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Maine Senate moves to award electoral votes to popular vote winner

Why should the minority outrank the majority?

Wha'?

States should apportion by vote where possible, not join in virulently anti-democratic compacts.
 
Wha'?

States should apportion by vote where possible, not join in virulently anti-democratic compacts.

So you don't have an answer? Shocking.
 
Because it is conducive to a stable society

Like we're seeing today after the election of Donald Trump? I would say the opposite is true.
 
It's definitely better than winner take all.

But this new plan is shocking.

They're ceding their states say in the election. Although Maine hasn't gone Republican since 1988, 7 straight time Maine has gone Democratic. Maine isn't about to go republican any time soon either. This is just a knee jerk reaction to losing an election.

Hillary lost because she failed to install enthusiasm and energy in her, the Democratic Party base which was much larger than Trumps, republican base. They didn't turnout for her. Perhaps all these Democratic states are trying to fix the wrong thing. They should be looking at why their base failed to turnout instead of trying to change our electoral process. The Democratic base was 6 points more or higher then the GOP base in November of 2016. But that 6 point advantage in the size of the bases shrunk to 3 points among those who actually turnout to vote.
 
They're ceding their states say in the election. Although Maine hasn't gone Republican since 1988, 7 straight time Maine has gone Democratic. Maine isn't about to go republican any time soon either. This is just a knee jerk reaction to losing an election.

Hillary lost because she failed to install enthusiasm and energy in her, the Democratic Party base which was much larger than Trumps, republican base. They didn't turnout for her. Perhaps all these Democratic states are trying to fix the wrong thing. They should be looking at why their base failed to turnout instead of trying to change our electoral process. The Democratic base was 6 points more or higher then the GOP base in November of 2016. But that 6 point advantage in the size of the bases shrunk to 3 points among those who actually turnout to vote.

Yup.

How anyone concerned with democratic representation could support this ugly compact is utterly beyond me.
 
It only goes into effect when 270 electoral votes worth of states sign on to it.

That means it is symbol and not a real effort. Republicans clearly dominate the majority of state governments, though if Texas and Florida roll over - or Florida and some Southern states roll over it becomes a prospect.
 
I'm hoping that the national popular vote goes against the candidate these states' popular vote favors. Those Senates are going to have some 'spaining to do. :cool:

Sooner or later that will happen, which is why it is an imperfect solution.
 
Sooner or later that will happen, which is why it is an imperfect solution.
It's no kind of "solution". It's an assault on Constitutional process.
 
Polls show that most Americans support the Popular vote over the Electoral vote.

Poll: Voters prefer popular vote over Electoral College - POLITICO

Half of voters, 50 percent, say the national popular vote should be used for presidential elections, the poll shows — more than the 34 percent who think presidential elections should be based on the Electoral College. Sixteen percent of voters have no opinion.
 
Polls show that most Americans support the Popular vote over the Electoral vote.

Poll: Voters prefer popular vote over Electoral College - POLITICO

Half of voters, 50 percent, say the national popular vote should be used for presidential elections, the poll shows — more than the 34 percent who think presidential elections should be based on the Electoral College. Sixteen percent of voters have no opinion.

A more interesting poll would be conducted among those who were NOT zoned out/asleep/high as a kite/absent during civics/history classes. :)
 
How's about Democrats put up a candidate who's policies, and campaigns can win? Nah, too tough I guess...

This is just more whining from Democrats who think they are entitled to power.

Sent from my SM-T587P using Tapatalk
 
On the contrary, a popular vote would assure every single person's vote counts regardless of where they live in the U.S. As it is now, a handful of counties in a handful of states decides the presidency. That is absurd.

But of course, that isn't true at all.

A review of the popular vote from 2016 shows massive parts of the country the NDP ignored. In fact all of the popular vote margin, and them some, came from only one state, California.
 
[/B]Not ignore "minorities", but they would ignore sparingly populated areas. Which essentially is what occurs today, but even worse if you're not in a battleground state.
I wouldn't say we ignore rural areas today. We worry about rural hospitals, rural internet access, farming, coal mining, issues pertaining to energy production, etc. The electoral college encourages appeals to the diversity of states, peoples, and issues.
 
Yup.

How anyone concerned with democratic representation could support this ugly compact is utterly beyond me.

The constitution leaves it to the state legislatures how they award their electoral votes. So the compact is probably constitutional. Why any state would want to cede their voice in the election to someone else is beyond me. Although as I said, I view this as a knee jerk reaction by the states who have Democratic control of the legislatures to losing an election.

So far there isn't a single red or swing state that has joined the compact. Every state so far is almost 100% guaranteed of going Democratic in the next election and in the near future. The equation isn't changed.

I think the Democratic Party would be better served to find out and possibly correct why their turnout is up to par to the GOP turnout in the elections. Both in 2000 and 2016 the Democratic base turnout as a percentage vs the number or percentage of the electorate they made up was smaller than the percentage of the Republican base turnout. As I stated a 6 point advantage in party affiliation/base ended up being but 3 points in actual turnout in 2016. a 5 point advantage in party affiliation/base for the Democrats ended up being 3 points in 2000.

The Republican base, smaller than the Democratic base turns out to vote in a larger percentage almost every time.
 
This is the other argument against it that I absolutely cannot stand. California cast 10.2% of electoral votes in 2016. California cast 10.3% of the popular vote in 2016. The idea that this somehow hugely enlarges the voting power of California is just not accurate. (And all 10.2% of those EVs went to Democrats when only about 6.3% of that 10.3% went to Hillary in the popular vote.)
It doesn't matter if you don't like it or not. in the 2016 election CA cast more votes than 22 other states.
When you add NY to that it completely drowns out all of those votes and those peoples votes simply wouldn't have mattered.

Maine has next to no voice compared to California the way it currently is set up. They have 4 electoral votes. California has more than 10 times that.

Actually they do. the EC's that the people vote for go to the candidate that they voted for. Under this system their EC votes go to whoever CA and NY vote for.

And the idea that this will automatically throw every election to leftist cities is kind of the same bad argument. In 2012, the electoral college favored Democrats. This is despite the fact that those same cities favored leftists roughly the same as in 2016 when the electoral college hurt Democrats. The people thinking that the electoral college will only hurt Democrats forever, (and a lot of these people are Democrats who only want it abolished for political reasons), are almost definitely wrong.

No i don't think it will hurt democrats forever.
I think the electoral college forces candidates to appeal to a wide variety of views across the nation.
a popular vote is nothing more than pandering to the mindless masses.

basically throwing bread to the crowd to be popular.
Leftists are pissed that they have to espouse plans that everyone likes.

the EC gets in their way of mindless mass voting. then again that was the job of the EC to begin with.
 
The constitution leaves it to the state legislatures how they award their electoral votes. So the compact is probably constitutional. Why any state would want to cede their voice in the election to someone else is beyond me. Although as I said, I view this as a knee jerk reaction by the states who have Democratic control of the legislatures to losing an election.

So far there isn't a single red or swing state that has joined the compact. Every state so far is almost 100% guaranteed of going Democratic in the next election and in the near future. The equation isn't changed.

I think the Democratic Party would be better served to find out and possibly correct why their turnout is up to par to the GOP turnout in the elections. Both in 2000 and 2016 the Democratic base turnout as a percentage vs the number or percentage of the electorate they made up was smaller than the percentage of the Republican base turnout. As I stated a 6 point advantage in party affiliation/base ended up being but 3 points in actual turnout in 2016. a 5 point advantage in party affiliation/base for the Democrats ended up being 3 points in 2000.

The Republican base, smaller than the Democratic base turns out to vote in a larger percentage almost every time.

The thing that few seem to get about this whole compact is that it only works so long as it isn't necessary. The point of the compact is to, at some point, force a state to dedicate its EVs to a candidate that the majority of that state's electorate did not vote for. There is no state legislature willing to commit political suicide like that. So the compact only holds together as long as the individual states majorit vote is in line with the popular vote.

And that isn't even getting into the disaster of a close vote where member State A has a majority vote for Candidate 1 and Candidate 2 wins... but the national vote is very slim. Those states asked to commit political suicide and NO legal standing to ask for a recount.

In short: It's a stupid, myopic agreement so of course it is between blue states.
 
The EC always destroys the voices of numerous voter within every state. That's inherent in the way it works. A popular vote is the only way to avoid doing that. The NPVIC still operates within the flawed mechanism of the EC but it realizes the same outcome as a real national popular vote.

This is 100% incorrect but you don't know why it is incorrect.
it is the all or nothing that does that not the EC.

your argument is flawed.
 
The thing that few seem to get about this whole compact is that it only works so long as it isn't necessary. The point of the compact is to, at some point, force a state to dedicate its EVs to a candidate that the majority of that state's electorate did not vote for. There is no state legislature willing to commit political suicide like that. So the compact only holds together as long as the individual states majorit vote is in line with the popular vote.

And that isn't even getting into the disaster of a close vote where member State A has a majority vote for Candidate 1 and Candidate 2 wins... but the national vote is very slim. Those states asked to commit political suicide and NO legal standing to ask for a recount.

In short: It's a stupid, myopic agreement so of course it is between blue states.

Exactly, so far all deep blue states. All these states are going under the assumption that it will always be the Democratic candidate that wins the popular vote, but loses in the electoral college. The reverse could actually take place. Granted, 2000 and 2016 were elections that the electoral college over rode the popular vote.

In neither case did Gore or Hillary receive a majority of votes. More Americans voted against them than for them. 52% of Americans casting their votes against Gore and Hillary. A majority of Americans didn't want Gore, G.W. Bush, Trump and Hillary Clinton. If you had just went by the popular vote in both elections, a minority of Americans would have elected them, not a majority.

The will of the majority of Americans was that none of those four candidate should become president. Only in the electoral college did one receive a majority of the votes, 50% plus one. Both Bush and Trump won via a majority vote in the electoral college.

You always hear that Clinton and Gore supporters, pro compact, that they received a majority of the popular vote, they definitely did not!
 
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