[Peace-discuss] Here is an idea

Sun Sep 30 13:28:09 CDT 2007

> Under the Constitution, states can allocate their
> Electoral votes however they wish; they can allocate them to Mickey
> Mouse.

True; and the Electors may not even be bound to vote in the Electoral
College in accordance with the party they are suppose to represent.  It
depends on the state law.

> They can allocate them to the winner of the national
> popular vote. There is actually a project underway, the National
> Popular Vote project, to get state legislatures to do the latter. Note
> that this is different from distributing its electoral votes
> proportionately, but the overall result would be the same, if all
> states did it.

I would find this objectionable for two reasons: 

1) It would effectively average out any regional or local influences by
under-representing the minority candidates; it is still a winner takes all
zero-sum game in which the winner of the popular vote nationally would get
all the local Electoral votes from that state even if the majority of the
state's voters voted for a different candidate.  The most populous states
would accrue all the electoral power and run rampant over the smaller less
populated states.

2) The overall result would be the same as eliminating the Electoral College
in favor of the popular vote; but it would still be a zero-sum
"winner-take-all" game with no representation for the minority voting for
their candidates.

For example, according to your statement as to how it works ("They can
allocate them to the winner of the national popular vote"), if there was a
situation where candidate A gets 3 national popular votes, candidate B gets
2, and candidate C gets 1, then each of the fifty states would have to cast
all their Electoral votes for candidate A even if that candidate got no
popular votes in the particular state.  This is not a very fair and
representative process.  Might as well be a one party state in which the
competition takes place in a national primary on the old southern model.
Let's make political parties illegal and have a national popular election
where people write-in the name of the person that they want without having
nominations or campaigns. Eliminate the middle men and processes! :-)

Another question comes to mind given a scenario like my example.  In my
example, candidate A would only have a plurality of the votes of those
voting and not a majority since candidates B and C together would also have
3 popular votes.  Would the allocation of a state's Electoral vote be based
on a national plurality or a national majority of the votes cast by voters?
Maybe we should make it a plurality or majority of the citizenry in the
country of voting age with a national voting age in play so as to take into
account those who find none of the choices acceptable for whatever reason?

The point is that this scheme does not produce the same results as
proportional representation and cannot as long as it comprises a zero-sum
game where the winner takes all the Electoral votes based on a plurality or
even majority of the national vote which biases the election toward the
larger and more populous states.  It is further undermined by the fact that
the whole election process is rigged toward advantaging and recognizing the
main established political parties and their candidates both at the state
level and the national level to the disadvantage of the third or minority
political parties and independent non-affiliated candidates.  The net result
is that the persons elected to the offices of President and Vice-president
given the nature of the zero-sum game and the elimination of multiple
competitors for the positions in the election give the winner the appearance
of legitimacy and strong unified support when in fact this is not the case
but merely an artifact of the system and process.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman
> Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 12:10 PM
> To: Laurie at advancenet.net
> Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Here is an idea
> 
> It's quite true that it's not necessary to abolish the Electoral
> College in order to ensure that the winner of the popular vote is
> elected President. Under the Constitution, states can allocate their
> electoral votes however they wish; they can allocate them to Mickey
> Mouse. They can allocate them to the winner of the the national
> popular vote. There is actually a project underway, the National
> Popular Vote project, to get state legislatures to do the latter. Note
> that this is different from distributing its electoral votes
> proportionately, but the overall result would be the same, if all
> states did it. The key issue is states moving collectively; if just a
> few states move, the effects could be perverse (cf. current Republican
> efforts in California to enact by referendum allocation of electoral
> votes by Congressional District - which, if is is adopted unilaterally
> by California and survives court challenges, could have the perverse
> effect of making it more likely that the winner of the popular vote
> would lose.) The NPV gets at this by only going into effect when it's
> been passed by a group of states that account for a majority of
> electoral votes. According to an article by in the October 1 Nation by
> Rob Richie of FairVote, it's been passed by at least one house of
> several state legislatures, including Illinois, and Maryland has fully
> enacted it.
> 
> Richie says polls show 70% support a national popular vote.
> 
> 
> On 9/29/07, Laurie at advancenet.net <laurie at advancenet.net> wrote:
> > It may not be necessary to totally eliminate the Electoral College
> and
> > electoral vote in favor of direct popular elections of the President
> and
> > Vice President.  One could accomplish the same thing effectively by
> making
> > each state distribute its electoral votes proportionately in
> accordance with
> > the popular vote for each of the candidates or write-ins receiving a
> vote
> > within that state.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-
> discuss-
> > > bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of John W.
> > > Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 9:30 PM
> > > To: Marti; peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Here is an idea
> > >
> > > At 09:04 PM 9/29/2007, Marti wrote:
> > >
> > > >Bush won the initial election because he was able to get the most
> > > votes in
> > > >Florida. Do I think the republicans fixed the election? Well yeah,
> but
> > > at
> > > >this point rehashing the subject is about as effective as eating
> sour
> > > >grapes.
> > > >
> > > >Perhaps what can be considered is taking a good look at the
> electoral
> > > vote
> > > >and either modifying it or getting rid of it altogether so the
> > > presidency
> > > >goes to the person who gets the popular vote. That might help
> increase
> > > voter
> > > >turnout and it would discourage networks from calling the
> elections
> > > before
> > > >all of the votes have been counted.
> > >
> > >
> > > Sounds good to me.  Go ahead and implement that system nationwide,
> > > Marti,
> > > in time for the next election if you can.  I don't imagine the
> > > Republicans
> > > would be able to figure out any way of corrupting an election based
> on
> > > the
> > > POPULAR vote. :-P
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Peace-discuss mailing list
> > > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > > http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
> > _______________________________________________
> > Peace-discuss mailing list
> > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
> >
> 
> 
> --
> Robert Naiman
> Just Foreign Policy
> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org
> 
> Just Foreign Policy's current estimate of Iraqi deaths due to violence
> since the U.S. invasion - now more than a million:
> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss