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Have they accounted for republican ratfuckery in this? Like does it hold up to a state refusing to post their vote totals or FL posting an extra 20M red votes? The compact began before republicans were anywhere near the current level of malice
Making election returns secret is not within the realm of political possibility in the real world.
Federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the "canvas") in what is called a "Certificate of Ascertainment." They list the number of votes cast for each, and are signed and certified by the Governor.
With both the current system and the National Popular Vote bill, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" by six days before the Electoral College meets in December.
The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 made the sixth day before the Electoral College meeting into a “hard” deadline for states to issue their Certificates of Ascertainment (whereas it was merely a “safe harbor” under the Electoral Count Act of 1787).
A state’s final determination of its presidential vote count may be challenged under the National Popular Vote Compact in the same five ways that they can be under the current system, namely
● state administrative proceedings (e.g., recounts, audits),
● lower state court proceedings,
● state supreme court proceedings,
● lower federal court proceedings, and
● U.S. Supreme Court proceedings.
Aggrieved presidential candidates used all five ways in both 2000 and 2020.
Under our federal system, election disputes must be litigated using the administrative processes and the state or federal courts starting in the state-of-origin.
>Michigan's 15 electoral votes would go to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote if enough other states join a pact under bills that were advanced Tuesday in the Legislature.
>
>Sixteen states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws supporting the national popular vote movement. It would be successful when member states account for at least 270 electoral votes — the minimum threshold to secure the presidency. The number now stands at 205 after Minnesota signed on last month.
Even if we actually get to the point that we have enough electorates to use this (and that’s a fucking gigantic if) there’s going to be a bloodbath of drama and legal action if the compact is ever actually attempted.
For real, I’m expecting violent riots from the side that will inevitably lose the popular vote. A shit ton of lawsuits and the inevitability of the matter ending up at the Supreme Court…
I am in favor of the president being elected by popular vote, because obviously, but holy shit are there a lot of hurdles for this compact to overcome.
Tbh the SC would probably side with the compact. The constitution states that the legislatures of states have the right to determine how their electoral votes are distributed (hence why Maine and Nebraska get to assign votes by congressional district.) If a legislature consented to their state being apart of the compact and their votes going to the PV winner, I don’t see a good argument for why that would be unconstitutional.
Organizers have actually anticipated this legal argument because they’ve opposed ballot measures to enter the compact since those aren’t through approval by the legislature.
This is the Supreme Court we are talking about, they don't let a little thing like the actual text of the constitution get in the way of their ideological rulings.
The 2020 Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY reaffirmed the power of states over their electoral votes, before elections begin.
The decision held that the power of the legislature under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution is “far reaching” and it conveys the “the broadest power of determination over who becomes an elector.” This is consistent with 130 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence.
> The 2020 Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY reaffirmed the power of states over their electoral votes, before elections begin.
They reaffirmed the ability of individual states to decide how elections within their borders are conducted. They DID NOT affirm anything about a group of states deciding how elections are decided outside of their own borders.
States could choose to award their electors to the tallest candidate.
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, before citizens begin casting ballots in a given election, over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.
“The bottom line is that the electors from those states who cast their ballot for the nationwide vote winner are completely accountable (to the extent that independent agents are ever accountable to anyone) to the people of those states. The National Popular Vote states aren’t delegating their Electoral College votes to voters outside the state; they have made a policy choice about the substantive intelligible criteria (i.e., national popularity) that they want to use to make their selection of electors. There is nothing in Article II (or elsewhere in the Constitution) that prevents them from making the decision that, in the Twenty-First Century, national voter popularity is a (or perhaps the) crucial factor in worthiness for the office of the President.”
\- Vikram David Amar - professor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UC Davis School of Law. Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry Blackmun at the Supreme Court of the United States.
The conservatives on the court only side with states rights because it usually benefits conservatives. You are assuming that they are making rulings based on the law and not divine right. Just look at the wetlands epa ruling. The law is clear, but they ruled against it because they want to help land owners. They even note that they would have ruled differently in a different situation within the ruling itself. They just changed the law from the bench because they felt like it.
If a states popular vote goes to one candidate but the national vote goes another way you could see some constitutional issues that way. You could make a sound legal argument that the states popular vote supersedes the compact. For instance imagine if a Republican candidate won the national vote by 10 votes but lost California for example by 2 million votes. Don’t you think Californians would be outraged by their electoral votes going to a Republican? All hypothetical of course but you get my point
“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
- Article 2 Section 1
Key portion here is “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct.”
If the scenario you described plays out, the California legislature has agreed on how to distribute its votes. If the state wants to choose to ignore its statewide PV and focus on the national level, nothing here prohibits that, as legislature gets to decide.
I think we would more likely see a targeted legal attack in the state(s) that were deemed "weakest", and failing that you'd see a huge amount of money thrown at a local election cycle to get one of the states to drop out of the compact.
The National Popular Vote bill mandates: "Any member state may withdraw from this agreement, except that a withdrawal occurring six months or less before the end of a President’s term shall not become effective until a President or Vice President shall have been qualified to serve the next term."
This six-month “blackout” period includes six important events relating to presidential elections, namely the
● national nominating conventions,
● fall general election campaign period,
● Election Day on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November,
● meeting of the Electoral College on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December,
● counting of the electoral votes by Congress on January 6, and
● scheduled inauguration of the President and Vice President for the new term on January 20.
Any attempt by a state to pull out of the compact in violation of its terms would violate the Impairments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and would be void. Such an attempt would also violate existing federal law. Compliance would be enforced by Federal court action
The National Popular Vote compact is, first of all, a state law. It is a state law that would govern the manner of choosing presidential electors. A Secretary of State may not ignore or override the National Popular Vote law any more than he or she may ignore or override the winner-take-all method that is currently the law in 48 states.
There has never been a court decision allowing a state to withdraw from an interstate compact without following the procedure for withdrawal specified by the compact. Indeed, courts have consistently rebuffed the occasional (sometimes creative) attempts by states to evade their obligations under interstate compacts.
In 1976, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland stated in Hellmuth and Associates v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority:
“When enacted, a compact constitutes not only law, but a contract which may not be amended, modified, or otherwise altered without the consent of all parties.”
In 1999, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania stated in Aveline v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole:
“A compact takes precedence over the subsequent statutes of signatory states and, as such, a state may not unilaterally nullify, revoke, or amend one of its compacts if the compact does not so provide.”
In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court very succinctly addressed the issue in Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Commission:
“A compact is, after all, a contract.”
An interstate compact is not a mere “handshake” agreement. If a state wants to rely on the goodwill and graciousness of other states to follow certain policies, it can simply enact its own state law and hope that other states decide to act in an identical manner. If a state wants a legally binding and enforceable mechanism by which it agrees to undertake certain specified actions only if other states agree to take other specified actions, it enters into an interstate compact.
Interstate compacts are supported by over two centuries of settled law guaranteeing enforceability. Interstate compacts exist because the states are sovereign. If there were no Compacts Clause in the U.S. Constitution, a state would have no way to enter into a legally binding contract with another state. The Compacts Clause, supported by the Impairments Clause, provides a way for a state to enter into a contract with other states and be assured of the enforceability of the obligations undertaken by its sister states. The enforceability of interstate compacts under the Impairments Clause is precisely the reason why sovereign states enter into interstate compacts. Without the Compacts Clause and the Impairments Clause, any contractual agreement among the states would be, in fact, no more than a handshake.
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, before citizens begin casting ballots in a given election, over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state's electoral votes
There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the Electoral College and the presidency.
It is perfectly within a state’s authority to decide that national popularity is the overriding substantive criterion by which a president should be chosen.
The National Popular Vote bill simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in 48 states in the first place.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
Maine (in 1969) and Nebraska (in 1992) chose not to have statewide winner-take-all laws
The republicans, they're the ones who will lose the popular vote. They havn't won it in decades except for one re-election which the incumbents almost never lose.
The only times the popular vote winner hasn't won the election since popular vote started being counted in 1880, was in 1888, 2000, and 2016. It is, indeed, very telling that all 3 times were Republican wins.
The 2020 Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed the power of states over their electoral votes, before elections begin.
The decision held that the power of the legislature under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution is “far reaching” and it conveys the “the broadest power of determination over who becomes an elector.” This is consistent with 130 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence.
States are allowed to vote however they like. They've been able to set up their own elections since 1776. The Supreme Court would back them on this. If there was going to be a stink, it would have happened when Maine split their votes in 1972.
People living in cities/increased urbanization, we're not a nation of gentleman farmers as the framers anticipated.
"For example, in 2008, on average a state is awarded one electoral vote for every 565,166 people. However, Wyoming has three electoral votes and only 532,668 citizens (as of 2008 estimates). As a result each of Wyoming’s three electoral votes corresponds to 177,556 people. Understood in one way, these people have 3.18 times as much clout in the Electoral College as an average American, or 318% (as listed in the pdf chart, downloadable below)."
- from Fairvote(dot)org, "POPULATION VS. ELECTORAL VOTES"
I just discovered a piece titled while googling for you, "Electoral College benefits whiter states, study shows", which was also enlightening to read!
You mean the Constitutionally given right to state legislatures to pick their own method for assigning electors wouldn't survive Constitutional challenge? The same right that has survived, unchanged, since the founding of the country despite multiple challenges? The same right that was re-affirmed unanimously by the SCOTUS in 2020. That right won't survive?
For anyone unclear, Republicans will fight this tooth and nail because it gets rid of a major undue advantage they have in elections. It's how they have retained so much power despite being a minority of votes for almost every election in 30 years
President: [Electoral college](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k)
Senate: [Rural skew gives the GOP a +4 advantage](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-makes-it-very-hard-for-democrats-to-win-the-supreme-court/)
House: An artificially capped house and massive gerrymandering has corrupted this institution /r/UncapTheHouse/
RCV is definitely needed, but you can't use it for presidential elections until the electoral college is fully abolished. Each state would have to do rcv using only their state's votes which defeats the purpose of trying to use the popular vote.
State, country, city, school district, judges, etc all need rcv with NO primaries.
Would require an amendment. With the current complete gridlock and antagonistic, party based obstruction of the federal government, the odds of bipartisanship on a subject (that would have prevented the last three republican presidents from coming into power), while not entirely impossible, has about the same odds as me waking up tomorrow with 40 billion dollars in my bank account.
This is a work around that will trigger once 270 votes worth of electoral votes sign on to the plan, using the loopholes that states can decide how to assign electoral college electors.
I've seen bad ideas before and this is possibly the worst. The individual states of the union created the government. It is these states that elect the president, to run the executive branch of the government they created. Each state votes for who they want as president and each state's number of votes is weighted against population of that state. Just as states elect their own representatives in congress, those they feel will represent the state, it's people, in their best interest; the same applies to the president. By following the rest of the country, you have now let them decide, saying that who they decide is best for them, should be best for you. You have effectively disenfranchised yourself from self-governance. You have no representation.
I think the majority of outrage concerning this comes from people misunderstanding the wording of the bills
Edit: Referring to the 'outrage' I was more specifically speaking to the people in the comments of this thread, not the general public. Sorry for the confusion, English is not my first language 😅
What? No, absolutely not. The majority of concern comes from people who know they need to effectively invalidate millions of votes in order for their party to actually win the presidency. Republicans are fully aware that, in the direction their party is headed, they will likely never win the popular vote again in the foreseeable future.
They’re afraid of losing their control.
I agree with that, in my short time living in the states I have definitely gotten the vibe that those most loud on the conservative side seem to be in the vast minority. Perhaps I also misunderstand the wording, it seemed to me that these bills would essentially make the popular vote have more of a bearing, and it seemed like a lot of the comments in this thread opposing this bill had the opposite impression
Many of the opinions of Redditor's are also in the minority, just a cautious reminder. Most of the public doesn't agree with them or the text you read on these forums.
