VA Bill Is Latest Effort by Democrats to Change Electoral College Taking Away Voice of Rural America

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by XXJefferson#51, Jan 22, 2020.

  1. XXJefferson#51

    XXJefferson#51 Banned

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    The current system requires a presidential candidate to win the states, not just individual voters. That ensures less-populated states still have a voice.

    Experts say the Founders created the Electoral College to make sure smaller states had a say in picking the person who would be their national leader. "If you go back to the Framers, they wanted an Electoral College because they wanted to create a balance between the heavily-populated and less-populated areas of the country," The Heritage Foundation's elections expert Hans von Spakovsky told CBN News.


    https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politi...-college-taking-away-voice-of-rural-americans



    In my opinion the electoral college is vital to the preservation of our constitutional republic. It is important to keep all states and regions involved in our Presidential elections. We don’t need Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle deciding our Presidential elections.
     
  2. XXJefferson#51

    XXJefferson#51 Banned

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    The solution is simple and doesn’t involve changing or making an end run around the constitution. Simply using the Maine and Nebraska model of apportioning electoral votes instead of winner take all
     
  3. Capt Nice

    Capt Nice Well-Known Member

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    So you're saying every election, including class president in the 4th grade, that's held is unfair exept for the presidential election? Every other time you ever voted for anything besides POTUS it was one person one vote. How is that unfair?
     
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  4. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    Nope nothing if the sort there is a difference between your fourth grade classroom and the president of the United States and should be.
     
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  5. Capt Nice

    Capt Nice Well-Known Member

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    Is there a difference between the election for POTUS and any other election you will participate in during your lifetime? If so, please explain why every other election in your life is unfair.
     
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  6. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    Silly question. A president should represent every part of the country not just the interest of a few big cities.
     
  7. Right is the way

    Right is the way Well-Known Member

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    I do not have a problem w iui th States decing how they will vote their delegates. It is a States rights issue. I does not matter to me who this will favor. I do wonder if this would help voter turnout. States that are not sw8ngstates seem to have lower turnout. More votes the better.
     
  8. kriman

    kriman Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The name of our country is the United States of America. It was intended for the states to have a say in running this great country.
     
  9. Darthcervantes

    Darthcervantes Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is the only way dirty democrats could ever have a chance

    Gross! Disgusting!
     
  10. mpw8679

    mpw8679 Well-Known Member

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    Wow what a horrible argument. If you clearly can’t see the difference between a presidential election and any other election I don’t even know what to say.
     
  11. 61falcon

    61falcon Well-Known Member

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    Rural and urban voters have EXACTLY the same voting rights, ONE PERSON ONE VOTE!!!!!
     
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  12. XXJefferson#51

    XXJefferson#51 Banned

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    If every state followed the Maine and Nebraska model where the winner in each congressional district wins the elector for that district and the 2 ev’s for the states US Senators goes to the overall in state popular vote winner it would be much better. There wouldn’t be battleground states anymore. All states with both GOP and democrat leaning congressional districts within it would be contested. Just look at Nebraska and Maine. Obama got a Nebraska eve in 2012 and Trump got one in Maine in 2016. If this played out nation wide both the parties Presidential candidates would go campaign in states previously solid for the other side.
     
  13. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Should states be allowed to determine how their electors vote for president?

    SCOTUS is about to answer this very question.

    Personally, a compromise is the best solution — make the House proportionate to what the constitution intended (it is currently skewed to smaller states) and implement the Wyoming rule. Make election day a national holiday where all citizens are automatically registered to vote but have the requirement of a voter ID.
    Furthermore end FPTP and eliminate partisan gerrymandering...

    All sides get what they want.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2020
  14. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I know numerous Democratic leaning Tennesseans and Republican leaning Californians that do not bother to vote because their vote is irrelevant in the current system — no system should make people’s vote irrelevant.
     
  15. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    Except of course in Chicago, where you get to vote once for yourself and once for every dead person your precinct captain knows and for every vacant lot in your precinct.
     
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  16. drluggit

    drluggit Well-Known Member

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    Yes, and as we've seen the NDP do appreciate those, especially when they're dead....
     
  17. mitchscove

    mitchscove Well-Known Member Donor

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    So you're saying that the government should be run by people who are totally dependent on government provided services, people most of whom can't even drive themselves to the grocery story.

