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Is this man so ignorant that he does not realize there is a difference between a grade school popularity contest and the election of the President of the United States?

Personal message to Tom Umberg. Get over it! Life is full of unfairness.
As stated by California Conservative in #5 comment above the electoral college was actually designed to help keep things more fair. We do not NOW have one segment of the population running roughshod over the other segments. Would AR2948 change this?

Should we take the chance that it would?

Why is it the liberals say yes? Perhaps because they want to run roughshod over other segments of the population!

-(:-P

Enough said. JT nails it again.

I don’t think population density of a state necessarily determines “blueness” or “redness.” Small blue states have more power than largely populated red states in terms of voting power and representation per citizen, for instance (2 Senators representing fewer people).

My biggest concern was that if California adopted such a policy and many other states did not, it would give the rest of the country more say in determining how our electoral votes go, and us as a statewide voting block less say.

The Bill states:
“This compact would only become effective if states cumulatively
possessing a majority of the total electoral votes have ratified the
compact.”

To me, this is certainly not enough. At the very least, such a compact should only take effect if all 50 states ratify such a compact. If all states agree with what would basically be a scrapping of the electoral college, then so be it. If not, you end up with a mixed system, which seems to put things in a worse, more confusing, more unbalanced situation.

And why go about this in a way that just undermines the Constitution? Why not instead work about amending the Constitution if one feels the EC is unfair or out-of-date? The aim is basically the same, but an amendment would be more honest way of going about it.

Jack, your analysis is flawed. If we have a direct election of the President, we eliminate the division of powers between state and federal interests. It would be equivalent to eliminating the senate, the branch of the legislature that provides influence to small states.

Read the report. There are safe states and there are swing states. Some safe states are large, and some swing states are small. What determines whether a state gets “listened to” is its degree of competitiveness at election time. the number of swing states is steadily declining. Youth turnout is steadily declining. The number of voters who see ads and get campaign visits is steadily declining. In other words, the number of votes a candidate must campaign for is steadily declining. And the sizes of their home states don’t matter. The NPV plan will turn the trend around and make sure everyone gets listened to, visited, media-blitzed - because every vote will count again.

JT, you hit the nail on the head. It would have given the election to Gore in 2000, and a much larger majority to Bush in 2004. Neither of those situations accurately represents the citizenry of our country. Do, however, recognize that Other states including Colorado and Louisiana are signed on to this unconstitutional ‘interstate compact’.

The compact is constitutional, one. Insisting on the contrary won’t make it true.

Two, both of those situations accurately represent the citizens of this country. How is the loser of the popular vote representative of the majority? How is a small EC majority representative of a popular majority that is much larger?

Frankly you’re not making sense on this last count.

The purpose of the Electoral College (EC) is to provide “fair” weighting (representation) to each state, not just determined by population density. Thereby, the more populous and “diverse” (e.g. liberal) metropolitan areas on the map are prevented from dictating to everyone else ( “the flyover states” as Hollywood oft derides) — as much as they would like to.

In many ways, California serves as the perfect example. We live here and vote conservative, but there’s not a damn thing we can do about the liberal politicians that continue to get elected in this state. Why even bother voting? (San Francisco is a microcosm that mirrors this ugly situation)

If the “blue” states were the de facto deciders of every election (according to population alone), they — and the policies that their liberal representatives are promoting on the federal level (California: Feinstein, Pelosi, Boxer, et al) — there would be no way to stop it. Democrat handouts would continue to “buy” votes from the non-producing poor and immigrants which flood the blue states, and the Middle Class across America would continue to pay for it.

JT, you hit the nail on the head. It would have given the election to Gore in 2000, and a much larger majority to Bush in 2004. Neither of those situations accurately represents the citizenry of our country. Do, however, recognize that Other states including Colorado and Louisiana are signed on to this unconstitutional ‘interstate compact’.

This is about establishing what we should have had all along: a direct election of the president.

See this post on action in California.

While I understand the premise of balance between States, I do think both the way electoral vote and congressional representation number are granted (especially numbers of Senators) benefits smaller states a bit TOO much, “weakening” the voting power of individuals who live in large states. This plan seems to weaken it even MORE, though.

If I were the Democratic Party, I could see attempting this in a state that shifts to Republicans a little more, maybe. If they really wanted to shift things over more to popular choice, they would have to work more on the Federal level, altering the system so that numbers of Senators are based on population numbers, for instance. On the state level, perhaps, they could allow for a split of electoral votes (like Maine) based on majority choice within district.

Really, though, it seems more like the Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot.