How the electoral college ruins everything

[mvymvy]

Because each state has independent power to award its electoral votes in the manner it sees fit, it is difficult to see what "adverse effect" might be claimed by one state from the decision of another state to award its electoral votes in a particular way. It is especially unclear what adverse "political" effect might be claimed, given that the National Popular Vote compact would treat votes cast in all 50 states and the District of Columbia equally. A vote cast in a compacting state is, in every way, equal to a vote cast in a non-compacting state. The National Popular Vote compact does not confer any advantage on states belonging to the compact as compared to non-compacting states. A vote cast in a compacting state would be, in every way, equal to a vote cast in a non-compacting state. The National Popular Vote compact certainly would not reduce the voice of voters in non-compacting states relative to the voice of voters in member states.

The electoral votes of the non-compacting states would continue to be cast in the manner specified by the laws of those states. The electoral votes of the non-compacting states would continue to be counted in the Electoral College in the manner provided by the Constitution. In practical terms, that means that the non-compacting states would continue to cast their votes for the winner of the statewide popular vote (or district-wide popular vote in Maine and Nebraska) after the National Popular Vote compact is implemented. No non-compacting state would be compelled to cast its electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote.

 

[SwimExpert]

A Constitutional Republic does not require having the Electoral College.

Yeah, so? That does nothing to invalidate her point.

California has a population of 39 million, and 55 electoral votes. In other words, each electoral vote represents about 700,000 people.

Wyoming has a population of just under 600,000 people, and 3 electoral votes. In other words, each electoral vote represents 200,000 people.

In that sense, one vote in Wyoming is the same as 3.5 votes in California.

Without the electoral college the small states might as well not even vote.
We can't have the high population states telling the small states what to do... hence the electoral college.

With a national popular vote, every single vote in every state would be equal.

I'm not arguing for that, by the way.

The smaller states do not have the same number of electors as large states. California has 55. Wyoming 3.

California has a population of 39 million, and 55 electoral votes. In other words, each electoral vote represents about 700,000 people.

Wyoming has a population of just under 600,000 people, and 3 electoral votes. In other words, each electoral vote represents 200,000 people.

In that sense, one vote in Wyoming is the same as 3.5 votes in California.

Without the electoral college the small states might as well not even vote.
We can't have the high population states telling the small states what to do... hence the electoral college.

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 the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that 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.

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% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 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).

Yeah, so?

WITH the electoral college, with your assumption that all big states would all be won by the same candidate, the small states could have no influence in a presidential election,

Because, in reality, not all big states are won by the same candidate, high population states would not be telling the small states what to do, with or without state-by-state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states).

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country. It does not abolish the Electoral College.

The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states.

Blah, blah, blah. Your entire argument boils down to saying that only the winning votes 'matter.' It's a ridiculous argument.

 

[candycorn]

The Electoral College is why we have a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy.
The left has never liked that the less inhabited States have a voice as well as the majority.

I am not the left but I also don't see how not having every vote actually count is even close to being legit

The EC has nothing to do with being a const republic. I was a tool put in place by the founding elite to keep us from electing a King or Tyrant. The SENATE is what protects the smaller states.

How does it do that? The EC I mean.

By giving the smaller states the same number of reps as large states.

No....Another hysterical reaction.
The EC votes should be apportioned by the number of precincts going to each candidate. Not winner take all.
I distinctly remember the left wing screeching about the EC after the 2000 election.

ON this point, you're right.

This is why the only modification I've endorsed is to make the President-elect win BOTH the EC and the popular vote. To date; I have not heard many sane arguments against the provision.

There are only 538 electors in the country, not enough to award them by precinct winners.

Not sure what that matters since we don't have precincts recognized federally.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

Not sure about that...there is considerable math involved but it would be tantamount to saying that the electoral college winner almost always wins the popular vote. I think it hasn't happened something like 4 times in 230 years. Every 1 out of 35 elections or thereabouts is a pretty good system.

The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states.

Curious; what do you do if we (hopefully) some day end up with 4 or 5 parties and someone gets 36% of the vote while others get less. Do you want the President elected with 36% of the vote? Because unless you're talking about nationwide run-offs that will have a miniscule amount of electorate participation, this is the prospect you're recommending.

