California Assembly has voted to give all California's Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. If several of the larger States agree to this, it will effecitvely make the Electoral College obsolete. How many of you think this is a good idea? I sure do, since my presidential vote doesn't mean much here in California. Will this system pass Constitutional muster if implemented?
2006-09-05 05:43:46 · 12 answers · asked by tom_2727 5 in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
The bill in question is basically a compact where a group of states that represent a majority of electoral votes all agree to allocate them to the nationwide popular vote winner. It will not take effect until there are enough states to guarantee its effectiveness.
2006-09-05 06:15:13 · update #1
I think the effect of the agreement would be to force candidates to actually campaign nationwide instead of just a few battleground states like Iowa and Florida. 1 person = 1 vote. Sounds good to me.
2006-09-05 06:17:45 · update #2
Scrapping it, no. Fixing it, yes.
The national movement for the popular vote might pass constitutional muster, because nothing in the constitution requires electors to vote any particular way. They only require that the people choose electors, who then cast votes that they promised to cast.
However, here's where the analysis runs into a problem. The electors are all promising to vote the same way, based on whatever the rest of the country does. So, in effect, the people who are voting are no longer picking electors, because there is no longer any choice between electors. All electors are going to vote the same way, based on what other people do, regardless of how the people who voted for them vote. That's arguably a violation of the spirit of the election process.
But then again, so is the current system. In almost all states, the electors vote for whoever won the popular vote in the state. In other words, I am not picking electors now anyway. I am telling the state what electors I want, and the state picks all the electors based on whoever gets the highest vote in the state. That's just as much a problem as the national model.
And neither are a solution to the real issue, which is that the current system only ever counts the votes of the highest candidate per state, and ignores all other votes. The solution is to address the problem.
Rather than an all-or-nothing model for state assignment of electors, electors should be allocated pro-rata based on percentage of vote for each candidate.
Under the current system, one candidate could place second in all fifty states, and first could be equally split between two other candidates, and even though the candidate that got the second place wins had the most total votes, they would get zero electoral votes.
The national model addresses that problem, in some but not all situations. However, it still faces the constitutional hurdle that the electors are not basing their vote on what the voters in their state tell them to do. Proportional electoral balloting is just as easily implemented, and faces no constitutional hurdles because it conforms to both the spirit and the letter of the constitution.
2006-09-05 05:45:21 · answer #1 · answered by coragryph 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
States have the right to apportion their electoral votes but the electoral college will never be scrapped.
The electoral college as it is presently works very well.
It is designed for a reason.
The Founding Fathers did not want elections swayed by a mob or by a handful of small states.
If we scrap the Electoral College the ENTIRE country would become one election district. The Florida 2000 result was basically a tie and it was up to Florida to decide the outcome. But, the national electoral vote was decided by less than 0.5%
Imagine if the whole country had to go through a recount? It would be an utter disaster. In 2000, 49 states had clear elections but only one state was close.
There have been many close elections (in terms of popular vote) before; 1968 and 1960 instantly come to mind.
The Electoral College has been good for America. A knee-jerk reaction might want to scrap it but that's not thinking things through.
2006-09-05 05:55:25 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
The constitution does not specify how each state allocates its electors. While most states use a winner take all (of the state vote) system, a few use a proportional method, again of the state vote. For a state to base its allocation on the national vote would be foolish for several reasons: 1) it would diminish the power of a state, especially one like california with 54 electors; 2) it makes an end run around the constitution; and 3) it reduces the incentive to vote.
Bad idea all around and likely unconstitutional.
2006-09-05 05:52:45 · answer #3 · answered by mzJakes 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You asked about making the electoral college obsolete, but you didn't suggest anything to take its place.
If elections for federal offices were left up to which candidate would get the most votes over all, all campaigning would be done in three or four of the States with that have the highest populations. All other States would be ignored.
The electoral college is not perfect, but up 'till now nothing better has been dreamed up or suggested.
2006-09-05 06:02:44 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope. It is called out in Article Two of the Constitution.
Your idea makes sense only if states representing a majority of the electoral vote were to implement it. As it is, it has the effect of disenfranchising California voters, and would likely fail any judicial challenge on those grounds.
2006-09-05 05:52:03 · answer #5 · answered by JerH1 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Electoral College is necessary to prevent the most populous states from having too much influence on national elections. It is that simple. Without it, the 10 most populated states would basically decide who would win the national elections. Not exactly fair.
The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing.
2006-09-05 06:19:08 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe the Constitution says that they can distribute the votes any way they want. The real problem is the winner-take-all system. Winning by a few votes gets a large block of votes and cancels out landslides in other states.
2006-09-05 06:32:20 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The allocation of electoral votes is up to the states. It shouldn't have any constitutional hurdles. And you are right, if all the big states did this then the electoral collage would be nullified.
2006-09-05 05:47:16 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
It probably wouldn't and shouldn't. The Elecotral College was one of the most brilliant creations of the Founding Fathers. It ensures that a national candidate will meet the needs of the country at large, rather than just the cities of New York and LA.
2006-09-05 05:46:27 · answer #9 · answered by rustyshackleford001 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It could, as it is outmoded and would force candidates to deal will all parts of the nation
2006-09-05 05:45:48 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