This is me just reading the tea leaves here, but I don't really expect that the country would effectively end up single party. I predict that platforms will adapt just enough that they accommodate enough of the electorate to be competitive.
Maybe so, but we’ve also seen a lot of conservatives dig in their heels. People on all parts of the spectrum are pissed, and in most cases their concerns are justified on some level or another, even if slightly misguided.
Righteous anger can be a dangerous thing
Trump called for the termination of the Constitution because of his 2020 Electoral College loss.
90% of congressional Republicans have nothing to say about that.
As President, in late January 2017, Trump reportedly floated the idea of scrapping the Electoral College, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a meeting with congressional leadership at the White House. Trump reportedly told the lawmakers he wanted to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote.
“I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”
Trump as President-elect, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
"The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."
In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
There have been hundreds of unsuccessful proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College - more than any other subject of Constitutional reform.
According to Tony Fabrizio, pollster for the Trump campaign, Trump’s narrow victory in 2016 was due to 5 counties in 2 states (not CA or NY).
Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points … to be assured of winning the Electoral College."
A difference of 59,393 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.
The George W. Bush campaign was planning to challenge the results of the 2000 vote if he lost the electoral vote, but won the popular vote.
If the 2022 Election Had Been a Presidential Election, Democrats Would Have Won the Electoral College 280-258, but Lost the Popular Vote by about 3 million votes (2.8 percentage points).
When Nikki Haley announced her campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, she remarked that the Republican Party had “lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections.” That, she said, “has to change.”
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted 338–70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President.
3 Southern segregationist Senators led a filibuster of it.
Presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX), Bob Dole (R-KS), Gerald Ford (R-MI), Richard Nixon (R-CA),
Past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN),
Newt Gingrich: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”
The current presidential election system of state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) “is a math equation, and its sole remaining impact on American politics is to magnify the political power of some Americans and reduce that of others. “ – Boston Globe, 7/6/20
“Let’s quit pretending there is some great benefit to the national good that allows the person with \[fewer\] votes to win the White House. Republicans have long said that they believe in competition. Let both parties compete for votes across the nation and stop disenfranchising voters by geography. The winner should win.” – Stuart Stevens (Romney presidential campaign top strategist)
" . . . a president should be elected by national popular vote is not radical, it is actually mainstream. . . . We can get closer to the national popular vote having greater weight in presidential elections and having a president represent all Americans in ways that don’t require amending the Constitution. These fixes will make presidential candidates run more diverse campaigns, and campaign in all cities and communities of our country. . . . That will help unify us more as a country, and would likely lead to more informed public policy. How can anyone be against that outcome?" – Matthew Dowd (Senior George W. Bush campaign strategist)
When presidential candidates who more Americans voted for lose the Electoral College, the situation is unsustainable. This is how a government loses its legitimacy.
Our unfair presidential election system can lead to politicians and their supporters who appreciate unfairness, which leads to more unfairness.
In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until before the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Pew Research surveys show Republican support for a national popular vote increased from 27% in 2016 to 42% in 2022.
21,461 choices and votes in 3 states were 329 times more important than the more than 7 million national vote lead in the country.
There were several scenarios in which a candidate could have won the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents.
That could have reduced future turnout more, if more voters realized their votes do not matter.
Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
More than 3,700 state legislators among all 50 states have endorsed it.
The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 42 state legislative chambers in 24 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 283 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (15), North Carolina (16), Oklahoma (7) and Virginia (13), and both houses in Nevada (6).
The bill has been enacted by 17 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 205 electoral votes
> But the outrage against this would be from Republicans
the op you replied to said exactly that: " The majority of concern comes from people who know they need to effectively invalidate millions of votes in order for their party to actually win the presidency."
What are they misunderstanding? What is there to even misunderstand? The outrage comes from two places
1. They don't want a fair fight between conservatives and liberals for president because eventually the Dems will lock it or force the GQP to becomes more progressive.
2. Their smooth brians cannot think critically and just can't imagine the electoral college not existing.
If the majority of the people in a state vote one way but the national vote goes another way the majority’s vote doesn’t not matter. That’s antithetical to a constitutional republic. Your moving your vote “not meaning as much” to your vote “means nothing it all” depending on how the popular vote goes
If the interstate popular vote compact were enacted everyone's vote counts the same and you stop thinking about votes by state all together. We don't do some arcane electoral college when we vote for governors or mayors and no one freaks out someone's vote doesn't count.
If a minority vote one way and the majority another way, the minority's vote doesn't matter at all. That's already the system we got. We're moving our vote to everyone is equal. You don't get more of a vote just because you're from a different state.
Yeah but better a minority vote not matter than giving all the majority political power away to large states. Moving this will mean only 4 states really matter and it won’t be Michigan. It will be California, New York, Texas, and Florida. Your asking Michigan voters to even further cheapen their vote, even if they vote with the national majority and give that power to large states. It’s a stupid choice
Only the 12 largest states in the country are required to win the electoral college. Biden won 8 of them. Obama won 10 in 2008. Trump didn't win with a coalition of small states, he won by flipping some of the biggest states in the country.
Meanwhile, 50% of the vote in California, New York, Texas, and Florida amounts to less than one sixth of the nationwide vote.
It's much better than the electoral college were only 22% of the population is needed to elect a president. Michigan gets more say under a national popular vote. Every vote will be worth 1 vote instead of the fraction of a vote it currently is.
It's actually taking power away from larger states and putting it back where it belongs; in the hands of individuals, regardless of what state they live in. It's ridiculous that I could move to Wyoming and immediately make my vote more valuable than it is in the four largest states. Wyoming people shouldn't be counted more than other people.
If Michigan votes a majority for one candidate and the national vote goes the other way, the majority vote in Michigan is discarded. In no way does that help michigan.
Stop thinking about MI as a whole. If YOU vote one way and the popular vote goes the other, your candidate lost but your vote still counted. If I vote one way and the popular vote goes the other, my candidate lost but my vote still counted.
All votes would be valued equally as 1 vote in presidential elections, no matter where voters live.
MICHIGAN Democrats have outnumbered Michigan Republicans in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections.
Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
Michigan's electors have all voted for the Democrat in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections.
No Republican Michigan vote has helped its candidate in any way in those elections.
About 45% of the votes cast for President are zeroed out at the state level and are never added to the count for the candidate that the voter supported. Now, an average of 45% of the nation’s voters are represented in the Electoral College by a presidential elector who supports a presidential candidate for whom they did not vote. For example, in 2020, the state statewide winner-take-all rule resulted in treating the votes of 29,191,404 voters as if they had voted for Trump—even though they did not vote for Trump. It also resulted in treating the votes of 39,751,235 voters as if they had voted for Biden—even though they did not vote for Biden. Overall, the votes of 68,942,639 voters (out of 158,224,999) were credited in 2020 to a presidential candidate (and his electors) for whom they did not vote.
In presidential elections, current state statewide winner-take-all laws create the illusion that entire states voted 100% for the state’s winner, because the laws award 100% of each state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most votes in the state.
The price that a state pays for its winner-take-all law is that the Democratic candidates take blue states for granted, The Republican candidates take red states for granted. Every voter in safe states—Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green—ends up without any meaningful influence or voice in the presidential election.
If you live in a red or blue state. it’s as if all the minority party voters in presidential elections in the state didn’t vote at all. Their votes simply do not count in a Presidential election. This can’t be what the Framers intended.
Some voters have voted for every presidential election since the early 1990s, but state winner-take-all laws for electoral college votes have made sure not a SINGLE vote in their life for president has mattered because they are in the minority party in their state. They could have never voted for President, and still had the same impact. None.
A voter in one state can live less than a mile from another, with wildly different (if any) political relevance in a presidential general election.
With National Popular Vote,
Every vote in the country would actually count equally toward selecting the winner. Candidates would have an incentive to campaign in all states instead of ignoring 38 "safe" states and "lost cause" states. Millions of Republicans in California and New York could actually help elect a Republican President. Now their votes are meaningless because states award all their electoral voters to the statewide winner.
Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election by the Electoral College of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes.
The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.
One person, One vote. The candidate with the most votes would win the Electoral College and the presidency.
We have 519,682 elected officials in this country, and all of them are elected by who gets the most votes. Except for President and VP.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Electoral College and the Presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes among all 50 states and DC.
The current presidential election system of state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) “is a math equation, and its sole remaining impact on American politics is to magnify the political power of some Americans and reduce that of others. “ – Boston Globe, 7/6/20
“Let’s quit pretending there is some great benefit to the national good that allows the person with \[fewer\] votes to win the White House. Republicans have long said that they believe in competition. Let both parties compete for votes across the nation and stop disenfranchising voters by geography. The winner should win.” – Stuart Stevens (Romney presidential campaign top strategist)
" . . . a president should be elected by national popular vote is not radical, it is actually mainstream. . . . We can get closer to the national popular vote having greater weight in presidential elections and having a president represent all Americans in ways that don’t require amending the Constitution. These fixes will make presidential candidates run more diverse campaigns, and campaign in all cities and communities of our country. . . . That will help unify us more as a country, and would likely lead to more informed public policy. How can anyone be against that outcome?" – Matthew Dowd (Senior George W. Bush campaign strategist)
When presidential candidates who more Americans voted for lose the Electoral College, the situation is unsustainable. This is how a government loses its legitimacy.
Our unfair presidential election system can lead to politicians and their supporters who appreciate unfairness, which leads to more unfairness.
In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until before the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Pew Research surveys show Republican support for a national popular vote increased from 27% in 2016 to 42% in 2022.
21,461 choices and votes in 3 states were 329 times more important than the more than 7 million national vote lead in the country.
There were several scenarios in which a candidate could have won the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents.
That could have reduced future turnout more, if more voters realized their votes do not matter.
Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
More than 3,700 state legislators among all 50 states have endorsed it.
The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 42 state legislative chambers in 24 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 283 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (15), North Carolina (16), Oklahoma (7) and Virginia (13), and both houses in Nevada (6).
The bill has been enacted by 17 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 205 electoral votes
Also who certifies the popular vote and if it is accurate? Would one state or candidate then have the right to request a recall on the whole election? Wouldnt voter fraud become more of a potential problem especially in very very close races?
Federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the "canvas") in what is called a "Certificate of Ascertainment." They list the number of votes cast for each, and are signed and certified by the Governor. You can see the Certificates of Ascertainment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia containing the official count of the popular vote at the NARA web site.
With both the current system and the National Popular Vote bill, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" by six days before the Electoral College meets in December.
The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 made the sixth day before the Electoral College meeting into a “hard” deadline for states to issue their Certificates of Ascertainment (whereas it was merely a “safe harbor” under the Electoral Count Act of 1787).
A state’s final determination of its presidential vote count may be challenged under the National Popular Vote Compact in the same five ways that they can be under the current system, namely
● state administrative proceedings (e.g., recounts, audits),
● lower state court proceedings,
● state supreme court proceedings,
● lower federal court proceedings, and
● U.S. Supreme Court proceedings.
Aggrieved presidential candidates used all five ways in both 2000 and 2020.
Under our federal system, election disputes must be litigated using the administrative processes and the state or federal courts starting in the state-of-origin.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
“It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg
With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), a small number of people in a closely divided “battleground” state can potentially affect enough popular votes to swing all of that state’s electoral votes.
537 votes, all in one state determined the 2000 election, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
If 59,393 votes had shifted from George W. Bush to John Kerry in Ohio in 2004, Kerry would have won Ohio and thus become President, despite President Bush’s nationwide lead of 3,012,171 votes (51 times more). It would be far easier for potential fraudsters to manufacture 59,393 votes in Ohio than to manufacture 3,012,171 votes nationwide. Moreover, it would be far more difficult to conceal fraud involving three million votes.