 

[candycorn]

The Electoral College is why we have a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy.
The left has never liked that the less inhabited States have a voice as well as the majority.

I am not the left but I also don't see how not having every vote actually count is even close to being legit

The EC has nothing to do with being a const republic. I was a tool put in place by the founding elite to keep us from electing a King or Tyrant. The SENATE is what protects the smaller states.

How does it do that? The EC I mean.

By giving the smaller states the same number of reps as large states.

No....Another hysterical reaction.
The EC votes should be apportioned by the number of precincts going to each candidate. Not winner take all.
I distinctly remember the left wing screeching about the EC after the 2000 election.

ON this point, you're right.

This is why the only modification I've endorsed is to make the President-elect win BOTH the EC and the popular vote. To date; I have not heard many sane arguments against the provision.

There are only 538 electors in the country, not enough to award them by precinct winners.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states.

What is wrong with requiring the President Elect get 270 (Majority) of EVs along with the plurality (more than anyone else) of the Pop vote?

 

[candycorn]

Gore would have been potus instead of W. Whether that would have been better, I don't know. If not for 9-11, W would have been a one termer. I wouldn't even dare to guess what Gore would have done with 9-11. Hell, he might even have been impeached.

We would have more Americans alive today than grieving fathers and mothers. I'm guessing we'd have been better off if GWB had stuck to ruining a baseball team than the nation.

How can you be sure? One scenario would have been Gore pussyfooting after the attack, inviting MORE attacks just like it.

See? I can make wild statements the same as you can.

All we know is what happened and it was a disaster. Any other path appears to be preferable.

PS: The month after 9/11 the hijackers had their visas renewed by Bush's state department. True story bro. The flight schools received letters stating that they were good to go:

CNN.com - Six months after Sept. 11, hijackers' visa approval letters received - March 13, 2002

The mythology that Bush was some sort of terrorist hunter is a cartoon that only fools believe.

You partisan stripes show clearly, as you know that "any other path appears preferable" is a wild ass guess, much like my wild ass guess.

President Gore might have done a quick few missiles and done like Clinton tried, and maybe that would have emboldened Bin Ladin and his minions to try a few other high scale attacks.

So to sum up, you think 4,500 dead Americans and about 36 million +/- Iraqis and Afghans that hate our guts is preferable to a "what if". Gotcha. Do they have Christmas on your home planet? If so, have a Merry one.

 

[candycorn]

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80%+ of the states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee on April 11. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

National Popular Vote -- Electoral college reform by direct election of the President

So instead you would have candidates ignoring the small states instead of the big ones.

One fix would be to eliminate "all or nothing" voting in the EC, with each house EC vote being based on districts, and the two senate EC votes based on the State results.

So 100 EV's equally distributed among the States, and 435 by congressional district (plus the 3 for DC).

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

 

[mvymvy]

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80%+ of the states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee on April 11. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

National Popular Vote -- Electoral college reform by direct election of the President

So instead you would have candidates ignoring the small states instead of the big ones.

One fix would be to eliminate "all or nothing" voting in the EC, with each house EC vote being based on districts, and the two senate EC votes based on the State results.

So 100 EV's equally distributed among the States, and 435 by congressional district (plus the 3 for DC).

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

 

[SwimExpert]

So instead you would have candidates ignoring the small states instead of the big ones.

One fix would be to eliminate "all or nothing" voting in the EC, with each house EC vote being based on districts, and the two senate EC votes based on the State results.

So 100 EV's equally distributed among the States, and 435 by congressional district (plus the 3 for DC).

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

You must be an angsty teenager..

 

[mvymvy]

I am not the left but I also don't see how not having every vote actually count is even close to being legit
How does it do that? The EC I mean.

By giving the smaller states the same number of reps as large states.

No....Another hysterical reaction.
The EC votes should be apportioned by the number of precincts going to each candidate. Not winner take all.
I distinctly remember the left wing screeching about the EC after the 2000 election.

ON this point, you're right.

This is why the only modification I've endorsed is to make the President-elect win BOTH the EC and the popular vote. To date; I have not heard many sane arguments against the provision.

There are only 538 electors in the country, not enough to award them by precinct winners.

Not sure what that matters since we don't have precincts recognized federally.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

Not sure about that...there is considerable math involved but it would be tantamount to saying that the electoral college winner almost always wins the popular vote. I think it hasn't happened something like 4 times in 230 years. Every 1 out of 35 elections or thereabouts is a pretty good system.

The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states.

Curious; what do you do if we (hopefully) some day end up with 4 or 5 parties and someone gets 36% of the vote while others get less. Do you want the President elected with 36% of the vote? Because unless you're talking about nationwide run-offs that will have a miniscule amount of electorate participation, this is the prospect you're recommending.

A previous poster said:
"The EC votes should be apportioned by the number of precincts going to each candidate"

& & &

There is not considerable math involved.
It is not tantamount to saying that the electoral college winner almost always wins the popular vote.
The popular vote winner would always win the Electoral College.
The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

& & &

1 in 14, not 1 in 35.
Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) in 48 states, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation's 57 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. In 2012, a shift of 214,733 popular votes in four states would have elected Mitt Romney, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of 4,966,945 votes.

After the 2012 election, Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."

Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

& & &

With the current system of electing the President, none of the states requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state's or district’s electoral votes.

Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation's 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.

If an Electoral College type of arrangement were essential for avoiding a proliferation of candidates and people being elected with low percentages of the vote, we should see evidence of these conjectured outcomes in elections that do not employ such an arrangement. In elections in which the winner is the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by that office, historical evidence shows that there is no massive proliferation of third-party candidates and candidates do not win with small percentages. For example, in 905 elections for governor in the last 60 years, the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote in over 91% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 45% of the vote in 98% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 40% of the vote in 99% of the elections. No winning candidate received less than 35% of the popular vote.

Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote.-- including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912 and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).

And, FYI, with the current system of awarding electoral votes by state winner-take-all (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a plurality of the popular vote in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes.

 

[candycorn]

So instead you would have candidates ignoring the small states instead of the big ones.

One fix would be to eliminate "all or nothing" voting in the EC, with each house EC vote being based on districts, and the two senate EC votes based on the State results.

So 100 EV's equally distributed among the States, and 435 by congressional district (plus the 3 for DC).

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

So instead you would have candidates ignoring the small states instead of the big ones.

One fix would be to eliminate "all or nothing" voting in the EC, with each house EC vote being based on districts, and the two senate EC votes based on the State results.

So 100 EV's equally distributed among the States, and 435 by congressional district (plus the 3 for DC).

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

Yeah..the fact that it hasn't happened is an indication of "up the ladder" action being needed. Again, it's easy to argue in theory and academia. It's a much more serious matter if there was some real consequences to this.

 

[Care4all]

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80%+ of the states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee on April 11. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

National Popular Vote -- Electoral college reform by direct election of the President

So instead you would have candidates ignoring the small states instead of the big ones.

One fix would be to eliminate "all or nothing" voting in the EC, with each house EC vote being based on districts, and the two senate EC votes based on the State results.

So 100 EV's equally distributed among the States, and 435 by congressional district (plus the 3 for DC).

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

It's still just an end run around the constitution. If you want to change how electors are selected, you need to go with an amendment.

The States who don't want this can easily sue, and they would have standing to stop any of this.

Not if the State does it....My State does it, and it does not need a constitutional amendment to make it ok, it's been ok for over 100 years...?

 

[mvymvy]

A Constitutional Republic does not require having the Electoral College.

Yeah, so? That does nothing to invalidate her point.

Without the electoral college the small states might as well not even vote.
We can't have the high population states telling the small states what to do... hence the electoral college.

With a national popular vote, every single vote in every state would be equal.

I'm not arguing for that, by the way.

California has a population of 39 million, and 55 electoral votes. In other words, each electoral vote represents about 700,000 people.

Wyoming has a population of just under 600,000 people, and 3 electoral votes. In other words, each electoral vote represents 200,000 people.

In that sense, one vote in Wyoming is the same as 3.5 votes in California.

Without the electoral college the small states might as well not even vote.
We can't have the high population states telling the small states what to do... hence the electoral college.

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 the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that 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.

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% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 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).

Yeah, so?

WITH the electoral college, with your assumption that all big states would all be won by the same candidate, the small states could have no influence in a presidential election,

Because, in reality, not all big states are won by the same candidate, high population states would not be telling the small states what to do, with or without state-by-state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states).

