid idea. EC delegates are not affiliated with the legislature. They are party loyalists, thats why they have the job. There is no way a delegate is going to jump ship

[Yupster]

2. The legislature can choose the electors

if it wants to, so the system could work.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says

"Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors ..."

The legislature can do it any way they want to. It's up to them, so if they made such an agreement, it would be legal.

I still don't think they could enforce their agreement onto the actual individual electors though. Each is Constitutionally empowered to vote the way they wish.

[paul_fromatlanta]

3. There is no way to change the EC now

1. The EC favors small population state and Republicans control most of those
2. The popular vote system would allow focus on the large urban areas that favor Democrats -so again the Republican would oppose.

Until there is a demographic shift the EC is here to stay.

[hughee99]

4. don't bet on it...

smaller states would essentially be giving up all their electoral power to large states. They'd also be lucky to even see a presidential candidate, unless they were on vacation, since there would be little to gain from campaigning there.

The issues of smaller states would rarely be heard for much the same reason. In addition, imagine a state like Utah, for example, voting 70% or so for the repuke and then being forced to send delegates to vote for the dem.

This also puts states in a position where they have to rely on the election process in other states. There are several states out there that have known, widespread election issues. What state wants to be in a position that they have to send delegates to vote for a candidate that did not win their state, because of election fraud in another state, which they have no control over (no say in making them fix their election issues)?

[fishwax]

5. under this scenario, the small states wouldn't have to approve n/t

[onenote]

6. why would a state vote to possibly disenfranchise a majority of its voters

Under the current system, when a majority (or plurality) of a states voters cast their votes for a particular candidate, the majority (or plurality) will is reflected in winner take all vote of that state's members of the electoral college. Under this proposal, even if a substantial majority of a state's voters supported candidate A, all of the state's electoral college votes would go to someone else...that would piss me off....

onenote

[Nye Bevan]

7. The big problem here is enforcement

Even if a state has signed on to the "compact" there is nothing to stop it dropping out later.

It's too easy to imagine the Texas or Alabama state legislature unilaterally deciding to withdraw from the compact "in the national interest" if this would throw the election to the repukes. And they would have every right to do so as the legislature can pick the electors.

This is the problem with trying to get the effect of a constitutional amendment without going through that messy ratification process.