    Tyranny of the majority, especially since the majority is concentrated in 3 cities is not workable. The founders were geniuses.
     
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  18. 61falcon

    61falcon Well-Known Member

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    And yet the VAST majority of those caught voting twice in recent years have been GOP VOTERS!!!!
     
  19. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    Only because Big city political corruption is well and heavily protected by the powers that be in those cities.
     
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  20. mvymvy

    mvymvy Member

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    How convenient a claim, when there is no verifiable documented EVIDENCE, more than 3 years later.
     
  21. mvymvy

    mvymvy Member

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    Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

    If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts. In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

    In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

    Nationwide, there were only maybe 35 "battleground" districts that were expected to be competitive in the 2016 presidential election. With the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 38+ states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 98% of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally

    The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to poll, visit, advertise, and organize in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state.

    Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in no candidate winning the needed majority of electoral votes. That would throw the process into Congress to decide the election, regardless of the popular vote in any district or state or throughout the country.

    Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.

    Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.

    The National Popular Vote bill is a way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes among all 50 states and DC becomes President.
     
  22. mvymvy

    mvymvy Member

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    When Nebraska in 2008 gave one electoral vote to the candidate who did not win the state, it was the first split electoral vote of any state in the past century.

    2016 was the first time one electoral vote in Maine was given to the candidate who did not win the state.

    In June 2019, 77 Maine state Representatives and 21 Maine state Senators supported the National Popular Vote bill.

    In a March 12-13, 2019 poll, Maine voters were asked how the President should be elected

    52% favored “a system where the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states is the winner.”

    31% favored “a system where electoral votes are given out by Congressional district” --- Maine’s current method for awarding 2 of its 4 electoral votes

    16% favored “a system where all the electoral votes in a given state are awarded to whoever gets the most popular votes in that state” --- the winner-take-all method currently used by 48 states and used in Maine to award 2 of its 4 electoral votes
     
  23. mvymvy

    mvymvy Member

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    “ Let’s quit pretending there is some great benefit to the national good that allows the person with [fewer] votes to win the White House. Republicans have long said that they believe in competition. Let both parties compete for votes across the nation and stop disenfranchising voters by geography. The winner should win.” – Stuart Stevens (Republican )
    In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public 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 (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

    When asked the simple question “Do you think the person who wins the most votes nationwide should become the president?” 74% of all Americans surveyed say yes.

    Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.

    There are several scenarios in which a candidate could win the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. It could reduce turnout more, as more voters realize their votes do not matter.

    Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
    The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).

    Since 2006, the bill has passed 40 state legislative chambers in 24 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 271 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Nevada (6).

    The bill has been enacted by 16 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 196 electoral votes – 73% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes.

    When enacted by states with 270 electoral votes, it would change state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states, without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
     
  24. mvymvy

    mvymvy Member

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    The easiest way to convince people not to vote is to have our current system in which their votes don't matter.

    “Americans tend to vote when they feel their vote will matter,” - The Wall Street Journal in its analysis of voter turnout in the 2016 presidential election. Due to the nearly universal winner-take-all system of allocating states’ entire slate of electors to the in-state winner, no matter how close the outcome, voters in deep blue states (think California) or deep red states (think Texas) have less incentive to vote: winning the state by a greater margin does nothing to help candidates, and perennially losing makes seeking votes in that state a lost cause with no benefit to the losing party.

    More Republicans and Democrats in Texas, and more Republicans and Democrats in California would vote if individual vote tallies actually mattered in their home state

    More people register to vote and do vote when they know their vote matters.

    If you're a Republican voter in a blue state or a Democratic voter in a red state, your vote for president doesn't matter to your candidate.

    With the National Popular Vote bill in effect, presidential campaigns would poll, organize, visit, and appeal to more than 12 states. One would reasonably expect that voter turnout would rise in 70-80% of the country that is conceded months in advance by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.

    A national popular vote could increase down-ballot voter turnout during presidential election years.

    Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count.

    Now, voters in the minority in non-battleground states, red or blue, are cheated in every presidential election.
     
  25. mvymvy

    mvymvy Member

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    National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in presidential elections in each state. Now they don't matter to their candidate.

    In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

    And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to candidates.
    Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
    Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.
    8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).

    In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states.

    In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the then 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country.

    In 2016, in battleground states, turnout hit 65%, 5 points higher than in non-battleground states.
     

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