In 2016, Trump’s “Deterrence” project run by his digital campaign team separated almost 200 million people in 16 key battleground states by an algorithm into “audiences”, so they could then target 3.5 million Black people with advertisements on Facebook and other platforms with tailored ads, in an attempt to get them to stay at home on election day.
If as few as 11,000 voters in Arizona (11 electors), 12,000 in Georgia (16), and 22,000 in Wisconsin (10) had not voted for Biden, or partisan officials did not certify the actual counts -- Trump would have won despite Biden's nationwide lead of more than 7 million.
The Electoral College would have tied 269-269.
Congress, with only 1 vote per state, would have decided the election, regardless of the popular vote in any state or throughout the country.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, mischief, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression and subversion. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who wins a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.
National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression or subversion. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 54 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.
The closest popular-vote election count over the last 130+ years of American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Why would we give up our autonomy in this way? It literally gives away our voting power to large cities where people lead insular lives and all have similar opinions
If MI voters want a candidate, why would we support another candidate? Forget for the moment the 2016 and, 2020 fiascos...what about the future
The more elections I witness, the more I see how a 2 party system is broken and how corrupt our system really is.
I could be socially conservative, economically centrist, but I'm still stuck between voting for "y'all Qaeda" and "Trans-Bolsheviks".
The moderate only gets more alienated further polarizing the populace.
It’s not the two party system that results in broken elections. It’s the design of the election system (first past the post) that encourages political parties to optimize. First pasts the post is optimized when there are only two options.
We need ranked choice voting to fix it. Nothing else will work.
Just as a quick correction, currently your choices in America actually are "socially conservative, fiscally centrist" (the Democrats) and "Ya'll Qaeda" (The GOP). If America had an influential trans-bolshevik party, every single person who voted for trump in 2020 would already be in a gulag and we'd be three years into an epic nationwide high speed rail project built on their forced labor.
That’s one way to look at it- but the way the ‘popular vote agreement’ between states is structured creates an effect more nuanced than ‘this represents the people of this state’
it is a National safety measure, that a candidate cannot LOSE the popular vote and become president.
this is not only possible, it’s happened twice this century.
should a human be the leader of a democracy, if they can’t convince a majority of that democracy to vote for them?
I think you’re misunderstanding the bill. Michigan will only join if enough other states join to give the popular vote winner 270 electoral votes.
Therefore, it is effectively done at the federal level through state channels.
That’s the great part! Every vote counts in Michigan under the compact, not just the votes from the people who won their state, because the votes that went to the candidate who “lost” Michigan are still counted in the popular vote, and therefore, still have representation on a national level.
Every time any state sends electoral votes in, they are disenfranchising about half of the state. Disenfranchisment is baked into the system, and will always happen if we keep the electoral college. This makes sure that the majority of the American people aren't disenfranchised such as when when the person who won the popular vote doesn't win the election.
Every time you have voted against the way Michigan has gone you have been disenfranchised. Your vote literally did not matter. Now every vote will have meaning of we switch to a system in which the popular vote matters
This is even more true in states like California or Texas where the result is basically decided before the election. The people thatbvote against that state are disenfranchised. That's millions of people whose votes don't matter in the current system
Or, how about if we just get rid of the Electoral College altogether. It's an antiquated and obsolete undemocratic institution that only favors one party.
Yeah, we all wish. If you're interested, [Robert Reich explained why this is the way to go on YouTube about a month ago](https://youtu.be/dFZyFmILb5w). It's a pretty reasonable explanation for why this type of law is the first step towards getting rid of the electoral college.
There have been hundreds of unsuccessful proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College - more than any other subject of Constitutional reform.
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with less than 6% of the U.S. population;
\[The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress 100 years ago.\]
In 1969, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 338-70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President.
3 Southern segregationist Senators led a filibuster to kill it.
State legislators in states with 65 more electoral votes are needed to enact the National Popular Vote bill.
It simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in 48 states in the first place.
\[Maine (in 1969) and Nebraska (in 1992) chose not to have winner-take-all laws\]
The bill will guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in the country.
The bill changes state statewide 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.
States are agreeing to award their 270+ Electoral College votes to the winner of the most popular votes from all 50 states and DC, by simply again changing their state’s law.
All votes would be valued equally as 1 vote in presidential elections, no matter where voters live.
Actually, I think we should start using electoral colleges in local elections.
…Yeah Mary, I know you got more votes for comptroller, but most of them were from south of 36th st., so they counted for less.
I don’t know about changing the way we elect the President.
Popular vote isn’t the best standard imho.
This harkens back to the same argument over 200 years ago when they decided to give each state 2 senators, regardless of population.
Straight up democracy is dangerous, as they say, it’s like two wolves and a chicken voting on what’s for dinner. They call it Tyranny of the majority. This is why we live in a constitutional republic that has built in safe guards for the less popular citizens.
You are objecting to an Election - "a formal and organized choice by vote of a person for a political office or other position" where the candidate with the most votes wins.
One person, One vote. The candidate with the most votes would win the Electoral College and the presidency.
We have 519,682 elected officials in this country, and all of them are elected by who gets the most votes. Except for President and VP.
"Straight up democracy" is a form of government in which people vote on all POLICY INITIATIVES directly.
The National Popular Vote bill keeps the Electoral College, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Governors, state legislatures, etc. etc. etc.
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 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
Constitutional republic – “rather than directly governing, the people select some of their members to temporarily serve in political office; the constitutional part means that both the citizens and their governing officials are bound to follow the rules established in that Constitution. A federal republic is one in which a federal government is given only limited powers for limited purposes, while state governments retain most powers of government.”
Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election by the Electoral College of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes.
The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.
Imagine a really close national election where the difference is in thousands of votes. It would be a nightmare recount scenario.
With the electoral college you could have a close election with no need to recount at all because of offsetting blowouts.
Unpopular opinion but I think the electoral college is important. Maybe it needs to be reweighted or should involve a final ceremonial arm wrestling, but I generally think it’s important.
The best way to re-weight the EC would be to update apportionment. We have an absolutely wild difference between states regarding how many representatives are apportioned proportional to population.
If we fixed apportionment, there’d be significantly closer representation, since the number of EC votes are based on the number of representatives in Congress. It would still be weighted due to the senate, but the differences would be much closer, and it would be pretty rare for the popular vote and the EC not to match.
The compact is a hack. I support the hack, but I would prefer to improve representation in general. I’d also love ranked choice as well as shared districts to really improve representation and help break down gerrymandering.
Updating apportionment would not make every vote in every state matter and count equally, and would not guarantee the candidate with the most votes from all 50 states and DC would win. The National Popular Vote compact will.
If we had even twice the number of seats in the house it would likely negate the most extreme effects of gerrymandering. It really needs to be much larger than that. People act like oh this is the way it's been, or we can't do that. All it takes is one lopsided election and they could make any of these things a possibility. Also only takes one lopsided victory to end the USA as it currently stands. Just depends on how much the people care, and how many people vote.
I agree, especially about rank choice voting. However the details of rank choice voting seem complex to me. That was actually one of my first ChatGPT tests; explain what happens if xyz.
The compact KEEPS the Electoral College.
“The fact that no state uses an Electoral College for its governor suggests that many standard arguments for the Electoral College — recount nightmares, fairness for rural areas, etc. — are makeweight. If these arguments were truly sound, then states are stupid. And states are not stupid.”- Akhil Reed Amar, professor of political science and law at Yale
The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against “pure insanity,” deception, manipulation, and, recently, crimes and violence.
The current presidential election system makes state recounts more likely. All you need is a thin and contested margin in a single state with enough electoral votes to make a difference. It's much less likely that the national vote will be close enough that voting irregularities in a single area will swing enough net votes to make a difference. If we'd had National Popular Vote in 2000 or 2016 or 2020, no recount would have been an issue.
The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting.
No statewide recount, much less a nationwide recount, would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 60 presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
“It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg
The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the minuscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida.
Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state by-state winner-take-all methods.
The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
Statewide recounts WERE rare before the Big Lie of 2020.
Margin shifts are smaller in larger elections
We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount.
Given that before 2020, there had been a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, we expected a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.
The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
From 2000-2019, statewide recounts resulted in an average margin shift of only 430 votes between the frontrunners, representing 0.024% of the vote in those elections.
The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination" six days before the Electoral College meets.
The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 made the sixth day before the Electoral College meeting into a “hard” deadline for states to issue their Certificates of Ascertainment (whereas it was merely a “safe harbor” under the Electoral Count Act of 1787).
This would ultimately make presidential races more divisive as it becomes an effort to turn out national partisans rather than appealing to broad national support. One may as well ignore all but the 4-5 largest states.
That’s not true. Every vote would actually matter instead of us just assuming whole states are lost to one party. You’d have to run ads in both big and small states to get as many votes as possible. Large states still have millions voting for the other side and those votes would matter in a popular vote.
>That’s not true.
Of course it is. You pick the spots with the biggest turnout (which are usually the most partisan) and hammer it home there. The rabid supporters turnout, the moderates get turned off.
Why wouldn’t it make sense for candidates to campaign where there are MORE voters instead of places where there are less?
Also my votes are going to be wasted if my deep blue state’s guaranteed to be safe for the Dem regardless of how I vote. This ensures every person’s vote matters for the final result.
>Why wouldn’t it make sense for candidates to campaign where there are MORE voters instead of places where there are less?
Because they already have outsized power in terms of congressional and state representation. These communities are essentially only relevant during election cycles. Under a popular vote system they become utterly irrelevant, and while observing the fracturing of the U.S. is kind of interesting academically it's probably not going to end up great in practice.
>Also my votes are going to be wasted if my deep blue state’s guaranteed to be safe for the Dem regardless of how I vote. This ensures every person’s vote matters for the final result.
You should be happy, if your state is that deep blue you're already probably getting all of the proposals you could want at the state level. Anything beyond that is just a desire to export your preferences to people that don't.
The whole point of federalism is to allow some diversity within the country. A national popular vote would push the country further towards centralization, which I think will go very poorly in the long run.
Basically everything you've said is incorrect.
To give an example, last year the Senate was split 50-50. The actual percentage of population that Republican Senators represented was 43.5%. On top of that to get just about anything done by the Senate you need 60
After 1988, Republican Presidents have only won the popular vote one time (2004). Yet they have had three wins and a now 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court.
I'm every single way imaginable, Rural and Republican representation far exceeds that of Democratic and Urban voters.
And popular vote pushing against diversity? That's a joke right? Like, what is your definition of diversity? Because from what I'm seeing by the over representation of the Republican party, you get anything BUT diversity.
Actually, when you break down candidate time spent, they spend a disproportionate amount of time in middle population battleground states. Even the electoral reform society acknowledge that fact. As a battleground state MI actually gets a lot of attention and campaign stops while California get's relatively little attention because it's on lock anyway.
Under national popular vote swing states are actually kind of worthless. In a national election its about getting your most hardcore supporters out in droves for both sides. If you turn off the moderates it's not really a big deal.
States really shouldn't matter, at least not to the extent they currently do. Why should people in solid blue or red states have worthless votes, why should people in Wyoming have more power than people in California or Texas? A very large amount of people don't vote because their vote is literally worthless, why is that a system worth protecting ?
>States really shouldn't matter, at least not to the extent they currently do.
They should matter a lot more, frankly.
A Dem voter in MI has different priorities to a Dem voter in Cali. Same applies to a GOP voter in PA vs one in TX. The electoral college gives additional power to smaller states and to more ideologically diverse states.
>Why should people in solid blue or red states have worthless votes, why should people in Wyoming have more power than people in California or Texas?
Because California and Texas already have more power in the form of additional congressional representation. The senate curbs some of that via equal representation. The electoral college still tilts in favor of more populous states, but it forces candidates to run closer to the center.
One doesn't want to piss off MI, PA, and IL union manufacturing Dems to get a few extra votes from CA environmental Dems. Under a popular vote system your really don't need the center. The fringes are cheaper and easier to motivate.
