Bill Introduced To Abolish Electoral College

#53
#53
Septic said:
Bad analogy. I think it's more akin to a team losing despite having more points on the scoreboard.
Click to expand...

By the rules both candidates were playing by, they didn't.

The goal was to get the most electoral votes. Trumps campaign was run with that goal in mind. Had the goal been to win the popular vote he could have easily had a different strategy. Most likely both candidates would have.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
#55
#55
TheDeeble said:
By the rules both candidates were playing by, they didn't.

The goal was to get the most electoral votes. Trumps campaign was run with that goal in mind. Had the goal been to win the popular vote he could have easily had a different strategy. Most likely both candidates would have.
Click to expand...

No doubt about it... and there is also no doubt that if the roles were reversed (meaning Trump won the popular vote but not the electoral college) Trump would be calling the electoral college a rigged system and whining about it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#56
#56
TheDeeble said:
By the rules both candidates were playing by, they didn't.

The goal was to get the most electoral votes. Trumps campaign was run with that goal in mind. Had the goal been to win the popular vote he could have easily had a different strategy. Most likely both candidates would have.
Click to expand...

Yep, the strategy would have been forget Iowa and most fly-over states and cater to states like CA and NY. Just the difference in the R vs D vote count in CA was about 3 million - that's higher than the total vote count for all but a handful of states.
 
#57
#57
The problem everyone ignores is that you can see a microcosm of what happens in popular votes in localities.

The thicker population areas have more influence and get more money spent on them.

The state of Virginia and the way the entire central and western parts of the state have been ignored in development are a great example.
 
#59
#59
AM64 said:
The 12 Amendment says:

"The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.

The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.

The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President."

The 12th Amendment amends Article 2 of the Constitution regarding Presidential elections. Now maybe I'm missing something, but I think it takes an amendment - not a piece of legislation - to amend the Constitution or another amendment. Of course, the liberals hold the SC sacred in all matters they don't like - unless the decision doesn't go their way, and the SC does have a way of redefining words - even simple one syllable words like "speech".
Click to expand...

Which is critical why Trump had to win. The Supreme Court. If not there would have been more executive overreach using the SC to legislate from the bench - just like Obamacare. The EC would have been on their agenda. They don't give a ratz azz about what the Constitution says.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people
#60
#60
One argument for abolishing the EC can't be denied. People would be more inclined to vote if they knew their vote counted. It's possible that a huge number of republicans in CA, NY, and other blue states don't bother voting.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people
#62
#62
93TNVol said:
One argument for abolishing the EC can't be denied. People would be more inclined to vote if they knew their vote counted. It's possible that a huge number of republicans in CA, NY, and other blue states don't bother voting.
Click to expand...

I believe 2008 and 2012 proves a high voter turnout isn't necessarily a good thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#63
#63
93TNVol said:
One argument for abolishing the EC can't be denied. People would be more inclined to vote if they knew their vote counted. It's possible that a huge number of republicans in CA, NY, and other blue states don't bother voting.
Click to expand...

People can rarely see both sides of an issue. Look at the FF, people piss and moan about games we should have won. No one wants to talk about the games we should have lost.

Banish the EC, and as you said a lot of people will come out of the woodwork and vote. Those discouraged Republican voters in CA or NY will come out in force, because now they matter. So is that what the democrats really want? Historically they have problems getting out the vote, it could lead to more election problems for them. The EC gives a voice and a vote to people who would otherwise be ignored. You shouldn't be penalized because less people choose to live inside your borders. Popular vote already decides the House and Senate. The EC and the popular Congressional voting act as checks against one another.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#65
#65
DancingOutlaw said:
People can rarely see both sides of an issue. Look at the FF, people piss and moan about games we should have won. No one wants to talk about the games we should have lost.

Banish the EC, and as you said a lot of people will come out of the woodwork and vote. Those discouraged Republican voters in CA or NY will come out in force, because now they matter. So is that what the democrats really want? Historically they have problems getting out the vote, it could lead to more election problems for them. The EC gives a voice and a vote to people who would otherwise be ignored. You shouldn't be penalized because less people choose to live inside your borders. Popular vote already decides the House and Senate. The EC and the popular Congressional voting act as checks against one another.
Click to expand...

Because we should never lose a damn game!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#66
#66
93TNVol said:
Have to keep electoral college in place, but I think a restructuring of votes is in order. I don't know shinola about how the electoral votes are actually decided by state, but if states like North Dakota have 3, TN should be worth more than 11 surely.
Click to expand...

2020 census is when they're reallocated.
 
#74
#74
Burger said:
2020 census is when they're reallocated.
Click to expand...

The biggest gains would come to Texas, which is projected to clinch three more House seats, and Florida, a gainer of two seats. Arizona, North Carolina, Colorado and*Oregon*are all poised to grab one seat after 2020.
Nine states are projected to lose districts: Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia.
“What we do find is that it does make things more Republican,” said*Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services
 
#75
#75
AM64 said:
The 12 Amendment says:

"The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.

