Is It Time To Rethink The Electoral College?

[thomhartmann]

[liberal N proud]

1. Everyone forgets that our Presidential Elections are not a single election

Unlike other democratic countries who have a national election to elect their leader, we have state elections. Elections run by the state and decided at the state level, whoever wins that state gets the electoral votes for that state.

[maddiemom]

2. Yes!

We need to get rid of it entirely! Bush VS Gore should have made it obvious.

[mvymvy]

3. We are already 61% of the way to a National Popular Vote

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.

There have been hundreds of unsuccessful proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College - more than any other subject of Constitutional reform. To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.

Instead, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes, the National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes.
No more handful of 'battleground' states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support among voters) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

The 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 34 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 261 electoral votes.
The bill has been enacted by 11 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

National Popular Vote

[ancianita]

4. The national popular vote is a great idea. Maybe not end the EC, but suspend it for two cycles

to see how the new popular vote system works.

[mvymvy]

6. NPV Would Not "End" or "Suspend" the Constitutionally Mandated Electoral College

The National Popular Vote bill does not end the Electoral College, the set of 538 dedicated party activists we vote for, who vote as rubberstamps for presidential candidates.

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.

Every voter would be equal and matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes would win, as in virtually every other election in the country.

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

We would continue to indirectly elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states

[forest444]

5. Not too many countries use them any more - especially since the Bush v. Gore debacle.

And which countries still elect their Head of Government this way? Let's see: Burundi, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar (Burma), Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, and Vanuatu.

With the possible exception of Estonia, these are not exactly paragons of democracy.

[Evergreen Emerald]

7. No. If Donald Trump has done anything

Its to reinforce the idea that we need a back up help save us from ourselves.