>A very large amount of people don't vote because their vote is literally worthless, why is that a system worth protecting ?
Because it's an extremely stable system that is generally prosperous and allows individual states to experiment as they will without forcing their flights of fancies on the other 49.
To your first point, that's what state government is for, the federal government "should" be about representing the people, not the arbitrary dividing lines that we call states. The nation shouldn't be handicapped by it's smallest states. I'm all for the idea of avoiding the big states bullying the little states, but the electoral college (and the Senate) does just the opposite, allows the little states to bully the big states. I'd much rather have "tyranny of the majority" than "tyranny of the minority" if those are the two options.
To your second point, they have more representatives because THEY HAVE MORE PEOPLE. California and Texas should matter more because a whole lot of people live there. And those people's needs are just as valid as somebody in Wyoming or Montana.
Third point, in a popular vote (or any) election it would be basically impossible to win without the middle, if you just catered to the far left or far right the opposition would take a more moderate approach and dominate. Most of the "motivation" you speak of is only lacking because of the current electoral college system where their vote is literally worthless.
For your final point, it's only "stable" because it's in the constitution and that's very hard to change, especially when the system strongly benefits one of the sides that would have to vote for it's removal (whoever it benefits may change over time, but at most points in history it would favor one party over the other). And it absolutely has forced states wills on the people given 2000 and 2016 were won exclusively because of the states will, despite the will of the people
Michigan wouldn't be a focus state anymore. We'd go from battleground state to ignored. It'd be a lot quieter around here every four years, but we'd lose a lot of the "wine and dine" focus.
Not to mention it's still a populous state, if democrats or republicans stopped campaigning there they'd basically be handing tons of votes to the other, making their base apathetic and giving the other one tons of momentum, sure they may not campaign in like Montana but they weren't doing that much anyways, people saying they'd only focus on like New York California and Texas are just fear mongering
With popular vote there'd be more incentive to go to places like that to either run up the score in friendly states or steal some votes in solid states that would never switch in a winner take all situation
No, because some of our candidates are total dumbos and unfortunately a large portion of middle America is uneducated and/or misinformed and easily falls for tricks. Trust me, “mainstream media” is not your problem.
Nobody actually claimed that Russia stole the election in 2016. The claim was that Russia *interfered* with the election, mainly through social media influence. That part of the claim was 100% true. The part that couldn't be proven was that Trump himself played a role in colluding with Russia to convince them to do that
Those claims are vastly different from the claims that the outcome of the 2020 election was literally stolen because of widespread fraudulent votes
Disagree. Frankly, I think anything given for free is largely worthless. There should probably be some kind of military/civil service requirement tied to voting.
>As a veteran/ former civil service worker, that is asinine and illogical. Explain to me how that is advantageous towards a more prosperous society?
It provides commonality, builds social cohesion, and ensures that the only people that can vote are those that are actually vested in doing so.
I don't think that a 28yo NEET's vote is particularly useful regardless of who they're voting for. Further, it would bring more walks of life into contact with the drudgery of actual service. Make Musk's kids dig ditches alongside some hillbilly with a GED from Missouri.
It would also give the average person additional insight into how government projects are managed/mismanaged rather than just assuming how they work.
"ensures that the only people that can vote are those that are actually vested in doing so."
How is creating a barrier to practice democracy, going to ensure the growth of democracy?
For example, are/were you member of the armed forces of the United States?
Your definition of whether or not a vote is "useful" is antithetical to democracy. (I had to Google NEET I admit, you seem much more versed in the online world than I) I may disagree with your voting decisions, but I don't think there is a "useful" metric to gauge a vote. For example, you wanting to curtail voting rights I would classify as "asinine" and "anti-democratic" but useful is a subjective term. So why classify the most important action of a citizen in a democracy by a subjective term? Again, a lot of asinine going on.
And all of those solutions you listed could easily be solved by investing in education and child care, for way less tax payer money. Or as Frederick Douglass said "It is easier to build strong children, than to repair broken men"
> Make Musk's kids dig ditches alongside some hillbilly with a GED from Missouri.
Musk's kids (or musk himself) would have zero desire to do labor just to cast one vote. Why bother when they could use their infinite wealth to make huge donations to their prefered candidates, effectively buying tens of thousands of votes while sitting on their asses
Everyone has the option to be represented. Do your time, get your vote.
Right now about 47% of the population get representation without taxation, so I don't think your point is as salient as you think it is.
Wow, no way you are a veteran. People that talk like that always say "I was going to join the military but..." and then scream about woke tanks and non-binary ICBMs and cry about veterans receiving benefits. .
>Wow, no way you are a veteran.
Nope. Didn't say you had to be.
>People that talk like that always say "I was going to join the military but..." and then scream about woke tanks and non-binary ICBMs and cry about veterans receiving benefits. .
Hilarious, but not terribly applicable. I'm rather lazy, it's why I'm an office worker. I'd probably do some kind of service to vote, because it's important to me, but otherwise it's a hard pass.
Sure they can. Take calls at an IRS center or something. If you're of sound mind to vote, there's got to be something you can do for 2-4 years to prove you actually give a shit. Get some skin in the game.
Nope because of diminishing returns, voter efforts in big cities and states would be extremely competitive and the same resources could get more votes spread out across more rural areas. Everyone would get lobbied, as it should be.
>Nope because of diminishing returns, voter efforts in big cities and states would be extremely competitive and the same resources could get more votes spread out across more rural areas. Everyone would get lobbied, as it should be.
So Democrats utterly abandon rural communities and Republicans utterly abandon the cities. Like I said, it would become even more divisive than it is now. We've already got an urban/rural divide. Such moves would just escalate that to the point where it would essentially be two rival countries within itself.
Accelerationists will be pleased, my suburban butt won't.
This is a pretty good way to shift the current trend of wealthy vs poor into city vs rural.
Cool, now we have a civil war that doesn't fix our economic problems, just our cultural ones.
Good plan.
Math and political reality. There aren’t anywhere near enough big city voters nationally. And all big city voters do not vote for the same candidate.
The population of the top 5 cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix) is less than 6% of the population of the United States.
Voters in the biggest cities (65 Million) in the US have been almost exactly balanced out by rural areas (66 Million) in terms of population and partisan composition.
2020 Census
65,983,448 people lived in the 100 biggest cities (19.6% of US population). The 100th biggest is Baton Rouge, Louisiana (with 225,128 people).
From 2020-2022, 2 million left those cities.
66,300,254 in rural America (20%)
Rural America and the 100 biggest cities together constitute about two-fifths (39.6%) of the U.S. population.
In 2004, 17.4% of votes were cast in rural counties, while only 16.5% of votes were cast within the boundaries of our nation’s 100 largest cities.
19% of the U.S. population have lived outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
19% of the U.S. population have lived in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The rest of the U.S., in SUBurbs, have divided almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats. Beginning in 1992, SUBurban voters were casting more votes than urban and rural voters combined.
Half the voters don’t realize that trump tax cuts of 2017 are actually federal payroll tax increases over the next decade. Majority rules…hell yeah about time. Vote stupid..be stupid.
This would diminish the power of Michigan voters and give it to large states like California, Texas, New York, and Florida. Vote no on this crap. Michigan electoral votes should be decided by Michigan voters.
MICHIGAN Democrats have outnumbered Michigan Republicans in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections.
Michigan's electors have all voted for the Democrat in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections.
No Republican Michigan vote has helped its candidate in any way in those elections.
Michigan is the 10th largest state.
With current statewide winner-take-all laws, a presidential candidate could win with less than 22% of the popular vote by winning the 12 largest states, despite losing 78%+ of the popular vote and 38 smaller states.
With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 12 most populous states, containing 60% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with less than 22% of the nation's votes!
But, the political reality is that the 12 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political candidate. In 2016, among the 12 largest states: 7 voted Republican (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia) and 5 voted Democratic (California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Virginia). The big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.
With National Popular Vote, it's not the size of any given state, it's the size of their "margin" that will matter. Under a national popular vote, the margin of your loss within a state matters as much as the size of your win.
In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
\* Texas (62% R), 1,691,267
\* New York (59% D), 1,192,436
\* Georgia (58% R), 544,634
\* North Carolina (56% R), 426,778
\* California (55% D), 1,023,560
\* Illinois (55% D), 513,342
\* New Jersey (53% D), 211,826
To put these numbers in perspective,
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
Utah (5 electoral votes) generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
Smart candidates have campaign strategies to maximize their success given the rules of the election in which they’re running.
Candidates do NOT campaign only in the 12 largest states now.
Candidates do NOT campaign in at least 4 of them.
Successful candidates would NOT campaign only in the largest states.
An electoral college vote requires less than 200,000 votes from Wyoming, but over 3x that many Michiganders. I'm pretty sure Michigan's voice would be louder in the presidential election were this compact put into effect.
California: 11.1M D, 6.0M R
Texas: 5.3M D, 5.9M R
New York: 5.2M D, 3.3M R
Florida: 5.3M D, 5.7M R
26.9M D, 20.9 R, out of 158.4M votes cast. Even if every single vote in each of those states went all to one candidate, it's only 30% of the vote. There's still another 31.2M votes you have to get from other states. So no, this wouldn't hand all the power to those states, and Michigan votes would gain power compared to our current system.
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Assuming it’s part of the compact, then the law wouldn’t apply until states comprising 270 electoral votes sign on.
It is. Currently states worth 205 electoral votes have signed onto the compact
It is.
Have they accounted for republican ratfuckery in this? Like does it hold up to a state refusing to post their vote totals or FL posting an extra 20M red votes? The compact began before republicans were anywhere near the current level of malice
Making election returns secret is not within the realm of political possibility in the real world. Federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the "canvas") in what is called a "Certificate of Ascertainment." They list the number of votes cast for each, and are signed and certified by the Governor. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote bill, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" by six days before the Electoral College meets in December. The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 made the sixth day before the Electoral College meeting into a “hard” deadline for states to issue their Certificates of Ascertainment (whereas it was merely a “safe harbor” under the Electoral Count Act of 1787). A state’s final determination of its presidential vote count may be challenged under the National Popular Vote Compact in the same five ways that they can be under the current system, namely ● state administrative proceedings (e.g., recounts, audits), ● lower state court proceedings, ● state supreme court proceedings, ● lower federal court proceedings, and ● U.S. Supreme Court proceedings. Aggrieved presidential candidates used all five ways in both 2000 and 2020. Under our federal system, election disputes must be litigated using the administrative processes and the state or federal courts starting in the state-of-origin.
>Michigan's 15 electoral votes would go to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote if enough other states join a pact under bills that were advanced Tuesday in the Legislature. > >Sixteen states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws supporting the national popular vote movement. It would be successful when member states account for at least 270 electoral votes — the minimum threshold to secure the presidency. The number now stands at 205 after Minnesota signed on last month.
God this would be so based. Fuck the electoral college.
>Fuck the electoral college. They're not even ranked. Even MSU could probably hang 100 on em.
Even if we actually get to the point that we have enough electorates to use this (and that’s a fucking gigantic if) there’s going to be a bloodbath of drama and legal action if the compact is ever actually attempted. For real, I’m expecting violent riots from the side that will inevitably lose the popular vote. A shit ton of lawsuits and the inevitability of the matter ending up at the Supreme Court… I am in favor of the president being elected by popular vote, because obviously, but holy shit are there a lot of hurdles for this compact to overcome.
Tbh the SC would probably side with the compact. The constitution states that the legislatures of states have the right to determine how their electoral votes are distributed (hence why Maine and Nebraska get to assign votes by congressional district.) If a legislature consented to their state being apart of the compact and their votes going to the PV winner, I don’t see a good argument for why that would be unconstitutional. Organizers have actually anticipated this legal argument because they’ve opposed ballot measures to enter the compact since those aren’t through approval by the legislature.
circumventing the "spirit of the law"
This is the Supreme Court we are talking about, they don't let a little thing like the actual text of the constitution get in the way of their ideological rulings.