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country. It does not abolish the Electoral College.

The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states.

Blah, blah, blah. Your entire argument boils down to saying that only the winning votes 'matter.' It's a ridiculous argument.

It's true. Show me how a Republican voter in California matters in a presidential election. Show me how a Democratic voter in Texas matters in a presidential election. The presidential election results in their states would not change if they did not vote. Their candidates do not benefit in any way from their votes.

Minority party voters in each state have their votes counted only for the presidential candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate.

In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to presidential candidates.
Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone 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).
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).

 

[mvymvy]

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

Wouldn't that make it subject to State gerrymandering?

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

Yeah..the fact that it hasn't happened is an indication of "up the ladder" action being needed. Again, it's easy to argue in theory and academia. It's a much more serious matter if there was some real consequences to this.

Since its origination in 2006, the National Popular Vote bill has been introduced in legislatures in all 50 states.
More than 2,110 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the National Popular Vote bill.
It is a state law. It can only be enacted by states. There is no other scenario for it to go into effect.

It's not theoretical or academic. When states with 270 electoral votes enact it, there will be real consequences.
The bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.
That's what most Americans want.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate, as in virtually every other election in the country.

National Popular Vote did not invent popular elections. Having election results determined by the candidate getting the most individual votes is not some scary, untested idea.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Wow...I wonder what the outcome of every election WOULD have been if the EC wasn't a factor.

This sort of contempt for our Republican form of government by many on the right is disturbing.

Actually, it tends to be Democrats who advocate getting rid of the EC.

 

[candycorn]

A previous poster said:
"The EC votes should be apportioned by the number of precincts going to each candidate"

There are no Federal Precincts. Perhaps they would be referring to Congressional Districts????

& & &

There is not considerable math involved.
It is not tantamount to saying that the electoral college winner almost always wins the popular vote.
The popular vote winner would always win the Electoral College.
The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

Seems pointless but, okay. If you're just going to have a national popular vote, why go through the charade of the EV?

& & &

1 in 14, not 1 in 35.
Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) in 48 states, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation's 57 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. In 2012, a shift of 214,733 popular votes in four states would have elected Mitt Romney, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of 4,966,945 votes.

After the 2012 election, Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."

MY bad on the mathematics....

Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

The election of the President isn't like any other election.

& & &

With the current system of electing the President, none of the states requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state's or district’s electoral votes.

Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation's 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.

If an Electoral College type of arrangement were essential for avoiding a proliferation of candidates and people being elected with low percentages of the vote, we should see evidence of these conjectured outcomes in elections that do not employ such an arrangement. In elections in which the winner is the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by that office, historical evidence shows that there is no massive proliferation of third-party candidates and candidates do not win with small percentages. For example, in 905 elections for governor in the last 60 years, the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote in over 91% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 45% of the vote in 98% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 40% of the vote in 99% of the elections. No winning candidate received less than 35% of the popular vote.

Which is a testament to the strength of the two parties. We can't have a "what if". And your 9% of 905 elections is what, 99 elections in 60 years (or about 2 per year on average)....

Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote.-- including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912 and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).

And, FYI, with the current system of awarding electoral votes by state winner-take-all (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a plurality of the popular vote in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes.

Well, the reality of the situation is much different than your well-presented argument. Again, live ammo is much different than academic arguments:

Here is what would happen:

You think there is too much money in the process now?

Just wait until you force (lets use HRC and Donald Trump since they are leading most polls in the current contest) these two to go for every available vote nationwide. If you want to see real pandering to every deep pocket in the world, put LA, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, NYC, Chicago, Atlanta, and Boston ad markets into play. Now, this would be offset a little by candidates spending less in Santa Fe and Des Moines but the amounts these metropolitan areas charge dwarf those of the states that are in play now. It costs much more to run an ad on TV in Syracuse than it does in Santa Fe.

You can kiss any state West of Kansas goodbye in many elections.

