A Plan to Reform the Electoral College
by Roger StoneIn 2000, when Al Gore out polled George W. Bush in the popular vote but was bested by Bush in the Electoral College to become President, it became clear we need Electoral College reform. In Adams vs.Jackson in 1824, Hayes over Tilden in 1876 and Harrison over Cleveland in 1888, the loser of the Electoral College won more popular votes than the candidate who became President.
The answer is not in direct popular election, which puts a premium on ACORN- style voter fraud and vote buying – staples of big city Democrat machines. I propose we scrap the Electoral College and preserve the electoral count and apportion it based on the popular vote in each state.
The proponents of a constitutional amendment that would mandate a direct popular election would hand our elections over to union-funded operatives who engage in voter fraud and vote stealing. Andrew Breitbart has accurately highlighted the incredible electoral frauds perpetrated by ACORN and I have written extensively about the shady and illegal voter fraud activities of New York’s left-wing Working Families Party (WFP).
Well-meaning reformers who propose a direct popular election will inadvertently put a premium on voter fraud and corruption. There is a better way: the Stone Electoral College Reform Plan which Congress could put on the ballot with a two-thirds vote. Under my electoral reform proposal, each state is first apportioned two votes, one for each Senator – the Federal principle of balancing the rights of big and small states – and then one vote each for each House member, reflecting population size and majority rule. Each state’s total number is divided proportionally in the tally based on percent of the votes received by each candidate.
To illustrate my proposal, if you preserve the electoral vote as a counting device, in a state with ten electoral votes, eight would represent the Congressmen (that is, population) and two would represent the Senators (that is, the federal principle). If the Republicans, for example, received 30 percent of the popular vote in a presidential election, they would get three out of the state’s ten electoral votes and the Democrats would get seven. Under the present system, the Democrats would get 10 – winner take all.
My plan favors neither party and protects the interests of big and small states alike. It is simple and fair and protects the rights of the the minority. And history proves it is necessary.
In 1948, John Dewey carried New York over Harry Truman – 46 to 45 percent – with lefty Henry Wallace draining “Give ‘em Hell” Harry, but Dewey got all 47 Electoral College votes. Under the current system, electors who are political hacks not even bound by law to vote for the candidate the voters selected. In 1960, one elector from Virginia voted for segregationist Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. rather than vote for Nixon or Kennedy. The current system could lead to more mischief.
If no candidate earns a majority in our current system, the decision is thrown to the House where each state has one vote. Again they are not bound to vote for any candidate. The wheeling, dealing and inside politics could select a President with no need for a popular election majority. The horse- trading to swing the votes within each big or small state would be fierce, and small states have the same vote as big states.
The likely result – scandal and deadlock – is not possible under my plan. With all votes being apportioned and reflected, the entire popular vote will be reflected and someone will earn a majority. A Congressional scandal can be avoided.
The Electoral College was actually a gathering (usually at the state capitol building and usually in January) of so-called presidential electors – persons chosen in the November election. At the Electoral College meeting, these electors are supposed to vote precisely as the people have voted but they are not legally bound to do so. On occasion, some of them cast votes contrary to their voters’ choice.
Several Republican electors from Alaska voted for the Libertarian candidate for President rather than Richard Nixon in 1972. My proposal would eliminate anti-voter shenanigans by rogue electors and insure the will of the people was reflected in the awarding of electoral votes
The Stone Plan for a constitutional amendment to reform the electoral system exactly as I have outlined actually passed the US Senate, when sponsored by the redoubtable Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., by an amazing two-thirds vote of 64 to 23 in 1950. It failed in the US House.
My proposal could garner the votes from Senators and Congressmen in small states who are likewise disadvantaged under a strict popular vote system. Under our current system, no candidate for President will travel to Vermont, Montana or Rhode Island unless it’s for money.
Under the Stone Plan, no state could have less than three electoral votes and even these could be apportioned.
Electoral College reform as I have outlined it is fair and disadvantages no group or party in our presidential elections. The time for Electoral College reform is now.
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86 Comments
I am absolutely opposed to this idea.
May 27, 2011
To the Editor:
Recently a letter appeared that called forth a citizen to get his or her name on the ballot, and represent the Republican Party without, in fact, standing for the values and principles of that of a Democrat. He closes his letter with a commendable and a very funny line that I enjoyed reading. It brought a smile to my face in it’s sheer honesty. I’d like to take a moment to try to assuage him, and others, who share that frustration and allay the fears of others that the end is nye, and the only way we can stop our collective destruction are by getting people to behave honestly as they seek public office via the ballot. Because that’s never going to happen.
During the founding of our Constitutional Republic it’s safe to say that people did not always tell the truth. Not by a long shot. So if you are setting up a system of governance that would try to force future generations to work towards the common good, and not the good of a future King, or President, what would you do? Well, one of the things you could do is create concepts such as system of federalism, and a bi-cameral legislature that could turn over every two years. You would secure a citizens right to speak their minds without fear of reprisal, and you’d give them the ability to “keep and bear arms” to give their pen a few extra teeth. Those Libyans, Yemenis, and Syrians fighting against murdering dictators are not writing letters to the editor.
Let’s hone in on this bi-cameral legislature concept. The House of Representatives is apportioned by population. As a states population rises the control over the “peoples house” grows, and as it falls we lose influence, while the representation in the Senate remains the same at two senators per State. To pass any law both chambers must agree on the language of the law to be presented to the President for his, or her, signature. In the last century New York State commanded a 47 seat powerhouse in the house of representatives. Back when our State was an engine of growth through innovation, hard work, and a well constructed melting pot that efficiently created Americans out of immigrants our State rightly grew and attained great success. Our State produced Franklin Delano Roosevelt an unprecedented four term President. What ever one judges his domestic failures his defense of this nation is without question. Now we stand at 29 House seats, and “Anybody But Cuomo’s” son is the governor. Admittedly this is a small step up from the prior occupants of the governorship – I stress the word small.
So what happened? Abortion, globalism, multiculturalism, people flee the highest taxes and the second worst business environment in the country, children of parents in our community do not come back and form families, and an environment of regulatory sclerosis that makes cement jealous. The political consequence of this is while we get to navel gaze in New York we justly do not get to influence our national government. That is one way of keeping a Country full of people willing to lie, cheat, and, steal; honest, and it is working wonderfully. We have stopped President Obama and his fellow liberal democrats cold in the last election. In the next one we will try to go for a true divided government, or the whole ball of wax, speaking as a “States Rights Conservative Republican.” While prospects for New York in the short and medium term are not good, the national recovery that occurs in about 5 economic quarters will help to alleviate our liberally democratic induced regulatory sclerosis at least enough to create some economic growth in New York. While I’m not going to start printing up “Anybody But Cuomo” t-shirts today, well, let’s just say, I’m stockpiling ink and t-shirts, just in case. So don’t worry! This thing called “American Exceptionalism” is working it’s magic, it just takes a little time.
Patience is the word of the day, if not the era, we are living in.
I propose we keep the Electoral College the EXACTLY THE WAY IT CURRENTLY IS so that the East and West Coast Megaopoli don't completely dominate each election.
The Founders intended a Republic, not mob rule (aka "Democracy").
The electoral college is one of the most important devices we have to prevent our great Republic from becoming a Democracy in which 51% of the people could vote to have the other 49% killed.
Our Founders were very careful not to let American become a democracy, another word for mob rule.
If we change to a democracy we are all dead. The importance of the Electoral College cannot be overstated.
Yes, without it we would have had 4 years of that moronic evil global-warmer, lying AlGore to deal with. God Bless the Electoral College from preventing AlGore from killing America.