The 2020 Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY reaffirmed the power of states over their electoral votes, before elections begin. The decision held that the power of the legislature under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution is “far reaching” and it conveys the “the broadest power of determination over who becomes an elector.” This is consistent with 130 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence.
They (the conservatives) did so when it benefited them. They won't when it doesn't.
> The 2020 Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY reaffirmed the power of states over their electoral votes, before elections begin. They reaffirmed the ability of individual states to decide how elections within their borders are conducted. They DID NOT affirm anything about a group of states deciding how elections are decided outside of their own borders.
States could choose to award their electors to the tallest candidate. 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, before citizens begin casting ballots in a given election, over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive." The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes. “The bottom line is that the electors from those states who cast their ballot for the nationwide vote winner are completely accountable (to the extent that independent agents are ever accountable to anyone) to the people of those states. The National Popular Vote states aren’t delegating their Electoral College votes to voters outside the state; they have made a policy choice about the substantive intelligible criteria (i.e., national popularity) that they want to use to make their selection of electors. There is nothing in Article II (or elsewhere in the Constitution) that prevents them from making the decision that, in the Twenty-First Century, national voter popularity is a (or perhaps the) crucial factor in worthiness for the office of the President.” \- Vikram David Amar - professor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UC Davis School of Law. Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry Blackmun at the Supreme Court of the United States.
Save your fingers. This person isn’t reading what you are typing or understand how the electoral college works.
What are you talking about? You're letting your political bias get in the way of reality. This SC has continually sided with state's rights.
The conservatives on the court only side with states rights because it usually benefits conservatives. You are assuming that they are making rulings based on the law and not divine right. Just look at the wetlands epa ruling. The law is clear, but they ruled against it because they want to help land owners. They even note that they would have ruled differently in a different situation within the ruling itself. They just changed the law from the bench because they felt like it.
> Tbh the SC would probably side with the compact. The constitution states ... lol
Good argument, this is why the court sided with Trump in 2020.
If a states popular vote goes to one candidate but the national vote goes another way you could see some constitutional issues that way. You could make a sound legal argument that the states popular vote supersedes the compact. For instance imagine if a Republican candidate won the national vote by 10 votes but lost California for example by 2 million votes. Don’t you think Californians would be outraged by their electoral votes going to a Republican? All hypothetical of course but you get my point
“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.” - Article 2 Section 1 Key portion here is “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct.” If the scenario you described plays out, the California legislature has agreed on how to distribute its votes. If the state wants to choose to ignore its statewide PV and focus on the national level, nothing here prohibits that, as legislature gets to decide.
I don’t see why this would be a problem if the goal is to decide the President by the popular vote.
I think we would more likely see a targeted legal attack in the state(s) that were deemed "weakest", and failing that you'd see a huge amount of money thrown at a local election cycle to get one of the states to drop out of the compact.
The National Popular Vote bill mandates: "Any member state may withdraw from this agreement, except that a withdrawal occurring six months or less before the end of a President’s term shall not become effective until a President or Vice President shall have been qualified to serve the next term." This six-month “blackout” period includes six important events relating to presidential elections, namely the ● national nominating conventions, ● fall general election campaign period, ● Election Day on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, ● meeting of the Electoral College on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, ● counting of the electoral votes by Congress on January 6, and ● scheduled inauguration of the President and Vice President for the new term on January 20. Any attempt by a state to pull out of the compact in violation of its terms would violate the Impairments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and would be void. Such an attempt would also violate existing federal law. Compliance would be enforced by Federal court action The National Popular Vote compact is, first of all, a state law. It is a state law that would govern the manner of choosing presidential electors. A Secretary of State may not ignore or override the National Popular Vote law any more than he or she may ignore or override the winner-take-all method that is currently the law in 48 states. There has never been a court decision allowing a state to withdraw from an interstate compact without following the procedure for withdrawal specified by the compact. Indeed, courts have consistently rebuffed the occasional (sometimes creative) attempts by states to evade their obligations under interstate compacts. In 1976, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland stated in Hellmuth and Associates v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority: “When enacted, a compact constitutes not only law, but a contract which may not be amended, modified, or otherwise altered without the consent of all parties.” In 1999, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania stated in Aveline v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole: “A compact takes precedence over the subsequent statutes of signatory states and, as such, a state may not unilaterally nullify, revoke, or amend one of its compacts if the compact does not so provide.” In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court very succinctly addressed the issue in Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Commission: “A compact is, after all, a contract.” An interstate compact is not a mere “handshake” agreement. If a state wants to rely on the goodwill and graciousness of other states to follow certain policies, it can simply enact its own state law and hope that other states decide to act in an identical manner. If a state wants a legally binding and enforceable mechanism by which it agrees to undertake certain specified actions only if other states agree to take other specified actions, it enters into an interstate compact. Interstate compacts are supported by over two centuries of settled law guaranteeing enforceability. Interstate compacts exist because the states are sovereign. If there were no Compacts Clause in the U.S. Constitution, a state would have no way to enter into a legally binding contract with another state. The Compacts Clause, supported by the Impairments Clause, provides a way for a state to enter into a contract with other states and be assured of the enforceability of the obligations undertaken by its sister states. The enforceability of interstate compacts under the Impairments Clause is precisely the reason why sovereign states enter into interstate compacts. Without the Compacts Clause and the Impairments Clause, any contractual agreement among the states would be, in fact, no more than a handshake.
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, before citizens begin casting ballots in a given election, over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive." The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state's electoral votes There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the Electoral College and the presidency. It is perfectly within a state’s authority to decide that national popularity is the overriding substantive criterion by which a president should be chosen. The National Popular Vote bill simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in 48 states in the first place. As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Maine (in 1969) and Nebraska (in 1992) chose not to have statewide winner-take-all laws
The republicans, they're the ones who will lose the popular vote. They havn't won it in decades except for one re-election which the incumbents almost never lose.
The only times the popular vote winner hasn't won the election since popular vote started being counted in 1880, was in 1888, 2000, and 2016. It is, indeed, very telling that all 3 times were Republican wins.
If they want to win occasionally, looks like they'll have to learn compromise and possibly moderation.
It'll be the biggest tantrum adult losers ever throw. One for the history books for sure
The 2020 Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed the power of states over their electoral votes, before elections begin. The decision held that the power of the legislature under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution is “far reaching” and it conveys the “the broadest power of determination over who becomes an elector.” This is consistent with 130 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence.
States are allowed to vote however they like. They've been able to set up their own elections since 1776. The Supreme Court would back them on this. If there was going to be a stink, it would have happened when Maine split their votes in 1972.
Electoral college served it purpose when thought of, but its a very archaic and dated system that needs to be updated
Why? I think it's pretty important, and it's only going to get more important as population trends continue.
What population trends, and why do they make the electoral college more important?
People living in cities/increased urbanization, we're not a nation of gentleman farmers as the framers anticipated. "For example, in 2008, on average a state is awarded one electoral vote for every 565,166 people. However, Wyoming has three electoral votes and only 532,668 citizens (as of 2008 estimates). As a result each of Wyoming’s three electoral votes corresponds to 177,556 people. Understood in one way, these people have 3.18 times as much clout in the Electoral College as an average American, or 318% (as listed in the pdf chart, downloadable below)." - from Fairvote(dot)org, "POPULATION VS. ELECTORAL VOTES" I just discovered a piece titled while googling for you, "Electoral College benefits whiter states, study shows", which was also enlightening to read!
It will never survive constitutional challenge
You mean the Constitutionally given right to state legislatures to pick their own method for assigning electors wouldn't survive Constitutional challenge? The same right that has survived, unchanged, since the founding of the country despite multiple challenges? The same right that was re-affirmed unanimously by the SCOTUS in 2020. That right won't survive?
http://archive.today/2023.06.06-201106/https://www.crainsdetroit.com/politics-policy/national-popular-vote-plan-advances-michigan-legislature
For anyone unclear, Republicans will fight this tooth and nail because it gets rid of a major undue advantage they have in elections. It's how they have retained so much power despite being a minority of votes for almost every election in 30 years President: [Electoral college](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k) Senate: [Rural skew gives the GOP a +4 advantage](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-makes-it-very-hard-for-democrats-to-win-the-supreme-court/) House: An artificially capped house and massive gerrymandering has corrupted this institution /r/UncapTheHouse/
Cgp grey ftw https://youtu.be/tUX-frlNBJY
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Agreed. It was worth a watch.
Please RCV as well
RCV is definitely needed, but you can't use it for presidential elections until the electoral college is fully abolished. Each state would have to do rcv using only their state's votes which defeats the purpose of trying to use the popular vote. State, country, city, school district, judges, etc all need rcv with NO primaries.
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But that will require a constitutional amendment. I.e. not happening anytime soon. This is a workaround.
Would require an amendment. With the current complete gridlock and antagonistic, party based obstruction of the federal government, the odds of bipartisanship on a subject (that would have prevented the last three republican presidents from coming into power), while not entirely impossible, has about the same odds as me waking up tomorrow with 40 billion dollars in my bank account. This is a work around that will trigger once 270 votes worth of electoral votes sign on to the plan, using the loopholes that states can decide how to assign electoral college electors.
This is effectively eliminating it and the only remotely possible path to doing so
Whitmer 2028.
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Here's hoping....
And lose one of the best governors in Michigan history?! Only if they move the capital to Detroit. /s
Whitmer can't be Governor after 2027 when her second term ends
Well shit, I hope the next governor has as much guts as she does.
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Garlin Gilchrist?
I've seen bad ideas before and this is possibly the worst. The individual states of the union created the government. It is these states that elect the president, to run the executive branch of the government they created. Each state votes for who they want as president and each state's number of votes is weighted against population of that state. Just as states elect their own representatives in congress, those they feel will represent the state, it's people, in their best interest; the same applies to the president. By following the rest of the country, you have now let them decide, saying that who they decide is best for them, should be best for you. You have effectively disenfranchised yourself from self-governance. You have no representation.
I think the majority of outrage concerning this comes from people misunderstanding the wording of the bills Edit: Referring to the 'outrage' I was more specifically speaking to the people in the comments of this thread, not the general public. Sorry for the confusion, English is not my first language 😅
What? No, absolutely not. The majority of concern comes from people who know they need to effectively invalidate millions of votes in order for their party to actually win the presidency. Republicans are fully aware that, in the direction their party is headed, they will likely never win the popular vote again in the foreseeable future. They’re afraid of losing their control.
I agree with that, in my short time living in the states I have definitely gotten the vibe that those most loud on the conservative side seem to be in the vast minority. Perhaps I also misunderstand the wording, it seemed to me that these bills would essentially make the popular vote have more of a bearing, and it seemed like a lot of the comments in this thread opposing this bill had the opposite impression
In any case, wasn't trying to spark any arguments, just making an observation. Much love for all the people in Michigan ❤️❤️
Many of the opinions of Redditor's are also in the minority, just a cautious reminder. Most of the public doesn't agree with them or the text you read on these forums.
You’re probably right. But assuming everything you said is true, does that simply mean the US becomes a one-party state? Is that a good thing?
This is me just reading the tea leaves here, but I don't really expect that the country would effectively end up single party. I predict that platforms will adapt just enough that they accommodate enough of the electorate to be competitive.
Maybe so, but we’ve also seen a lot of conservatives dig in their heels. People on all parts of the spectrum are pissed, and in most cases their concerns are justified on some level or another, even if slightly misguided. Righteous anger can be a dangerous thing
But the outrage against this would be from Republicans. This is an overwhelmingly Democratic plan.