The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.

The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President."

The 12th Amendment amends Article 2 of the Constitution regarding Presidential elections. Now maybe I'm missing something, but I think it takes an amendment - not a piece of legislation - to amend the Constitution or another amendment. Of course, the liberals hold the SC sacred in all matters they don't like - unless the decision doesn't go their way, and the SC does have a way of redefining words - even simple one syllable words like "speech".
Click to expand...

The Twelfth Amendment cannot be understood outside of the Electoral College, which was set out in the 1787 Constitution as the mechanism by which Americans select their presidents.

There were four crucial aspects of that mechanism. The first was that the electors would vote for two persons (at least one of whom had to be from outside the elector’s home state). The second was that the electors did not differentiate between the two persons as potential presidents or vice presidents. Electors should simply vote for the two persons they viewed as most qualified to become president. The person gaining the most votes (if a majority) would become president. The runner-up (presumably the second-most-qualified person) would become vice president. The third assumption was that the electors—at least following the completely predictable (and unanimous) election of George Washington as our first president—would quite often fail to reach majority approval of a specific candidate; in that case, according to the original Constitution, the decision would be made by the House of Representatives, with each state’s delegation having one vote. The Constitution also provided that the House would choose in case of a tie vote between two candidates each of whom had received a majority of votes. Finally, because the Constitution, until amended in 1933, provided that newly elected representatives would meet for the first time only a full year after election, the choice would be made by a House that would likely include a number of “lame-ducks,” including representatives who had been defeated in the recent elections. All of these features were on display in 1801.

The election of 1800 was one of the most important in American history and, arguably, even in world history, for it represented the first time that an incumbent leader was defeated in an election. The incumbent was John Adams, who had been Washington’s Vice President for two terms and was then elected in his own right in 1796. His Vice President was Thomas Jefferson. This result reflects the desire of the Framers of 1787 to avoid development of political parties and focus indeed on some notion of “best men.” Any such hopes were quickly frustrated, however. Even by 1796, Adams was associated with the Federalist Party, while Jefferson was supported by the Democratic-Republican Party. They ran against each other again in 1800, and both Adams and Jefferson had “running mates,” Charles Cotesworth Pinckney from South Carolina in the case of Adams (and the Federalist Party) and Aaron Burr of New York, for Jefferson. The Federalist Party electors figured out that it was important not to cast both of their votes for Adams and Pinckney, for that would create a tie and, if both got a majority of the vote, throw the election into the House; the Democratic-Republican electors were not so sagacious. They dutifully cast both of their votes for their party’s champions, creating a tie majority vote that forced the House to choose between Jefferson and Burr.

The tie vote exposed deep problems in the 1787 system. The one-state/one-vote rule had the practical effect of giving Delaware’s sole Representative Bayard, an ardent Federalist, the same voting power as Virginia, then the largest state (and home, of course, of Jefferson). And what if a state had an even number of representatives who split evening on their choice? In that case, the state’s vote was not cast at all. Given that there were 16 states in the Union in 1801, nine delegations had to agree on their choice. Only on the 36th ballot did Bayard agree to vote for Jefferson and to break the deadlock (by which time at least two Jeffersonian governors, from Pennsylvania and Virginia, were threatening to call out their state militias and order them to march on the new national capitol in Washington, D.C.). Jefferson was peacefully inaugurated on March 4, and the all-important precedent was set for peaceful transfer of power. Yet the original electoral college system was exposed as problematic, and there was widespread agreement that something had to be done. But what?

One possibility, obviously, was to adopt the suggestion of Pennsylvania’s James Wilson at the Philadelphia Convention that presidents be elected by a national popular vote. That was rejected in 1787 and did not become a serious possibility in the early 19th century (nor, of course, has it been adopted since then). Still, it had become clear that political parties had become a feature of American politics and that the electoral college system should be modified to reflect this. How was this accomplished?

The answer is quite simple: electors would in the future continue to cast two votes (and one of them, as before, would have to be for a non-native of the elector’s home state), but, crucially, one of the two votes would explicitly be to fill the presidency, while the other designated who should become vice president. Never again could presidential candidates and their running mates face the embarrassing kind of tie vote that forced the House to choose between Jefferson and Burr. The Twelfth Amendment was proposed by the Eighth Congress on December 9, 1803 and submitted to the states three days later. There being seventeen states in the Union at that time, thirteen had to ratify it. Secretary of State James Madison declared that the Amendment had been added to the Constitution on September 25, 1804, at which time fourteen of the seventeen states had ratified it. Delaware, Connecticut, and Massachusetts had rejected it (though Massachusetts in fact ratified it in 1961!). The election of 1804 and all subsequent elections were carried out under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment.
Click to expand...
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top