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Clinton Rips GOP On Voting Rights While Calling For Universal Voter Registration

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826

To put these numbers in perspective,
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).
 
mvymvy said:
National Popular Vote would not disenfranchise any voter.

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. As in virtually every other election in the country, all votes would be counted equally and added together. The candidate with the most popular votes would win.

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).

Now minority party voters in each state have their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their 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.

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections. 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 Million votes.
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wrong.

5 states contain over 50% of the population. CA, NY, TX, FL and PA.

as long as you win those 5 states you win the election and every other state can be ignored.
it is a horrible idea.

then maybe gore should have campaigned in more states than the ones that he did.
 
ludin said:
wrong.

5 states contain over 50% of the population. CA, NY, TX, FL and PA.

as long as you win those 5 states you win the election and every other state can be ignored.
it is a horrible idea.

then maybe gore should have campaigned in more states than the ones that he did.
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No. You are wrong. The 11 largest states contain 56% of the population, and 278 electoral votes.
The 5 largest states are List of U.S. states and territories by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CA -38,802,500
TX - 26,956,958
FL - 19,893,297
NY -19,746,227
IL - 12,880,580
TOTAL - 118,279,562
Fifty States + D.C = 318,857,056

Winning the 5 largest states, alone, would not win a majority of the national popular vote.
 
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Clinton family clouded, erotically, the White House, the symbol of US nations and your dreams of America!
It was a venture and he failed before a woman!
 
ludin said:
wrong.

5 states contain over 50% of the population. CA, NY, TX, FL and PA.

as long as you win those 5 states you win the election and every other state can be ignored.
it is a horrible idea.

then maybe gore should have campaigned in more states than the ones that he did.
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No. Winning a state under the national popular vote system just wouldn't matter. So if one gets say 51% of the vote in Texas it isn't treated like the candidate got Texas in any sense. So you still need to get votes from pretty much everywhere. They will all count equally.
 
JoshuaZ said:
No. Winning a state under the national popular vote system just wouldn't matter. So if one gets say 51% of the vote in Texas it isn't treated like the candidate got Texas in any sense. So you still need to get votes from pretty much everywhere. They will all count equally.
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yes it is. states determine the national election.
they all count equally now.
 
Sooooo ... the lovely, totally trustworthy, squeaky clean Hillary Clinton is suggesting that Congress should re-pass a Law that's already been deemed unconstitutional.
And ya know what?
Some people will say she should suggest more unconstitutional things and make them national issues.
Kind of tells you what kind of voter (legal or otherwise) she intends to appeal to.
 
ludin said:
yes it is. states determine the national election.
they all count equally now.
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Bwah? What? No. Not at all.

In the current system states have electoral votes which are allocated by adding their number of house members with their number of senators. Since states all get the same number of senators (2), this means that states which are small get more representation in the electoral college. Alaska for example has one representative and 2 senators. So it gets three electoral votes. Texas has 36 representatives and 2 senators, so they get 38 electoral votes. Now, the population of Texas is around 27 million people. whereas Alaska has a population of around 700,000 people. So if it were at all counting equally then it would be about 40 times more electoral votes in Texas, but 3*40=120 which you'll note is much much bigger than 38. So states don't at all count equally, unless you are using a very non-standard notion of counts equally.
 
bubbabgone said:
Sooooo ... the lovely, totally trustworthy, squeaky clean Hillary Clinton is suggesting that Congress should re-pass a Law that's already been deemed unconstitutional.
And ya know what?
Some people will say she should suggest more unconstitutional things and make them national issues.
Kind of tells you what kind of voter (legal or otherwise) she intends to appeal to.
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She's vile and profane, so her appeal will be to those of a similar nature.
 
bubbabgone said:
Are you describing a voting bloc or a DP member bloc?
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I'm trying to be all-inclusive and non-discriminatory. So it's both - out of necessity borne on the back of fairness and equanimity.
 
JoshuaZ said:
Bwah? What? No. Not at all.

In the current system states have electoral votes which are allocated by adding their number of house members with their number of senators. Since states all get the same number of senators (2), this means that states which are small get more representation in the electoral college. Alaska for example has one representative and 2 senators. So it gets three electoral votes. Texas has 36 representatives and 2 senators, so they get 38 electoral votes. Now, the population of Texas is around 27 million people. whereas Alaska has a population of around 700,000 people. So if it were at all counting equally then it would be about 40 times more electoral votes in Texas, but 3*40=120 which you'll note is much much bigger than 38. So states don't at all count equally, unless you are using a very non-standard notion of counts equally.
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no they don't. are you telling me that north Dakota with it's 3 reps carries more weight then CA, or NY, or TX?
you are wrong.

that isn't how it works. there is a very complex formula that is used to determine the number of reps. this is based of the US census numbers taken.
by your little example you just shot yourself down.

TX has 38 reps and Alaska has 1. which means that TX has 38X more voting power in the house then Alaska.
which is the way that it should be.

Alaska in this case would actually have <1 person in the house but since you can't have like .5 of a person they get one.

also we do have a popular vote now. the electors are elected to vote for a person based on the majority of voters in that state.
 
ludin said:
no they don't. are you telling me that north Dakota with it's 3 reps carries more weight then CA, or NY, or TX?
you are wrong.

that isn't how it works. there is a very complex formula that is used to determine the number of reps. this is based of the US census numbers taken.
by your little example you just shot yourself down.

TX has 38 reps and Alaska has 1. which means that TX has 38X more voting power in the house then Alaska.
which is the way that it should be.

Alaska in this case would actually have <1 person in the house but since you can't have like .5 of a person they get one.

also we do have a popular vote now. the electors are elected to vote for a person based on the majority of voters in that state.
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You are confusing how many electoral votes they have with how many representatives they have. TX has 36 representatives. It has 38 electoral votes. The two extras are from the senators, as I explained. And you are correct that Alaska would have even less than 1 if we did representation based on pure population, but that makes the small states have even more of a disproportionate say in the electoral college. One way to look at this is to look at the probability that a random voter in a given state will be the deciding vote. See e.g. here(pdf) for the basics of how that works and how to calculate it. Now, the upshot is that in a simple model, under our current system voters in small states have a higher chance at being the vote that matters.

Under national popular vote that doesn't happen.
 
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