States join forces against electoral college

[gristy]

A piecemeal approach may be the only way to kill the anachronistic institution.
June 5, 2006

A PROPOSED EXPERIMENT with majority rule has generated plenty of naysayers who apparently think that some nations are simply too immature to let people directly choose their own leaders. But we say the United States is ready for real democracy.

The experiment is the National Popular Vote campaign, which intends to undermine the Constitution's anachronistic Electoral College. If the campaign succeeds, future presidents will take office only if they win the popular vote nationwide.

The ingenious scheme was developed by John R. Koza, a Stanford professor who also invented the scratch-off lottery ticket. It calls on state legislatures to pass a measure dictating that all the electoral votes from that state go to the winner of the national popular vote. It goes into effect only if enough states approve it to represent a majority of the electoral votes. In other words, if states that represent at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes all approve the measure, the winner of the popular vote nationwide would automatically win the presidency. It thus renders the Electoral College moot without eliminating it.

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-college05jun05,0,3651999.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

[iconoclastic cat]

1. Do that and instant runoff voting,

with paper ballots, and then you'll see the Repubs vanish.

[Strawman]

2. That is a smart idea

"It goes into effect only if enough states approve it to represent a majority of the electoral votes. In other words, if states that represent at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes all approve the measure, the winner of the popular vote nationwide would automatically win the presidency."

When I first heard about this idea, it didn't makes sense, but that contingency makes it work.

[Ready4Change]

3. I'm all for it.

Now if we could only trust the voting systems themselves.

[emlev]

4. You said it.

[msongs]

5. THAT is exactly why it is a BAD idea ->

California would give us all away to a winner that might well be determined by massive fraud in other states, and we would not know it.

then again, the democrats in the CA legislature overwhelmingly voted to approve a republican as Secretary of State, so maybe this is consistent.

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art

[gristy]

6. But the scale of fraud required to tip the popular vote is so much greater

than to just tip one or two swing states. I think this is a good idea.