I am absolutely opposed to this idea, and will oppose it, whenever and wherever it surfaces. The word … in the article above … which sets me off is "aportionment". Aportionment leaves open the possibility of vast political fraud by the powers-that-be. Consider my own state of Illinois, where the DEMs have been moving former residents of the housing projects in Chicago to important counties all over the state, in a blatant attempt to gain control of the state in perpetuity.
Don't kid yourself, Mr. Stone. Your plan would not work, and the dirty works of politics will. I prefer the electoral college system.. After all, it's a system that saved us from 4-8 years of Algore …
We are a constitutional republic, we had enlightened forward thinking founders, every time we have veered from their original intent, we have garnered terrible results, (except for the slavery issue, which they should have just rectified in the first place). THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA, it is based solely on fear of the MSM.
while archaic, the Electoral College is a wise check and balance…
This is NOT a 'democracy'. Read your Federalist papers and you'll see that democracy was rejected; they took Voltaire's admonitions about the limitations of it (deadlock, followed by chaos and then tyranny) and wisely rejected it for the Constitutional Republic (with limited suffrage) that it is.
Forget 'one man one vote'. That's pro-communist nonsense. So, we're not real keen with reworking the College- but will admit many of Mr Stone's point do have merit…
No, we don't need to change a thing. What we need to do is thank the Lord that our founders were wise beyond all measure. If we think things are bad now, imagine a President Gore for 8 years and then imagine his reaction to 9/11.
Why does everyone in power think that we need to change something, if it did not work out the way they wanted? I am more concerned with the abuse of the system. I would argue that Al Gore MAY not have received the popular vote if other election laws were enforced. For instance, how many times did M. Mouse from ACORN vote for Al Gore? How many people had more than ONE vote?
Mr. Stone, I ask that you FIRST show me that you can apply the current system correctly before you try a different one!!
16 years out of 223 isn’t bad, because the system, as it was written, worked. There’s nothing wrong with that.
And another thing. If we could keep the President from traveling to any State that might be an improvement:)
Sorry, I have to say NO! It needs to be as was designed, but with a couple of modifications. Each congressional district gets one vote for the president (like it should be), but not this 'winner take all' popular state vote garbage. Talk about voter disenfranchisement (is that a word?). Half of a state could have their vote null and void (50.1 to 49.9). Also, senators need to be appointed by the govenor, not elected. We need a senate that represents the states like it was originally drawn up as. Also, term limits. 2 terms as a senator, 5 terms as a rep.
The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. Beware the vote counters.
The Electoral College was put into place by our founding fathers for the exact reason we saw in the 2000 election.
http://fs.huntingdon.edu/jlewis/Outlines/BushCoun...
They did not want one or two region’s to decide or dominate election’s. The system is not broken. I fear any change would leave this country at the mercy of future east coast-west coast Al Gore’s
Gentle Readers,
With all due respect to Mr. Stone, I must disagree. We should keep the current system of electors.
The Electoral College is extremely importantly for a variety of reasons, many of which have already been delinated by other posters.
I would add:
1. The Electors elect the President and Vice President seperately. While the major political parties treat the candidates as a team, actually, the Vice President has an important Constitutional function as the President of the US Senate. The Office of the Vice President is located in the Senate. President and Vice President are 2 different offices.
It seems peculiar, but the Electors could have elected John McCain President and Joe Biden Vice President.
2. In the event of the death or disability of a candidate during an election, the electors can choose a suitable replacement.
This has actually happened: Horace Greely and Vice Presidential Candidate Sherman both died during the election campaign and there was no time to remove their names from the ballots or from contention. The Electors chose suitable candidates to serve.
3. Should a candidate be shown to be unsuitable prior to being sworn into office, the Electors can choose another candidate.
For example: Suppose after the November 2008 elections it was learned that Joe Biden was a member of the KKK ( as was Robert Byrd ). The Electors could have chosen another candidate.
For those who say the Electoral College is not ' pure ' democracy, may I remind those good people that Hitler was the product of a democratic election. Too bad for the Germans and everyone else that they didn't have an Electoral College to choose a more suitable candidate.
Sincerely,
John Lepant Brighton CO
i like the EC just the way it is. the problem is that the headcount in the house of representatives is frozen at 435. we should increase the number of congressmen by a factor of 2, 3 or more. this not only solves the apparent distortions in the EC, it also makes the House more representative of the people. congressional elections should be relatively less expensive and constituent services should improve, too.
Without the college, all one would have to do would be to win about 8-10 major urban centers (Chicago, NY, LA, etc.) Those are already loaded with welfare receiving democratic voters, and would certainly mean that the will of a few concentrated pop'l centers would dominate the rest of the country.
Here we go again. Someone wanting to "reform" something so it ultimately is more prone to fraud and abuse. The problem isn't with the Electoral College process, the problem is with the voter fraud at the polls. Your plan Mr. Stone, doesn't address this at all.
The Electoral College should stay as is. The smaller States have a significant say so when it comes to elections. It should never come down to NY and CA. After all, can you imagine the chaos if Obama let all the illegals vote, and we had only a popular voting method. We would lose our country overnight.
The 435 we have create enough problems.
This article starts of with a false premise. It contends that because the direct vote didn;t win the day, that something has to be changed. In reality, the electoral college worked just exactly as it was designed to work. Indeed, it worked just exactly the way our entire government, most especially our bicameral legislature, is supposed to work. The will of the majority vote was checked – and rightly so. Remember, we live in a Republic, not a Democracy.
Undermining the electoral college is undermining our very form of government and it is to be opposed by all patriots who value the Liberty that only a Republic can protect.
If you want to see what changes to the Electoral College looks like, look no further than Illinois, where a governor can lose the majority in all but three counties yet win the majority vote count in just those three and it ends up being the overall majority. So, we endure three counties ruling the entire state, endlessly. That is what National Popular Vote legislation facilitates. So this piece does well to oppose that. However, what is with this House havong one vote business? That is making the House into a "half Senate". It is ridiculous.
The Electoral College system works, so leave it alone. Let's just make sure candidates are actually eligible, shall we.
Each state can apportion its electoral votes they way it likes. In Maine and Nebraska, the leading candidate in each congressional district gets one electoral vote, and the candidate with the most popular votes statewide gets two electoral votes.
There is nothing to prevent Florida or California or Ohio or any other state from adopting this practice. What keeps it from happening is that, in California for example, the Democrats want every electoral vote and they do not want to share with the Republicans. The opposite situation applies in Texas, presumably.
Roger Stone has been around a long time, so it is sad to see him putting his name on such a foolish proposal. Perhaps he is hoping that 100 years from now, when some other moron comes up with the same cockamamie idea, Stone's name might be mentioned in a footnote.
"For example: Suppose after the November 2008 elections it was learned that Joe Biden was a member of the KKK ( as was Robert Byrd ). The Electors could have chosen another candidate."
for example after the 2008 election Obama was shown to be a 20 year sponsoring member of a racist church …… never mind.
A resounding NO! to this idea!
What about the diversions created by 3rd Party candidates? We'd end up with a bunch of regional vanity candidates running to get their names listed in the federal records for having earned a single electoral vote. Enough of such vanity, and the entire system Mr. Stone suggests implodes! Al Sharpton carrying Harlem wouldn't help the Dem standard bearer. Nor would having a member of the Minute Men carrying votes in Arizona that would likely have gone to the GOP!
NOPE! This is a non-starter. While the current system is not perfect, it works! No other system proposed will be perfect either. Since this one is NOT broken, there is no need to fix it!.
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 56 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008). A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, are an example of state laws eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution– "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
The congressional district method of awarding electoral votes (currently used in Maine and Nebraska) would not help make every vote matter. In NC, for example, there are only 4 of the 13 congressional districts that would be close enough to get any attention from presidential candidates. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state's 53 districts. A smaller fraction of the country's population lives in competitive congressional districts (about 12%) than in the current battleground states (about 30%) that now get overwhelming attention, while two-thirds of the states are ignored Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state's electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all method is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.