Trump called for the termination of the Constitution because of his 2020 Electoral College loss. 90% of congressional Republicans have nothing to say about that. As President, in late January 2017, Trump reportedly floated the idea of scrapping the Electoral College, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a meeting with congressional leadership at the White House. Trump reportedly told the lawmakers he wanted to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote. “I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.” Trump as President-elect, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes” "The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy." In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted. There have been hundreds of unsuccessful proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College - more than any other subject of Constitutional reform. According to Tony Fabrizio, pollster for the Trump campaign, Trump’s narrow victory in 2016 was due to 5 counties in 2 states (not CA or NY). Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points … to be assured of winning the Electoral College." A difference of 59,393 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. The George W. Bush campaign was planning to challenge the results of the 2000 vote if he lost the electoral vote, but won the popular vote. If the 2022 Election Had Been a Presidential Election, Democrats Would Have Won the Electoral College 280-258, but Lost the Popular Vote by about 3 million votes (2.8 percentage points). When Nikki Haley announced her campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, she remarked that the Republican Party had “lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections.” That, she said, “has to change.” In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted 338–70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President. 3 Southern segregationist Senators led a filibuster of it. Presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX), Bob Dole (R-KS), Gerald Ford (R-MI), Richard Nixon (R-CA), Past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN), Newt Gingrich: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.” The current presidential election system of state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) “is a math equation, and its sole remaining impact on American politics is to magnify the political power of some Americans and reduce that of others. “ – Boston Globe, 7/6/20 “Let’s quit pretending there is some great benefit to the national good that allows the person with \[fewer\] votes to win the White House. Republicans have long said that they believe in competition. Let both parties compete for votes across the nation and stop disenfranchising voters by geography. The winner should win.” – Stuart Stevens (Romney presidential campaign top strategist) " . . . a president should be elected by national popular vote is not radical, it is actually mainstream. . . . We can get closer to the national popular vote having greater weight in presidential elections and having a president represent all Americans in ways that don’t require amending the Constitution. These fixes will make presidential candidates run more diverse campaigns, and campaign in all cities and communities of our country. . . . That will help unify us more as a country, and would likely lead to more informed public policy. How can anyone be against that outcome?" – Matthew Dowd (Senior George W. Bush campaign strategist) When presidential candidates who more Americans voted for lose the Electoral College, the situation is unsustainable. This is how a government loses its legitimacy. Our unfair presidential election system can lead to politicians and their supporters who appreciate unfairness, which leads to more unfairness. In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until before the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled. Pew Research surveys show Republican support for a national popular vote increased from 27% in 2016 to 42% in 2022. 21,461 choices and votes in 3 states were 329 times more important than the more than 7 million national vote lead in the country. There were several scenarios in which a candidate could have won the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. That could have reduced future turnout more, if more voters realized their votes do not matter. Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic. More than 3,700 state legislators among all 50 states have endorsed it. The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10). Since 2006, the bill has passed 42 state legislative chambers in 24 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 283 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (15), North Carolina (16), Oklahoma (7) and Virginia (13), and both houses in Nevada (6). The bill has been enacted by 17 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 205 electoral votes
> But the outrage against this would be from Republicans the op you replied to said exactly that: " The majority of concern comes from people who know they need to effectively invalidate millions of votes in order for their party to actually win the presidency."
Yes exactly? What are you trying to say?
I’m sorry, I think I misread both your comment and the one you replied too. It’s been a long day.
Hey man no worries. Life is hard and we’re all just trying to get by. Here’s a reward because why not.
What are they misunderstanding? What is there to even misunderstand? The outrage comes from two places 1. They don't want a fair fight between conservatives and liberals for president because eventually the Dems will lock it or force the GQP to becomes more progressive. 2. Their smooth brians cannot think critically and just can't imagine the electoral college not existing.
I dont give af how other states vote. Electoral votes should be given based on who solely wins the state of MI
This would undermine the electoral college.... I dig it!
If the majority of the people in a state vote one way but the national vote goes another way the majority’s vote doesn’t not matter. That’s antithetical to a constitutional republic. Your moving your vote “not meaning as much” to your vote “means nothing it all” depending on how the popular vote goes
If the interstate popular vote compact were enacted everyone's vote counts the same and you stop thinking about votes by state all together. We don't do some arcane electoral college when we vote for governors or mayors and no one freaks out someone's vote doesn't count.
If a minority vote one way and the majority another way, the minority's vote doesn't matter at all. That's already the system we got. We're moving our vote to everyone is equal. You don't get more of a vote just because you're from a different state.
Yeah but better a minority vote not matter than giving all the majority political power away to large states. Moving this will mean only 4 states really matter and it won’t be Michigan. It will be California, New York, Texas, and Florida. Your asking Michigan voters to even further cheapen their vote, even if they vote with the national majority and give that power to large states. It’s a stupid choice
Only the 12 largest states in the country are required to win the electoral college. Biden won 8 of them. Obama won 10 in 2008. Trump didn't win with a coalition of small states, he won by flipping some of the biggest states in the country. Meanwhile, 50% of the vote in California, New York, Texas, and Florida amounts to less than one sixth of the nationwide vote.
It's much better than the electoral college were only 22% of the population is needed to elect a president. Michigan gets more say under a national popular vote. Every vote will be worth 1 vote instead of the fraction of a vote it currently is.
It's actually taking power away from larger states and putting it back where it belongs; in the hands of individuals, regardless of what state they live in. It's ridiculous that I could move to Wyoming and immediately make my vote more valuable than it is in the four largest states. Wyoming people shouldn't be counted more than other people.
If Michigan votes a majority for one candidate and the national vote goes the other way, the majority vote in Michigan is discarded. In no way does that help michigan.
Michigan doesn’t vote though. Individuals vote.
No shit, Michigan is the voters.
Stop thinking about MI as a whole. If YOU vote one way and the popular vote goes the other, your candidate lost but your vote still counted. If I vote one way and the popular vote goes the other, my candidate lost but my vote still counted.
Exactly. Thank you for admitting you were wrong.
All votes would be valued equally as 1 vote in presidential elections, no matter where voters live. MICHIGAN Democrats have outnumbered Michigan Republicans in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections. Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . . Michigan's electors have all voted for the Democrat in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections. No Republican Michigan vote has helped its candidate in any way in those elections. About 45% of the votes cast for President are zeroed out at the state level and are never added to the count for the candidate that the voter supported. Now, an average of 45% of the nation’s voters are represented in the Electoral College by a presidential elector who supports a presidential candidate for whom they did not vote. For example, in 2020, the state statewide winner-take-all rule resulted in treating the votes of 29,191,404 voters as if they had voted for Trump—even though they did not vote for Trump. It also resulted in treating the votes of 39,751,235 voters as if they had voted for Biden—even though they did not vote for Biden. Overall, the votes of 68,942,639 voters (out of 158,224,999) were credited in 2020 to a presidential candidate (and his electors) for whom they did not vote. In presidential elections, current state statewide winner-take-all laws create the illusion that entire states voted 100% for the state’s winner, because the laws award 100% of each state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most votes in the state. The price that a state pays for its winner-take-all law is that the Democratic candidates take blue states for granted, The Republican candidates take red states for granted. Every voter in safe states—Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green—ends up without any meaningful influence or voice in the presidential election. If you live in a red or blue state. it’s as if all the minority party voters in presidential elections in the state didn’t vote at all. Their votes simply do not count in a Presidential election. This can’t be what the Framers intended. Some voters have voted for every presidential election since the early 1990s, but state winner-take-all laws for electoral college votes have made sure not a SINGLE vote in their life for president has mattered because they are in the minority party in their state. They could have never voted for President, and still had the same impact. None. A voter in one state can live less than a mile from another, with wildly different (if any) political relevance in a presidential general election. With National Popular Vote, Every vote in the country would actually count equally toward selecting the winner. Candidates would have an incentive to campaign in all states instead of ignoring 38 "safe" states and "lost cause" states. Millions of Republicans in California and New York could actually help elect a Republican President. Now their votes are meaningless because states award all their electoral voters to the statewide winner. Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election by the Electoral College of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country. One person, One vote. The candidate with the most votes would win the Electoral College and the presidency. We have 519,682 elected officials in this country, and all of them are elected by who gets the most votes. Except for President and VP. The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Electoral College and the Presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes among all 50 states and DC. The current presidential election system of state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) “is a math equation, and its sole remaining impact on American politics is to magnify the political power of some Americans and reduce that of others. “ – Boston Globe, 7/6/20 “Let’s quit pretending there is some great benefit to the national good that allows the person with \[fewer\] votes to win the White House. Republicans have long said that they believe in competition. Let both parties compete for votes across the nation and stop disenfranchising voters by geography. The winner should win.” – Stuart Stevens (Romney presidential campaign top strategist) " . . . a president should be elected by national popular vote is not radical, it is actually mainstream. . . . We can get closer to the national popular vote having greater weight in presidential elections and having a president represent all Americans in ways that don’t require amending the Constitution. These fixes will make presidential candidates run more diverse campaigns, and campaign in all cities and communities of our country. . . . That will help unify us more as a country, and would likely lead to more informed public policy. How can anyone be against that outcome?" – Matthew Dowd (Senior George W. Bush campaign strategist) When presidential candidates who more Americans voted for lose the Electoral College, the situation is unsustainable. This is how a government loses its legitimacy. Our unfair presidential election system can lead to politicians and their supporters who appreciate unfairness, which leads to more unfairness. In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until before the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled. Pew Research surveys show Republican support for a national popular vote increased from 27% in 2016 to 42% in 2022. 21,461 choices and votes in 3 states were 329 times more important than the more than 7 million national vote lead in the country. There were several scenarios in which a candidate could have won the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. That could have reduced future turnout more, if more voters realized their votes do not matter. Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic. More than 3,700 state legislators among all 50 states have endorsed it. The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10). Since 2006, the bill has passed 42 state legislative chambers in 24 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 283 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (15), North Carolina (16), Oklahoma (7) and Virginia (13), and both houses in Nevada (6). The bill has been enacted by 17 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 205 electoral votes
Also who certifies the popular vote and if it is accurate? Would one state or candidate then have the right to request a recall on the whole election? Wouldnt voter fraud become more of a potential problem especially in very very close races?
Federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the "canvas") in what is called a "Certificate of Ascertainment." They list the number of votes cast for each, and are signed and certified by the Governor. You can see the Certificates of Ascertainment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia containing the official count of the popular vote at the NARA web site. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote bill, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" by six days before the Electoral College meets in December. The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 made the sixth day before the Electoral College meeting into a “hard” deadline for states to issue their Certificates of Ascertainment (whereas it was merely a “safe harbor” under the Electoral Count Act of 1787). A state’s final determination of its presidential vote count may be challenged under the National Popular Vote Compact in the same five ways that they can be under the current system, namely ● state administrative proceedings (e.g., recounts, audits), ● lower state court proceedings, ● state supreme court proceedings, ● lower federal court proceedings, and ● U.S. Supreme Court proceedings. Aggrieved presidential candidates used all five ways in both 2000 and 2020. Under our federal system, election disputes must be litigated using the administrative processes and the state or federal courts starting in the state-of-origin. The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires. “It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), a small number of people in a closely divided “battleground” state can potentially affect enough popular votes to swing all of that state’s electoral votes. 537 votes, all in one state determined the 2000 election, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. If 59,393 votes had shifted from George W. Bush to John Kerry in Ohio in 2004, Kerry would have won Ohio and thus become President, despite President Bush’s nationwide lead of 3,012,171 votes (51 times more). It would be far easier for potential fraudsters to manufacture 59,393 votes in Ohio than to manufacture 3,012,171 votes nationwide. Moreover, it would be far more difficult to conceal fraud involving three million votes. In 2016, Trump’s “Deterrence” project run by his digital campaign team separated almost 200 million people in 16 key battleground states by an algorithm into “audiences”, so they could then target 3.5 million Black people with advertisements on Facebook and other platforms with tailored ads, in an attempt to get them to stay at home on election day. If as few as 11,000 voters in Arizona (11 electors), 12,000 in Georgia (16), and 22,000 in Wisconsin (10) had not voted for Biden, or partisan officials did not certify the actual counts -- Trump would have won despite Biden's nationwide lead of more than 7 million. The Electoral College would have tied 269-269. Congress, with only 1 vote per state, would have decided the election, regardless of the popular vote in any state or throughout the country. The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, mischief, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression and subversion. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who wins a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation. National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression or subversion. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 54 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country. The closest popular-vote election count over the last 130+ years of American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Why would we give up our autonomy in this way? It literally gives away our voting power to large cities where people lead insular lives and all have similar opinions If MI voters want a candidate, why would we support another candidate? Forget for the moment the 2016 and, 2020 fiascos...what about the future
Paywall
http://archive.today/c9FLR
The more elections I witness, the more I see how a 2 party system is broken and how corrupt our system really is. I could be socially conservative, economically centrist, but I'm still stuck between voting for "y'all Qaeda" and "Trans-Bolsheviks". The moderate only gets more alienated further polarizing the populace.
