McCain Surges in Electoral College Count

There Are 8 Responses So Far. »

1. Comment by susan on 22 August 2008:

   The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.

   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 bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

   Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.

   Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.

   The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

   See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

2. Comment by Richard Cochrane on 22 August 2008:

   Susan - The debate over the ELECTORAL COLLEGE versus POPULAR VOTE is robust and indecisive. My hunch is the National Vote Initiative is designed and destined to fail. More likely is an apportioned ELECTORAL COLLEGE voting system giving each state a bucket of votes levened by popular vote totals.

3. Comment by Shane on 25 August 2008:

   I second Nancy’s call for national popular vote movement. It seems so odd that so many votes are worthless. Why even go vote if you’re a Republican in California, or a Democrat in Alabama (heaven forbid). In fact, with the present system this whole process could be resolved today with just 3 phone calls, see http://theendisalwaysnear.blogspot.com/2008/08/one-nation-three-votes.html

   Shanes last blog post..One Nation, Three Votes

4. Comment by Chief Hypocrite on 25 August 2008:

   Shane: In a utopia, direct voting of the population everywhere would be the next best thing to pure human hearts, which would invalidate need for any government. My utopia scanner is too clouded to see if it is on the way, so until it it, as I thought maybe you said (?), what we have MAY be the next best thing. I would consider changes though, because I really dislike what we have, because it guarantees fiefdoms, waste and corruption. Best form of government, is adictatorship but as Ivan said, that usually cannot be recreated after death of a successful, benevolent dictator, with a second person. And I refuse to apply despite clogged incoming lines.

   The US really is republic, and that is as Ivan described it, where many elect a few to govern. Representational government, where the elected are supposed to study, learn and know more about more issues than the average person has time for, and importantly to soften the will of the majority, for such times as when the majority would have jailed or lynched all blacks, gays and someday whites pursuant to duly enacted legislation.

   Against the will of the founding fathers, political parties formed and they are in essense the oligarchs in this representational form of government. The founding fathers did give a lot of rights to the states, giving proportional representation so popularist feeling would have a voice, at the same time giving each state only two senators, giving that deliberative body a way to prevent the majority from enforcing their temporary passions for when, say Canadians were on the docket for beheading. Delaware has equal representation in the Senate as California to prevent californication becoming the law of the land, although they are the spiritual leaders of many of our representatives.

   Direct voting within the private clubs called political parties might be better than now for reasons you and Susan and others enumerate, but I think a much preferred major change would be to eliminate political parties, then we could consider a representational form of government that could at least free free of the national and state and local team like competition, for the sake of competition and individual candidates could consider the issues rather than party position first. That would give us a chance to find a combination that indeed put the nation, first in the eyes of our elected leaders who do have to periodically win a majority vote somewhere. Financing would remain, as it is now, a major policy quagmire with no real good solution in the utopia scanner either.

5. Comment by Shane on 27 August 2008:

   Chief: Here, here! I do agree that the system in the US right now is one of the lesser of many evils. Unfortunately I don’t have a better system to advocate right now, besides the unwieldly direct democracy option, so until one comes along I do think we should do what we can to fix what we have. Great point on the abolition of the 2 party state, after all, it’s only double as good as the one party state. Take the huge problem withing the Democratic party right now re the Clinton supporters who won’t back Obama, it could be the difference come November, now that would be a shame.

   Shanes last blog post..What’s All The Buzz About?

6. Comment by chad on 26 September 2008:

   The electoral college is very necessary. It is the very old debate about state’s rights. Population is the main determining factor in how many votes a state gets, with 2 votes given to each state afterwards. This was the agreement reached way back early in our countries history to convince small states to stay with our nation.

   take the equalizing factor out and you have something like this:

   california would have 53 votes instead of 55 and vermont would have 1 vote instead of 3. That may not sound significant, but the ratio would be 53 to 1 instead of 18.33 to 1.

   Basically, if you take away the electoral college, your saying to politicians, campaign in new york and los angeles, and forget about the rest of america. This country is a democratic republic, never has been a complete democracy, because that form of government has never worked anywhere ever, in the history of the world.

   States rights are still very important, because what is important to people in New York, may not even register with Oklahoma. Take away the rights of the states and we are one step closer to being completely controlled by our federal government. This is what our founders wanted to prevent. Please don’t take down our safeguards because you want a single election to go your way.

7. Comment by chad on 26 September 2008:

   also, kudos to chief hypocrite

   It was George Washington who first warned us to stay away from political parties, as they would be our country’s greatest enemies. Is that the definition of irony or what?

8. Comment by DJR on 29 October 2008:

   Please. The entire thing is about no dictation over a state by another. How quickly we forget. The forefathers had it right 1 state 1 vote, period. Population has no validity especially in Cali. illegals are as common as beach sand. Prop * in California is partially about cleaning up California’s image. No one wants to move to California WAIT before you say something… thats why one state one vote. What you really think California has 20 times the voting right as Nebraska. Go be your own country! Not mine.

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