In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.
In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state.
The 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States, but under the current system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in just these 11 biggest states — that is, a mere 26% of the nation's votes.
Imagine having has the Lunatic Gore as POTUS…sheer insanity…and Democrats betrayals 100fold…we would be under the UN flag now.
The current system does not provide some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
If a Democratic presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state's dedicated Democratic party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. If a Republican presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state's dedicated Republican party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. The winner of the presidential election is the candidate who collects 270 votes from Electoral College voters from among the winning party's dedicated activists.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).
Seriously? No. I warms my heart to see the resounding no, please pack your bags and apply for a czar job that this forum has recommended in response to your madness.
In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives already agree that, only 7-14 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-take-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. Candidates will not care about at least 72% of the voters– voters in 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and in 16 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning would be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. In 2008, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
Now, policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing, too.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling 18 battleground states.”
Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009 said:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
Since World War II, a shift of only a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections. A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 Million votes.
In a republic, the citizens do not rule directly but, instead, elect officeholders to represent them and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections. The United States has a republican form of government regardless of whether popular votes for presidential electors are tallied at the state-level (as has been the case in 48 states) or at district-level (as has been the case in Maine and Nebraska) or at 50-state-level (as under the National Popular Vote bill).
To favor anything more than "leave it alone!" is to acquiesce to the regressives' demand for
a direct popular votesocialist mob rule. Compromise, even a little bit, gives the regressives a canyon-sized rhetorical opportunity to repeatedly bellow thata direct popular votesocialist mob rule has "universal appeal! Look ! Even conservatives love it!"Evidence as to how a nationwide presidential campaign would be run, can be found by examining the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Because every vote is equal inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns. The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate in Ohio and Florida already knows–namely that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the state.
Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don't campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don't control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn't have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.
In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.
Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.
There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states. It is certainly true that the biggest cities in those states typically vote Democratic. However, the suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and rural parts of the states often voted Republican. If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.
Under a national popular vote, every vote everywhere will be equally important politically. There will be nothing special about a vote cast in a big city or big state. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.
Any state that enacts the proportional approach on its own would reduce its own influence. This was the most telling argument that caused Colorado voters to agree with Republican Governor Owens and to reject this proposal in November 2004 by a two-to-one margin.
If the proportional approach were implemented by a state, on its own,, it would have to allocate its electoral votes in whole numbers. If a current battleground state were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.
If the whole-number proportional approach had been in use throughout the country in the nation’s closest recent presidential election (2000), it would not have awarded the most electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide. Instead, the result would have been a tie of 269–269 in the electoral vote, even though Al Gore led by 537,179 popular votes across the nation. The presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide and resulted in the election of the second-place candidate in terms of the national popular vote.
A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every vote equal.
It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.
Even more so today. A democratic republic needs three things to survive: the potential for economic growth, an acceptance by the population of personal responsibility, and an educated electorate. The purpose of the electoral college was to insulate the election process from politics, public ignorance, and any other deficiency in the qualities noted above. It was a problem then and it sure as hell is a problem now!
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The National Popular Vote bill is a state-based approach. It preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College. It assures that every vote is equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under the National Popular Vote bill, all the electoral votes from all the states that have enacted the bill would be awarded, as a bloc, to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.
The Electoral College that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
States have the responsibility to make their voters relevant in every presidential election. The bill uses the exclusive power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. It does not abolish the Electoral College, which would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%,, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC (3), HI (4), IL (19), NJ (14), MD (11), MA (10), VT (3), and WA (13). These 8 jurisdictions possess 77 electoral votes — 29% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud. A very few people can change the national outcome by changing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.
Senator Birch Bayh (D-Indiana) summed up the concerns about possible fraud in a nationwide popular election for President in a Senate speech by saying in 1979, "one of the things we can do to limit fraud is to limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. Under a direct popular vote system, one fraudulent vote wins one vote in the return. In the electoral college system, one fraudulent vote could mean 45 electoral votes, 28 electoral votes."
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: "To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you'd have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you'd have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election–and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Which, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?"
Messing around with the genius of the Electoral College isn't even on the list of the top 10,000 things that needs to be done to get this country back on track.
Let's try enforcing the Constitution we've got before trying to change it. We could start with the part found below:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at
the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office
of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not
have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a
Resident within the United States.
The more Representatives there are, the closer the EC comes to being a direct mirror of the national popular vote. I can't endorse that.
If they are going to change anything, how about the two candidates from each party seperated on the ballot and the one with the most popular vote is the President and the person with the second most popular vote is the Vice President, that way we get the best candidates and we never have to worry about the Al Gores or Joe Bidens ever again.
Applause, cheers and whistles for that comment !!!
What the hell is going on around here? First we have a neo-con defense of our unconstitutional actions in Libya, ignoring the rule of law and our Constitution; and now we have another anti-Constitution blog entry promoting chamging the EC to being based on popular vote of the people.
Hey! Where did my Intense Debate rep go? I was up in the 115 neighborhood and now I have nothing?! What gives?
In 2000, when Al Gore out polled George W. Bush in the popular vote but was bested by Bush in the Electoral College to become President, it became clear we need Electoral College reform.
And congratulations, one sentence in and I see no point in continuing to read. If you're going to start out with the premise that the EC should never under any circumstances produce a different result from the popular vote, then you can just take whatever else you're going to blather on about somewhere else.
Abolishing the Electoral College means the death of the Republic. Those who oppose the sovereignty of the states support this idea. They want the most populated areas……..blue urban and blue coastal regions….. to elect all of our Presidents. They seek pure democracy, which the Greeks proved, does not work!
Beware of the "reformers". I am suspicious of their motives.
I should add, Mr. Stone, that while you may be well intentioned, a proposal in the hands of the Dems in congress would be devastating……..don't open the door.
In the four elections have been determined by the EC, three of the four prior to the 20th century. Over 100 years separates the most resent occurrences 1888 and 2000. Why now has this become a burning issue? Just because landslides are least frequent? Elections are closer? Fear of fraud, which no system is foolproof or fraud-proof against.
Cleveland is the only president to lose the EC and then run again and win. Bush was re-elected. Jackson came back and won, while Hayes didn’t not run again as promised.
Again, why is ‘reforming the EC’ a burning issue? Presently, most would say more damage is done by those elected without question than the other way around.
Washington is already approaching Rome in terms of dominance and decadence. Any change to the EC will result in further acceleration towards despotism.
So you want to "FIX the PROBLEM"??
Ok here are two SURE fire ways' to "FIX the PROBLEM".
REPEAL the 16th amendment (creation of the IRS in 1913) along with repeal of the 17th amendment
(created direct election of senators INSTEAD of senators being APPOINTED by their state representatives)
If those two amendments are repealed the DemocRAT party and BIG government in general will lose 90 % of the power that it now has.
It would RESET the America on an unprecedented path to prosperity like the world has NEVER seen.
Oh and fyi BOTH the 16 & 17th amendment were pushed by the Progressive DemocRAT Wilson Administration.
Gee. Smarter than a founding father. Or is he just another lame brain with an idea, but no knowledge? He needs to show some humility and take this off the web.
you have a stalker. You pissed some one off on a comment and they went back and checked a negative on a lot of your comments.
I have had the same thing happen from the libratatd trolls. LOL!! it takes a few hours of them wasting time.
a minor point, but the author's repeated usage of the eponymous(?) "Stone Plan" gives the impression he's a little too impressed with his own thoughts- which i thought not all that original. for that reason alone, i cast a skeptical eye upon his proposal.
Why do some people feel that in order to,…..