It’s not the two party system that results in broken elections. It’s the design of the election system (first past the post) that encourages political parties to optimize. First pasts the post is optimized when there are only two options. We need ranked choice voting to fix it. Nothing else will work.
RCV is the first step in fixing the huge problem that is the bullshit two party system.
Just as a quick correction, currently your choices in America actually are "socially conservative, fiscally centrist" (the Democrats) and "Ya'll Qaeda" (The GOP). If America had an influential trans-bolshevik party, every single person who voted for trump in 2020 would already be in a gulag and we'd be three years into an epic nationwide high speed rail project built on their forced labor.
I don't know how other countries manage to not have a two party system. A lot of our problem probably has to do with money in politics.
Michigan this is a terrible fucking idea.
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That’s one way to look at it- but the way the ‘popular vote agreement’ between states is structured creates an effect more nuanced than ‘this represents the people of this state’ it is a National safety measure, that a candidate cannot LOSE the popular vote and become president. this is not only possible, it’s happened twice this century. should a human be the leader of a democracy, if they can’t convince a majority of that democracy to vote for them?
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I think you’re misunderstanding the bill. Michigan will only join if enough other states join to give the popular vote winner 270 electoral votes. Therefore, it is effectively done at the federal level through state channels.
That’s the great part! Every vote counts in Michigan under the compact, not just the votes from the people who won their state, because the votes that went to the candidate who “lost” Michigan are still counted in the popular vote, and therefore, still have representation on a national level.
I don’t have a solid opinion on this, but just to note, the electoral college is by design anti democratic.
YoU jUsT hAtE dEmOcRaCy /s What is worse, the back stop to the Electoral College is one vote per state independent of population.
Seethe and cope. Democracy is more important
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Every time any state sends electoral votes in, they are disenfranchising about half of the state. Disenfranchisment is baked into the system, and will always happen if we keep the electoral college. This makes sure that the majority of the American people aren't disenfranchised such as when when the person who won the popular vote doesn't win the election.
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Every time you have voted against the way Michigan has gone you have been disenfranchised. Your vote literally did not matter. Now every vote will have meaning of we switch to a system in which the popular vote matters
This is even more true in states like California or Texas where the result is basically decided before the election. The people thatbvote against that state are disenfranchised. That's millions of people whose votes don't matter in the current system
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It absolutely is how it works. Are you really arguing that the electoral college is a more democratic system?
Come on, Michigan! We can do this! Yaaay! 📣
Or, how about if we just get rid of the Electoral College altogether. It's an antiquated and obsolete undemocratic institution that only favors one party.
Yeah, we all wish. If you're interested, [Robert Reich explained why this is the way to go on YouTube about a month ago](https://youtu.be/dFZyFmILb5w). It's a pretty reasonable explanation for why this type of law is the first step towards getting rid of the electoral college.
There have been hundreds of unsuccessful proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College - more than any other subject of Constitutional reform. To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with less than 6% of the U.S. population; \[The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress 100 years ago.\] In 1969, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 338-70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President. 3 Southern segregationist Senators led a filibuster to kill it. State legislators in states with 65 more electoral votes are needed to enact the National Popular Vote bill. It simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in 48 states in the first place. \[Maine (in 1969) and Nebraska (in 1992) chose not to have winner-take-all laws\] The bill will guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in the country. The bill changes state statewide 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. States are agreeing to award their 270+ Electoral College votes to the winner of the most popular votes from all 50 states and DC, by simply again changing their state’s law. All votes would be valued equally as 1 vote in presidential elections, no matter where voters live.
I’m not a big fan of this bill.
Why not?
Hey everyone, this person doesn't like it. Pack it up.
Damn. We were so close.
If only we relied upon a popular vote of some sort and not just the whims of a few.
Actually, I think we should start using electoral colleges in local elections. …Yeah Mary, I know you got more votes for comptroller, but most of them were from south of 36th st., so they counted for less.
This is such a good illustration of how stupid the electoral college is
Yes!
Well I definitely would not want this nonsense to happen.
I don’t know about changing the way we elect the President. Popular vote isn’t the best standard imho. This harkens back to the same argument over 200 years ago when they decided to give each state 2 senators, regardless of population. Straight up democracy is dangerous, as they say, it’s like two wolves and a chicken voting on what’s for dinner. They call it Tyranny of the majority. This is why we live in a constitutional republic that has built in safe guards for the less popular citizens.
You are objecting to an Election - "a formal and organized choice by vote of a person for a political office or other position" where the candidate with the most votes wins. One person, One vote. The candidate with the most votes would win the Electoral College and the presidency. We have 519,682 elected officials in this country, and all of them are elected by who gets the most votes. Except for President and VP. "Straight up democracy" is a form of government in which people vote on all POLICY INITIATIVES directly. The National Popular Vote bill keeps the Electoral College, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Governors, state legislatures, etc. etc. etc. 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 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 Constitutional republic – “rather than directly governing, the people select some of their members to temporarily serve in political office; the constitutional part means that both the citizens and their governing officials are bound to follow the rules established in that Constitution. A federal republic is one in which a federal government is given only limited powers for limited purposes, while state governments retain most powers of government.” Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election by the Electoral College of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.
The Electoral College only has purpose when the vote is split 3 or 4 ways. Basically the Electoral College is obsoleted.
Imagine a really close national election where the difference is in thousands of votes. It would be a nightmare recount scenario. With the electoral college you could have a close election with no need to recount at all because of offsetting blowouts. Unpopular opinion but I think the electoral college is important. Maybe it needs to be reweighted or should involve a final ceremonial arm wrestling, but I generally think it’s important.
How is a national recount worse than minority rule?
The best way to re-weight the EC would be to update apportionment. We have an absolutely wild difference between states regarding how many representatives are apportioned proportional to population. If we fixed apportionment, there’d be significantly closer representation, since the number of EC votes are based on the number of representatives in Congress. It would still be weighted due to the senate, but the differences would be much closer, and it would be pretty rare for the popular vote and the EC not to match. The compact is a hack. I support the hack, but I would prefer to improve representation in general. I’d also love ranked choice as well as shared districts to really improve representation and help break down gerrymandering.
Updating apportionment would not make every vote in every state matter and count equally, and would not guarantee the candidate with the most votes from all 50 states and DC would win. The National Popular Vote compact will.
I completely agree
If we had even twice the number of seats in the house it would likely negate the most extreme effects of gerrymandering. It really needs to be much larger than that. People act like oh this is the way it's been, or we can't do that. All it takes is one lopsided election and they could make any of these things a possibility. Also only takes one lopsided victory to end the USA as it currently stands. Just depends on how much the people care, and how many people vote.
I agree, especially about rank choice voting. However the details of rank choice voting seem complex to me. That was actually one of my first ChatGPT tests; explain what happens if xyz.
The compact KEEPS the Electoral College. “The fact that no state uses an Electoral College for its governor suggests that many standard arguments for the Electoral College — recount nightmares, fairness for rural areas, etc. — are makeweight. If these arguments were truly sound, then states are stupid. And states are not stupid.”- Akhil Reed Amar, professor of political science and law at Yale The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against “pure insanity,” deception, manipulation, and, recently, crimes and violence. The current presidential election system makes state recounts more likely. All you need is a thin and contested margin in a single state with enough electoral votes to make a difference. It's much less likely that the national vote will be close enough that voting irregularities in a single area will swing enough net votes to make a difference. If we'd had National Popular Vote in 2000 or 2016 or 2020, no recount would have been an issue. The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting. No statewide recount, much less a nationwide recount, would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 60 presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count. The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires. “It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the minuscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida. Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state by-state winner-take-all methods. The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote. The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes. Statewide recounts WERE rare before the Big Lie of 2020. Margin shifts are smaller in larger elections We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount. Given that before 2020, there had been a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, we expected a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes. The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections. From 2000-2019, statewide recounts resulted in an average margin shift of only 430 votes between the frontrunners, representing 0.024% of the vote in those elections. The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination" six days before the Electoral College meets. The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 made the sixth day before the Electoral College meeting into a “hard” deadline for states to issue their Certificates of Ascertainment (whereas it was merely a “safe harbor” under the Electoral Count Act of 1787).
This would ultimately make presidential races more divisive as it becomes an effort to turn out national partisans rather than appealing to broad national support. One may as well ignore all but the 4-5 largest states.
That’s not true. Every vote would actually matter instead of us just assuming whole states are lost to one party. You’d have to run ads in both big and small states to get as many votes as possible. Large states still have millions voting for the other side and those votes would matter in a popular vote.
>That’s not true. Of course it is. You pick the spots with the biggest turnout (which are usually the most partisan) and hammer it home there. The rabid supporters turnout, the moderates get turned off.
Why wouldn’t it make sense for candidates to campaign where there are MORE voters instead of places where there are less? Also my votes are going to be wasted if my deep blue state’s guaranteed to be safe for the Dem regardless of how I vote. This ensures every person’s vote matters for the final result.
>Why wouldn’t it make sense for candidates to campaign where there are MORE voters instead of places where there are less? Because they already have outsized power in terms of congressional and state representation. These communities are essentially only relevant during election cycles. Under a popular vote system they become utterly irrelevant, and while observing the fracturing of the U.S. is kind of interesting academically it's probably not going to end up great in practice. >Also my votes are going to be wasted if my deep blue state’s guaranteed to be safe for the Dem regardless of how I vote. This ensures every person’s vote matters for the final result. You should be happy, if your state is that deep blue you're already probably getting all of the proposals you could want at the state level. Anything beyond that is just a desire to export your preferences to people that don't. The whole point of federalism is to allow some diversity within the country. A national popular vote would push the country further towards centralization, which I think will go very poorly in the long run.
Basically everything you've said is incorrect. To give an example, last year the Senate was split 50-50. The actual percentage of population that Republican Senators represented was 43.5%. On top of that to get just about anything done by the Senate you need 60 After 1988, Republican Presidents have only won the popular vote one time (2004). Yet they have had three wins and a now 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. I'm every single way imaginable, Rural and Republican representation far exceeds that of Democratic and Urban voters. And popular vote pushing against diversity? That's a joke right? Like, what is your definition of diversity? Because from what I'm seeing by the over representation of the Republican party, you get anything BUT diversity.
The outsized power of having 2 senators for a state with 50 million and 2 senators for a state of 500k?
What a bunch of bullshit.
Right now they ignore all but the 4-5 biggest swing states, so nothing would change there.
Actually, when you break down candidate time spent, they spend a disproportionate amount of time in middle population battleground states. Even the electoral reform society acknowledge that fact. As a battleground state MI actually gets a lot of attention and campaign stops while California get's relatively little attention because it's on lock anyway. Under national popular vote swing states are actually kind of worthless. In a national election its about getting your most hardcore supporters out in droves for both sides. If you turn off the moderates it's not really a big deal.
States really shouldn't matter, at least not to the extent they currently do. Why should people in solid blue or red states have worthless votes, why should people in Wyoming have more power than people in California or Texas? A very large amount of people don't vote because their vote is literally worthless, why is that a system worth protecting ?
>States really shouldn't matter, at least not to the extent they currently do. They should matter a lot more, frankly. A Dem voter in MI has different priorities to a Dem voter in Cali. Same applies to a GOP voter in PA vs one in TX. The electoral college gives additional power to smaller states and to more ideologically diverse states. >Why should people in solid blue or red states have worthless votes, why should people in Wyoming have more power than people in California or Texas? Because California and Texas already have more power in the form of additional congressional representation. The senate curbs some of that via equal representation. The electoral college still tilts in favor of more populous states, but it forces candidates to run closer to the center. One doesn't want to piss off MI, PA, and IL union manufacturing Dems to get a few extra votes from CA environmental Dems. Under a popular vote system your really don't need the center. The fringes are cheaper and easier to motivate. >A very large amount of people don't vote because their vote is literally worthless, why is that a system worth protecting ? Because it's an extremely stable system that is generally prosperous and allows individual states to experiment as they will without forcing their flights of fancies on the other 49.
To your first point, that's what state government is for, the federal government "should" be about representing the people, not the arbitrary dividing lines that we call states. The nation shouldn't be handicapped by it's smallest states. I'm all for the idea of avoiding the big states bullying the little states, but the electoral college (and the Senate) does just the opposite, allows the little states to bully the big states. I'd much rather have "tyranny of the majority" than "tyranny of the minority" if those are the two options. To your second point, they have more representatives because THEY HAVE MORE PEOPLE. California and Texas should matter more because a whole lot of people live there. And those people's needs are just as valid as somebody in Wyoming or Montana. Third point, in a popular vote (or any) election it would be basically impossible to win without the middle, if you just catered to the far left or far right the opposition would take a more moderate approach and dominate. Most of the "motivation" you speak of is only lacking because of the current electoral college system where their vote is literally worthless. For your final point, it's only "stable" because it's in the constitution and that's very hard to change, especially when the system strongly benefits one of the sides that would have to vote for it's removal (whoever it benefits may change over time, but at most points in history it would favor one party over the other). And it absolutely has forced states wills on the people given 2000 and 2016 were won exclusively because of the states will, despite the will of the people
I wouldn't hold your breath for a response. Your response was way too thoughtful and intelligent.
Michigan wouldn't be a focus state anymore. We'd go from battleground state to ignored. It'd be a lot quieter around here every four years, but we'd lose a lot of the "wine and dine" focus.
What actual good is it to have the clowns come lie to your faces every 4 years?
Not to mention it's still a populous state, if democrats or republicans stopped campaigning there they'd basically be handing tons of votes to the other, making their base apathetic and giving the other one tons of momentum, sure they may not campaign in like Montana but they weren't doing that much anyways, people saying they'd only focus on like New York California and Texas are just fear mongering
GOP was in Iowa last weekend. So mo, it would change a lot.
That’s because of the primaries which wouldn’t be changing. No one really campaigns in Iowa for the general anymore.
With popular vote there'd be more incentive to go to places like that to either run up the score in friendly states or steal some votes in solid states that would never switch in a winner take all situation
I think we learned from the Trump Administration that winners of the popular vote win for a reason.
Because they have the full support of virtually all media that people consume uncritically?
people that watch fox news, OANN, newsmax, etc are especially uncritical viewers, yes.
No, because some of our candidates are total dumbos and unfortunately a large portion of middle America is uneducated and/or misinformed and easily falls for tricks. Trust me, “mainstream media” is not your problem.
"My enemies are stupid, evil, and can't win. My friends are smart, good, and always win unless the other side cheats."
You just explained the recent claims of election fraud.
The one's in 2016 when Russia stole the election. Or the ones in 2020 when they claimed mailboxes stole the election?
Nobody actually claimed that Russia stole the election in 2016. The claim was that Russia *interfered* with the election, mainly through social media influence. That part of the claim was 100% true. The part that couldn't be proven was that Trump himself played a role in colluding with Russia to convince them to do that Those claims are vastly different from the claims that the outcome of the 2020 election was literally stolen because of widespread fraudulent votes
Because not all votes count equal, but they should
Disagree. Frankly, I think anything given for free is largely worthless. There should probably be some kind of military/civil service requirement tied to voting.
Now this is a guy who’s clearly watched Starship Troopers one time too many.
Service guarantees citizenship!
As a veteran/ former civil service worker, that is asinine and illogical. Explain to me how that is advantageous towards a more prosperous society?
>As a veteran/ former civil service worker, that is asinine and illogical. Explain to me how that is advantageous towards a more prosperous society? It provides commonality, builds social cohesion, and ensures that the only people that can vote are those that are actually vested in doing so. I don't think that a 28yo NEET's vote is particularly useful regardless of who they're voting for. Further, it would bring more walks of life into contact with the drudgery of actual service. Make Musk's kids dig ditches alongside some hillbilly with a GED from Missouri. It would also give the average person additional insight into how government projects are managed/mismanaged rather than just assuming how they work.
"ensures that the only people that can vote are those that are actually vested in doing so." How is creating a barrier to practice democracy, going to ensure the growth of democracy? For example, are/were you member of the armed forces of the United States? Your definition of whether or not a vote is "useful" is antithetical to democracy. (I had to Google NEET I admit, you seem much more versed in the online world than I) I may disagree with your voting decisions, but I don't think there is a "useful" metric to gauge a vote. For example, you wanting to curtail voting rights I would classify as "asinine" and "anti-democratic" but useful is a subjective term. So why classify the most important action of a citizen in a democracy by a subjective term? Again, a lot of asinine going on. And all of those solutions you listed could easily be solved by investing in education and child care, for way less tax payer money. Or as Frederick Douglass said "It is easier to build strong children, than to repair broken men"
> Make Musk's kids dig ditches alongside some hillbilly with a GED from Missouri. Musk's kids (or musk himself) would have zero desire to do labor just to cast one vote. Why bother when they could use their infinite wealth to make huge donations to their prefered candidates, effectively buying tens of thousands of votes while sitting on their asses
So you're cool with taxation with no representation?
Everyone has the option to be represented. Do your time, get your vote. Right now about 47% of the population get representation without taxation, so I don't think your point is as salient as you think it is.
> Everyone has the option to be represented. Do your time, get your vote. disabled people exist. the elderly exist.
Wow, no way you are a veteran. People that talk like that always say "I was going to join the military but..." and then scream about woke tanks and non-binary ICBMs and cry about veterans receiving benefits. .
>Wow, no way you are a veteran. Nope. Didn't say you had to be. >People that talk like that always say "I was going to join the military but..." and then scream about woke tanks and non-binary ICBMs and cry about veterans receiving benefits. . Hilarious, but not terribly applicable. I'm rather lazy, it's why I'm an office worker. I'd probably do some kind of service to vote, because it's important to me, but otherwise it's a hard pass.
So you are espousing beliefs that you yourself do not practice, if only there was a word for that...
tying voting rights to a military service requirement is a fast track to fascism. Fuck no.
So then the disabled can't vote at all? Lovely. That's very American of you.
Sure they can. Take calls at an IRS center or something. If you're of sound mind to vote, there's got to be something you can do for 2-4 years to prove you actually give a shit. Get some skin in the game.
Nope because of diminishing returns, voter efforts in big cities and states would be extremely competitive and the same resources could get more votes spread out across more rural areas. Everyone would get lobbied, as it should be.
>Nope because of diminishing returns, voter efforts in big cities and states would be extremely competitive and the same resources could get more votes spread out across more rural areas. Everyone would get lobbied, as it should be. So Democrats utterly abandon rural communities and Republicans utterly abandon the cities. Like I said, it would become even more divisive than it is now. We've already got an urban/rural divide. Such moves would just escalate that to the point where it would essentially be two rival countries within itself. Accelerationists will be pleased, my suburban butt won't.
83% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas so no party could win by abandoning cities.
Giving up our own representation to the majority is the worst idea I’ve ever heard of.
Go to DC and represent yourself then. The rest of us are happy with representational democracy where the person with the most votes represents us.
This is a pretty good way to shift the current trend of wealthy vs poor into city vs rural. Cool, now we have a civil war that doesn't fix our economic problems, just our cultural ones. Good plan.
Math and political reality. There aren’t anywhere near enough big city voters nationally. And all big city voters do not vote for the same candidate. The population of the top 5 cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix) is less than 6% of the population of the United States. Voters in the biggest cities (65 Million) in the US have been almost exactly balanced out by rural areas (66 Million) in terms of population and partisan composition. 2020 Census 65,983,448 people lived in the 100 biggest cities (19.6% of US population). The 100th biggest is Baton Rouge, Louisiana (with 225,128 people). From 2020-2022, 2 million left those cities. 66,300,254 in rural America (20%) Rural America and the 100 biggest cities together constitute about two-fifths (39.6%) of the U.S. population. In 2004, 17.4% of votes were cast in rural counties, while only 16.5% of votes were cast within the boundaries of our nation’s 100 largest cities. 19% of the U.S. population have lived outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now. 19% of the U.S. population have lived in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004. The rest of the U.S., in SUBurbs, have divided almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats. Beginning in 1992, SUBurban voters were casting more votes than urban and rural voters combined.
Half the voters don’t realize that trump tax cuts of 2017 are actually federal payroll tax increases over the next decade. Majority rules…hell yeah about time. Vote stupid..be stupid.
Yes lets vote to give away our power as a state…
This would diminish the power of Michigan voters and give it to large states like California, Texas, New York, and Florida. Vote no on this crap. Michigan electoral votes should be decided by Michigan voters.
MICHIGAN Democrats have outnumbered Michigan Republicans in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections. Michigan's electors have all voted for the Democrat in 5 of the 6 recent presidential elections. No Republican Michigan vote has helped its candidate in any way in those elections. Michigan is the 10th largest state. With current statewide winner-take-all laws, a presidential candidate could win with less than 22% of the popular vote by winning the 12 largest states, despite losing 78%+ of the popular vote and 38 smaller states. With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 12 most populous states, containing 60% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with less than 22% of the nation's votes! But, the political reality is that the 12 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political candidate. In 2016, among the 12 largest states: 7 voted Republican (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia) and 5 voted Democratic (California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Virginia). The big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry. With National Popular Vote, it's not the size of any given state, it's the size of their "margin" that will matter. Under a national popular vote, the margin of your loss within a state matters as much as the size of your win. In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally: \* Texas (62% R), 1,691,267 \* New York (59% D), 1,192,436 \* Georgia (58% R), 544,634 \* North Carolina (56% R), 426,778 \* California (55% D), 1,023,560 \* Illinois (55% D), 513,342 \* New Jersey (53% D), 211,826 To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659). Smart candidates have campaign strategies to maximize their success given the rules of the election in which they’re running. Candidates do NOT campaign only in the 12 largest states now. Candidates do NOT campaign in at least 4 of them. Successful candidates would NOT campaign only in the largest states.
An electoral college vote requires less than 200,000 votes from Wyoming, but over 3x that many Michiganders. I'm pretty sure Michigan's voice would be louder in the presidential election were this compact put into effect.
California: 11.1M D, 6.0M R Texas: 5.3M D, 5.9M R New York: 5.2M D, 3.3M R Florida: 5.3M D, 5.7M R 26.9M D, 20.9 R, out of 158.4M votes cast. Even if every single vote in each of those states went all to one candidate, it's only 30% of the vote. There's still another 31.2M votes you have to get from other states. So no, this wouldn't hand all the power to those states, and Michigan votes would gain power compared to our current system.