According to the Federal Election Commission, 129,085,410 votes were cast for President in 2012. Roseann Barr got 67,000 votes by the way.
Page 5
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2012/federalelections2012.pdf

Ok, I took the Eastern States (not even all of them---you won't find VT, KY, DE, RI, KY, WV, DC, OK, NE, KS, ND, IA, MO, SD, MN, WI or MD on the list) and added up the total number of votes cast by those states in the 2012 Presidential election. Just the 21 States listed below (most of which are East of the Mississippi--not even in the Midwest)...and here are the results:

Page 6:
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2012/federalelections2012.pdf

AL 2,074,338
AR 1,069,468
CT 1,558,960
FL 8,474,179
GA 3,900,050
IL 5,242,014
OH 5,580,847
IN 2,624,534
NJ 3,640,292
NH 710,972
LA 1,994,065
MA 3,167,767
ME 713,180
MI 4,730,961
MS 1,285,584
NY 7,081,159
PA 5,753,670
SC 1,964,118
TN 2,458,577
TX 7,993,851
VA 3,854,589

The total number is 75,873,175 votes. Well over 50% of the electorate would have cast their ballot by 5:00 PM Pacific Time. In an odd year when you have a super charismatic type from California or the Rockies, you may see some skewing but most elections will be over by the time a barista gets off of work in Beacon Hill.

And this number will only grow (as stated) when Hillary and Donald and their billion dollar super PACs start blanketing previously largely ignored areas like Atlanta, New Orleans, Nashville, NYC, Syracuse, Buffalo, Boston, Lexington, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Indianapolis, with wall to wall TV, Radio, and Print ads.

You're environment would simply give us a whole new set of States that are ignored.

North Carolina wasn't in the list either above. NC had more votes by itself than NV, MT, ID, UT, WY, HI, and AK combined. IF you are HRC or DJT, it's a much better buy to run ads in Charlotte, Asheville, Raleigh/Duram/Greensboro than to try to get every vote in these low-population states.

Most Americans are a shade of purple, not Red or Blue.
Despite what the neat maps show us, most Americans are purple with some liberal and some conservative stances. I have a lot of these myself. Any hope that a 3rd party may have ever harbored would be sent packing by getting rid of the Electoral College as we know it. Not that they have a great chance now but money will be the only thing that matters in the environment you're proposing. Competing nationally would be ruinous to any insurgency. Broad based 3rd parties such as "no labels" would fare only marginally better since, again, money would be the key and the competition from the two major parties will certainly dry up any resources that are up for grabs.

 

[candycorn]

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

Just like the House is subject to the same thing. What it would do is let the urban areas of Red States and the Rural areas of Blue States to actually have a say, without scrapping the EC entirely, AND preserving a small advantage for smaller States through the winner take all +2 EV's from Senators.

So California would give mostly Blue, but some Red, Texas mostly Red but some Blue.

If an amendment would be passed forcing the States to do this (only way it would be fair) some formula for population vs district size would have to be included.

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

Yeah..the fact that it hasn't happened is an indication of "up the ladder" action being needed. Again, it's easy to argue in theory and academia. It's a much more serious matter if there was some real consequences to this.

Since its origination in 2006, the National Popular Vote bill has been introduced in legislatures in all 50 states.
More than 2,110 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the National Popular Vote bill.
It is a state law. It can only be enacted by states. There is no other scenario for it to go into effect.

It's not theoretical or academic. When states with 270 electoral votes enact it, there will be real consequences.
The bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.
That's what most Americans want.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate, as in virtually every other election in the country.

National Popular Vote did not invent popular elections. Having election results determined by the candidate getting the most individual votes is not some scary, untested idea.

Yes, again, when the vote was taken, there was no downside since its not going to be enacted. Its like trying your jump serve in the first match of a best 2-3 VBall. If you ace it, great. If it's a netter; you haven't risked anything except the side-out. If you told most of the people that the vote they cast would likely result in a total tsunami of political spending (which it would do), marginalize any State that doesn't have a large population (which it will) and force any serious candidate to pander as never before (which is hard to believe but would be the result) , they'd think twice about it.

I agree, having it is not scary. What is scary is the environment you're endorsing hasn't been thought out in 2016 realities. I discuss that in another post. I welcome your rebuttal.

 

[SwimExpert]

It's true. Show me how a Republican voter in California matters in a presidential election. Show me how a Democratic voter in Texas matters in a presidential election. The presidential election results in their states would not change if they did not vote. Their candidates do not benefit in any way from their votes.

A Democratic voter in Texas matters just as much as a Mitt Romney voter anywhere mattered in 2012.

 

[mvymvy]

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

The National Popular Vote bill would not "scrap" the Electoral College at all.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

A constitutional amendment could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

California has enacted the National Popular Vote bill.

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

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts.In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that 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. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Pfft....this is going to sound degrading and I don't mean for it to be....

Did you notice that in President Obama's first term, the GOP could not pass enough bills to repeal Obama Care? In his second term starting in 2012, these guys went out of their way to pass even more bills for the new members who didn't get to vote on it the first time. And, if I recall, in some cases there were unsettled elections that prevented even more members from having the opportunity to cast a vote against it so they staged yet more votes to repeal it. After they got control of the Congress in 2014; they have done it once.

Do you know why?

It's easy to play with blanks. They knew that there would be no downside to their actions so they went crazy and staged as many pointless votes as possible. Now that they have some actual influence, they're being much more careful about how they cast their votes. The People will expect them to come up with something better and they have nothing.

Not to disparage your research and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it but the "so many states have done X" argument is not really something you want to hang your hat on since this is something that had zero chance of going any further up the ladder.

There is no "up the ladder" action needed if/when states with 270 electoral votes enact the National Popular Vote bill.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

In total, the bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes (20 votes short), including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

Yeah..the fact that it hasn't happened is an indication of "up the ladder" action being needed. Again, it's easy to argue in theory and academia. It's a much more serious matter if there was some real consequences to this.

Since its origination in 2006, the National Popular Vote bill has been introduced in legislatures in all 50 states.
More than 2,110 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the National Popular Vote bill.
It is a state law. It can only be enacted by states. There is no other scenario for it to go into effect.

It's not theoretical or academic. When states with 270 electoral votes enact it, there will be real consequences.
The bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.
That's what most Americans want.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate, as in virtually every other election in the country.

National Popular Vote did not invent popular elections. Having election results determined by the candidate getting the most individual votes is not some scary, untested idea.

Yes, again, when the vote was taken, there was no downside since its not going to be enacted. Its like trying your jump serve in the first match of a best 2-3 VBall. If you ace it, great. If it's a netter; you haven't risked anything except the side-out. If you told most of the people that the vote they cast would likely result in a total tsunami of political spending (which it would do), marginalize any State that doesn't have a large population (which it will) and force any serious candidate to pander as never before (which is hard to believe but would be the result) , they'd think twice about it.

I agree, having it is not scary. What is scary is the environment you're endorsing hasn't been thought out in 2016 realities. I discuss that in another post. I welcome your rebuttal.

Presidential candidates currently do everything within their power to raise as much money as they possibly can from donors throughout the country. They then allocate their time and the money that they raise nationally to places where it will do the most good toward their goal of winning the election.

Money doesn't grow on trees. The fact that candidates would spend their money more broadly (that is, in all 50 states and DC) would not, in itself, loosen up the wallet of a single donor anywhere in the country. Candidates will continue to try to raise as much money as economic considerations permit. Economic considerations by donors determines how much money will be available, not the existence of an increases number of places where the money might be spent.

Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided "battleground" states and their voters. There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win. 10 of the original 13 states are ignored now. Four out of five Americans were ignored in the 2012 presidential election. That's precisely what they should do in order to get elected with the current system, because the voters of 80% of the states simply don't matter. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the concerns of voters in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. Over 85 million voters, more than 200 million Americans, were ignored.

In the 2012 presidential election, 1.3 million votes decided the winner in the ten states with the closest margins of victory.

Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire (with 86 electoral votes among them) is not a foregone conclusion. So, if the National Popular Vote bill is not in effect, less than a handful of states will continue to dominate and determine the presidential general election.

The indefensible reality is that more than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states in 2012.
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).

If every voter mattered throughout the United States, as it would under a national popular vote, candidates would reallocate their time and the money they raise.

 

[mvymvy]

In a nationwide election for President, candidates would campaign everywhere—big cities, medium-sized cities, and rural areas—in proportion to the number of votes, just as they now do in only the handful of battleground states.

A nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.

The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.

 

[mvymvy]

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 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that 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.

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% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 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).