"form a more perfect union",…….
we must rely on doing something to the electoral college.
Why not just nominate two presidential hopefuls that,…..
are both aware of the Constitution.
I for one cherish my role in this responsibility.
I would suggest another one for your list. A respect for the rule of law.
I agree. It does exactly what was intended.
Wow. We are a well informed bunch. It appears that we understand the electoral college better than the author of this article does.
Dear Mr. Flannery,
YIKES!!!!!!!
- John
Jonah Goldberg over at NRO agrees with you: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228369/we-...
Unfortunately for both of you, James Madison does not:
"Nothing can be more fallacious than to found our political calculations on arithmetical principles. Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power than six or seven. But it does not follow that six or seven hundred would be proportionably a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed."
From Federalist Number 55: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_55.html
I agree that the Electoral College needs a bit of reworking but do not like your idea. I support convening a joint session of congress, empower them as the Electoral College and REQUIRE them to vote for the person that carried their state or district. If no canditate acheived a majority of votes on the 1st ballot any congressman or senator who’s state or district was carried by a less than a certian per cent (suggest 5% but could start as low as 1%) would be freed to vote as they wish. I cannot imagine going past 2 ballots but law could be written where if there were succeeding ballots, that percent could be continually raised that freed particiants to vote as they wished
I absolutely dislike proportional allocation of votes
The Wright story broke well before the election – most people didn't care.
let's see…fix what ain't broke…aaaah haaa…jobs creation!!!…oh wait..neber mind…..
does this sound familiar??? fron ACORN mighty marxists grow…did I get it right???
If you require electors to vote along with the popular vote (in cases of majority) you're subverting the original intention of the college to head off demagoguery.
You got it. It's not so much that the system doesn't work. It's that bad people are corrupting it and getting away with it.
Why?
States can already do this if they want to.
Or they can sign on to that ridiculous national popular vote shtick.
If you really want to muck with the electoral college, I've got a much better idea – eliminate the popular vote altogether and just let the existing elected representatives vote for the President instead of this "extra" group assembled only for this purpose.
Have the House and Senate get together and cast individual votes for various candidates.
To really pull things completely away from party leaders and popular passion, we can have the candidates nominated by the State Governors, with each Governor getting to nominate one person for President and one Person for Vice-President, and Congress making up whatever combinations they like from the up to fifty candidates nominated for each.
No more nonsense about popular votes, or ballot access, or faithless electors, or whatever. Just turn the whole thing over and be done with it.
Or go to some whacked out transferrable vote system that Europeans use for popular vote, and stop angsting about how evil "democracy" is.
OR just skip all such attempts to build a better mousetrap to fix something that simply is not broken and just leave it alone.
That's the option I'd vote for.
It would also dilute the influence of individual congressmen and make them worth less money to special interest lobbyists.
Exactly. We'd still have that problem with a different system.
Mr. Stone in this article is a typical Conservative. I am the same way, in that I want to believe that people are honest and will do the right thing.
Unfortunately, the Democrats are NOT honest and will try to cheat any system that allows cheating. I think that NY26 was a perfect example. They got a Democrat to pretend that he was a Tea Partier, and he pulled enough votes away for the Republican to lose the race, in a Republican district.
The crooked mob-rule Democrats would exploit this Stone plan quite easily, and I think Mr. Stone knows it. After all, Mr. Stone worked for Arlen Specter. He HAD to know the man was a Mob-rule Lliberal, yet he still helped him win, over and over.
Make no mistake about it, the Democrats would institute the "Specter" plan in all fifty states, siphoning off enough Republican votes to ensure a Democrat victory, every time. Conservatives would never ever win another national election, because we are crazy people who play by the rules and never cheat.
QUOTE: "…deadlock, followed by chaos and tyranny…"
—
Hmmm. Sounds like the O'Bamboozler's administration, doesn't it?
it's the classic Progressive exploitation of democracy, yes indeed…
Thanks Roger, that's what i was trying to say about personal responsibility, kind of goes hand in hand.
