Re: OT: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

So what do you think of Nebraska's and maybe Maine's system of allocating electoral college votes? The winner of each congressional district gets the vote representing that individual district. The winner of the total state's vote gets the two votes representing the two senators. Nebraska has five total votes. It possible for its vote to split 4 to 1 or 3 to 2. I think vote counting issues would be limited to the state or to an individual district.

Dean Hoffman wrote in news:r2a963$1b5d$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org:

Just get RID OF the entire thing. Problem solved.

No more running around wasting (our) money trying to figure out what to do where to 'get' influence.

SNIP

nia Senate and signed by the Governor will add VA to the National Popular V ote Interstate Compact bringing the total electoral votes in the compact to 209 of the 270 needed for the compact to be enabled. This is encouraging to those who wish for the President to be elected by the people with one pe rson, one vote.

s for more equal focus by the candidates at the state level. But that is p atently not true. Candidates focus on areas where their campaigning can ha ve an impact, the swing states. And in those states they focus on the larg er ones. Here is a map showing campaign activity in 2012.

the candidates.

I think that idea is a poor second choice and as far as I am aware there is no states suggesting it. So it's a non-starter unless you want to make a constitutional amendment.

Vote counting issues are never "limited". That was shown in the 2000 Presi dential race. It could have decided the election and ended up in the Supre me count.

The various ideas of why the Electoral college is good are all baseless and /or fly in the face of one person/one vote.

nd/or fly in the face of one person/one vote.

I just want to point out that your premise is probably incorrect. You seem to be arguing that the President not only SHOULD be directly elect ed by citizens, but that the founding fathers WANTED it that way, (but it w as impracticable for the times).

I just want to focus on the latter part of the statement above, because the re may indeed be substantial benefits to a modern-day, direct-citizen elect ion, and I'd rather not de-rail the thread on a tangent.

James Madison wrote: "The right of suffrage is a fundamental Article in Re publican Constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task o f peculiar delicacy. Allow the right [to vote] exclusively to property [own ers], and the rights of persons may be oppressed... . Extend it equally to all, and the rights of property [owners] ...may be overruled by a majority without property...."

Ultimately, Article-4 leaves the election up to the States (hence, the Elec toral College). But it is worth noting that at the time of Madison's words , suffrage was routinely limited by the States to include only white men wi th property. Women, African & Native Americans, non-English speakers, thos e 18-21 years of age, etc... were clearly not voting directly for a Preside nt - since they were precluded from voting at all!

So, I'm not so quick to just accept the premise that "were it not for the t echnology at the time", that our founding fathers would have opted for a di rect-citizen election of the President.

Maybe they would have? ...but the evidence above suggests otherwise. More likely, the technology would have enabled a direct election by white m ale property owners (only). ?

and/or fly in the face of one person/one vote.

cted by citizens, but that the founding fathers WANTED it that way, (but it was impracticable for the times).

The founding tax evaders wanted voting confined to property owning citizens , and it was - over most of the country - for quite a few decades.

The electoral college was invented as extra bribe to the smaller states. It 's worth remembering that the aim was to influence influential people in th e smaller states, and since many of them could have expected to become memb ers of the electoral college, what was being offered to them was an expense s paid trip to a high profile gig in Washington every four years, with the chance of getting bribed by one of the presidential candidates or their sup porters.

Alexander Hamilton presented the idea in Federalist 68 with a healthy dose of flattery "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the sta tion and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation".

He doesn't mention the chance of getting bribed, but that would have lowere d the tone.

here may indeed be substantial benefits to a modern-day, direct-citizen ele ction, and I'd rather not de-rail the thread on a tangent.

Republican Constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task of peculiar delicacy. Allow the right [to vote] exclusively to property [o wners], and the rights of persons may be oppressed... . Extend it equally t o all, and the rights of property [owners] ...may be overruled by a majorit y without property...."

ectoral College). But it is worth noting that at the time of Madison's wor ds, suffrage was routinely limited by the States to include only white men with property. Women, African & Native Americans, non-English speakers, th ose 18-21 years of age, etc... were clearly not voting directly for a Presi dent - since they were precluded from voting at all!

technology at the time", that our founding fathers would have opted for a direct-citizen election of the President.

male property owners (only)?

Property owners had the money to travel.

ectoral College). But it is worth noting that at the time of Madison's wor ds, suffrage was routinely limited by the States to include only white men with property. Women, African & Native Americans, non-English speakers, th ose 18-21 years of age, etc... were clearly not voting directly for a Presi dent - since they were precluded from voting at all!

So, the Pennsylvania Dutch (German speakers) who were half the population o f that state, didn't have a vote? How odd, they certainly held public office.

Formal registration wasn't always required; neither was a birth certificate , folk got born all the time without documentation. I suspect a lot of 'em voted.

If the Dems had won the last election, they would be making the opposite argument to the one they make now. Power overcomes principles most every time.

inia Senate and signed by the Governor will add VA to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact bringing the total electoral votes in the compact t o 209 of the 270 needed for the compact to be enabled. This is encouraging to those who wish for the President to be elected by the people with one p erson, one vote.

es for more equal focus by the candidates at the state level. But that is patently not true. Candidates focus on areas where their campaigning can h ave an impact, the swing states. And in those states they focus on the lar ger ones. Here is a map showing campaign activity in 2012.

the candidates.

we are not one giant centralized government but a federal coalition that co nsists of component states. Having no electoral college and just a popular vote would go against that.

Perhaps. On the other hand, minority presidents have never been much good, and the electoral college is definitely a bug in the US constitution - as o pposed to a widely admired and frequently copied feature.

John Larkin is arguing from somewhat inadequate first principles in a case where there are very obvious disadvantages in the way things get done in th e US at the moment.

and/or fly in the face of one person/one vote.

cted by citizens, but that the founding fathers WANTED it that way, (but it was impracticable for the times).

No, I'm not really interested in what the founding fathers intended. That is essentially obsolete thinking and has no real purpose to a society and g overnment 250 years later.

I'm dismissing all the clap trap reasons that people try to justify the ele ctoral college. They all are essentially simply wrong in fact or are wrong in intent.

here may indeed be substantial benefits to a modern-day, direct-citizen ele ction, and I'd rather not de-rail the thread on a tangent.

Republican Constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task of peculiar delicacy. Allow the right [to vote] exclusively to property [o wners], and the rights of persons may be oppressed... . Extend it equally t o all, and the rights of property [owners] ...may be overruled by a majorit y without property...."

The "rights" of any minority are in theory preserved by the rights grated i n the Constitution. Property owners are a class particularly important to the founding fathers as it's a class they were in. Otherwise they are no d ifferent than Catholics or short people.

ectoral College). But it is worth noting that at the time of Madison's wor ds, suffrage was routinely limited by the States to include only white men with property. Women, African & Native Americans, non-English speakers, th ose 18-21 years of age, etc... were clearly not voting directly for a Presi dent - since they were precluded from voting at all!

technology at the time", that our founding fathers would have opted for a direct-citizen election of the President.

You seem to be responding to something you didn't quote. I don't recall ma king any "technology at the time" arguments. I may have mentioned it in pa ssing, but my point is simply that the only truly fair and even system of e lecting a President is "one person-one vote".

male property owners (only). ?

I don't care. Why are you talking about this? I don't see where anyone ad dressed this particular irrelevancy.

It's dubious 'the Dems' would have any use for such an argument during a campign.

As for 'power overcomes principles', that's on a person-by-person basis; we know that only for you, not for the rest of 300 million Americans. We hear that it doesn't apply to a senator from Utah.