My main point was public ignorance, I can not believe how dimwitted some of us are about our own government and the bs they unquestionably willingly devour from someone just because they are perceived to be some kind of "leader".
That would be true of original intent but we have long ago passed the point where people voted for individual electors to go to Washington to vote for the best guy. All electors now are sworn to support the candidate of their ticket. My problem with the current system is that in the states with very large cities, the masses of population in those cities sway the entire slate of electors. Since originally the electors were known locally rather than state-wide, my proposal would actually be closer to original intent than to what we have evolved.
I just noticed your comment about voter fraud and would like to make the point that if the electors were elected basically by district rather than state-wide then influencing an entire states votes would be MUCH more difficult
Don't let the governor select the senators. Let's do something crazy and go back to the way the Constitution was origianally written and allow the state legislators to elect senators.
HELL. TO. THE. NO.
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." – Anonymous
Much easier way to do it. The way Maine does it. One other state, also, but i forget which one.
Overall state winner- the 2 votes for the state. The winner in EACH congressional district gets the electoral vote for that district.
Done this way, uberliberal presidential candidates would be dead in the water. The Dems would have to start running real centrists instead of pretend ones.
Well, d. Have yet another for you. "Black Swans from New Normal" – http://www.kitco.com/ind/willie/jun232011.html – Ironic it is from the KITCO site, who has just been charged for massive fraud. I read through this and got chills up my spine. I've never seen so many Black Swans in my life. Hmm – more like the past 6 years – and has become the new, "accepted" norm. I was hoping to see the "Overton Window" move much further to the right …until I found this today.
Then I look up "Credit Default Swaps" …what hogwash gobbledegook – my gosh, the complex double-speak when worked through is nothing more than another Ponzi Scheme. My view of a complexity – it is complex because there exists a lie(s). And from what I see we are in debt more to the tune of $60 + Trillion NOW, not a mere $16 Trillion. Would like to know your take …and tell me there is hope, eh?
You appear to be back up. I've noticed a few people had their scores reset, but then it returned to what it was beforehand. Must be a glitch.
With the Marxists in iron-fisted control of DC, any reform of the Electoral College will make sure that the popular vote elects the president, and then they stuff the ballot box with fake votes. Mickey Mouse will be able to vote 100 times in such an election.
Good luck with your plan, Roger!
The abolition or reformulation of the Electoral College has been attempted at least 400 times since 1789. Not one attempt has succeeded. Why? Because the United States is not a "democracy" like ancient Athens but a democratic "republic" like ancient Rome. The framers of the Constitution were keen students of History and wished to avoid a tyranny of the majority over a minority and to quell intemperate passions and enthusiasms.
The Electoral College enshrines a crucial feature of the federal system: the equality of every state to every other state.
Excellent and true..
That's happened to me several times over the last 6 months or so. Suddenly my score will go to zero. Seems to happen just after I've made a comment that was likely to REALLY irritate Lefties. I'm always very pleased when it happens, and the rep comes back after a while.
@brainwerks – couldn't help but notice your post as I scrolled down to say the exact same thing
if it ain't broke, don't fix it
look what happened when we "improved" with the 17th Amendment
As with the majority of commentors, I am vehemently opposed to this idea or any other change to our system. We changed the way Senators were elected because some genius came up with an idea like this and look how that's turned out.
Your plan says nothing about a third party candidate or what to do in case of a tie, which with a third candidate becomes completely possible.
OT: …..check this link out Whats_Up….very interesting statistics from the 2010 census. It's interactive……the numbers are shocking in some areas: http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map?nl=to....
Aportionment leaves open the possibility of vast political fraud by the powers-that-be. Consider my own state of Illinois, where the DEMs have been moving former residents of the housing projects in Chicago to important counties all over the state, in a blatant attempt to gain control of the state in perpetuity. http://www.watchesn.com
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