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Colorado OKs joining National Popular Vote compact

Anagram said:
Why would there be? The people of the state, through their elected representatives, selected the method by which their electors would be chosen, as they are Constitutionally allowed to do.

I don't think there's a very strong legal argument against it.
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It would depend on if they are overriding the votes of their People. For instance, if it's as arbitrary as you claim, could the State Government simply say its state's EC votes will be cast as dictated by the Governor of that State? Could the State sell it's EC Votes to Corporations?
 
ludin said:
you don't get it.

whoever wins the popular vote would get all of those electorals.
NY, CA, TX, FL and i think maybe PA account for over 51% of the population in the US.
that is all you need to win.

if you are in SD, Montana, NC, SC too bad so sad you vote doesn't matter.

just this last election the state of CA cast more votes than 38 other states combined.

trumps margin of loss in the popular vote (which he was winning) came from CA and NY.
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I think you two are talking past each other. There's this compact system which is one thing and then there is the concept of just going full popular vote nationwide for the president, which is another.

I believe he was talking about the full nationwide popular vote, where of course no one would get all of one state or another.

As for Trump's margin of loss in the popular vote it came from every state in the union. It came just as much from me in Ohio as it did from Joe in California, as it did from Bill in Montana. 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary. Each and every one of them counted the same, regardless of their state. Doesn't matter under the current system, but would under a new popular vote system.

People worry about the small states being ignored, but I contend they are taken for granted as it is, and as far as the tyranny of the majority, at least here in Ohio I don't see Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland ganging up to pillage the rural areas, nor do I hear much about it anywhere else. For the places I do hear about it I have to note that population dynamics are such that some degree of domination is likely inevitable and I note that there would still be the US Senate offering equal representation no matter how few people live in an empty wilderness.
 
Ikari said:
It would depend on if they are overriding the votes of their People. For instance, if it's as arbitrary as you claim, could the State Government simply say its state's EC votes will be cast as dictated by the Governor of that State? Could the State sell it's EC Votes to Corporations?
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Constitutionally? Probably. There may be some issues with the second one in terms of bribery or other issues, but I don't know offhand. I don't see the Governor selecting as all that different from a constitutional perspective as how most states in the beginning had the electors selected by the legislature. Either way it's the people electing elected officials to select the electors.
 
bullseyelqcs said:
That wasn't about democracy or not....it was about whether a state initiative could violate someones Constitutional rights. The mob can never do that unless they manage to mob change the Constitution.
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It was a law passed via referendum that gave the state the power to deprive citizens of their rights.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
We are talking about the President, though. When it comes to laws the states have the Senate looking out for their interests. There isn't anything the electoral college protects that the Senate doesn't protect better. The Senate wields a tremendous amount of power and every state, regardless of population, has the same amount of representation in the Senate.
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You want a president that only looks out for less than half the states?
 
Anagram said:
Constitutionally? Probably. There may be some issues with the second one in terms of bribery or other issues, but I don't know offhand. I don't see the Governor selecting as all that different from a constitutional perspective as how most states in the beginning had the electors selected by the legislature. Either way it's the people electing elected officials to select the electors.
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Hmm, OK. I think it would get messy and certainly bog down in courts. Particularly if the People of the state didn't themselves vote on changes of how the EC votes are spent.
 
Ikari said:
Hmm, OK. I think it would get messy and certainly bog down in courts. Particularly if the People of the state didn't themselves vote on changes of how the EC votes are spent.
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I don't think the bolded is a factor. Politicians make many decisions without consulting the citizens of a state for a direct vote. Which is as it should be as citizens shouldn't be expected to be knowledgeable enough on every issue to vote, (and they certainly aren't). I don't think politicians deciding how the presidential electors are selected is any more egregious than them deciding how much in taxes is collected and how it is spent.
 
apdst said:
You want a president that only looks out for less than half the states?
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I want a President who looks out for the People. The Senate can look out for the states.
 
Anagram said:
I don't think the bolded is a factor. Politicians make many decisions without consulting the citizens of a state for a direct vote. Which is as it should be as citizens shouldn't be expected to be knowledgeable enough on every issue to vote, (and they certainly aren't). I don't think politicians deciding how the presidential electors are selected is any more egregious than them deciding how much in taxes is collected and how it is spent.
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It may not. You made a fair point earlier, considering that many of the original states did use their Legislature to appoint Electors. I don't know if when they changed from Legislature to Popular Voting if that was done by a vote by the People or an act of the Legislature itself. Still, I would think there would be a large hurumph (sp?) if a State said that it would give the Governor control of the EC votes, and that it would result in lawsuits even if in the end such lawsuits would be struck down/dismissed.

I wonder if the most "fair" way to divvy it up would be to allow the State Legislature to choose 2 Electors and the rest are chosen according to the popular vote of the State. Though it seems a bit overly complicated, perhaps. Regardless, I am not happy with ceding our EC votes to the nations popular vote. I think Colorado's EC Votes are for CO, and if we don't vote for the popular winner then so be it. But all I can do is vote against the incumbents I can when elections come up again...and I will. Might even vote Republican for the first time since like...2000.
 
Anagram said:
The bold are both inaccurate. You need 11 states to have a majority of the total votes cast in 2016, which is the same number of states you need to have a majority of the electoral vote. Except that it's realistic for one candidate to win all of the EV's of 11 states when it's not realistic for them to win all of the actual votes.

California didn't even cast the same number of votes as 20 states combined.

The fact is California doesn't have any greater voting power under a popular vote system than an electoral vote system. And they contribute less to the Democrats than under a popular vote system.
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sure they do clinton in fact won because of that margin of votes in CA.

It's Official: Clinton's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California | Investor's Business Daily

This is exactly why the EC was put in place so no 1 state could determine the presidency.
that the people running for president had to appeal to all people across the country not just the most populated ones.
 
Greenbeard said:
Under a popular vote, it doesn't matter where your voters live. Having a majority in any given state or population center is irrelevant, having a majority of the American electorate is all that matters. State-level voting patterns are irrelevant. That's the whole point.
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having a majority of the American electorate is all that matters



What he said. And you'd be just like ALL democracies
 
GDViking said:
Legally they can, and damn it my state should have.

If the electors had done their job and overruled the minor win by trump in Wisconsin, and realized that he would, just as he has been, a distractive force to America.

If they would have done their jobs we would not have a Russian asset in the Whitehouse...
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Need something to soothe your butthurt?
 
Journeyman said:
I think you two are talking past each other. There's this compact system which is one thing and then there is the concept of just going full popular vote nationwide for the president, which is another.

I believe he was talking about the full nationwide popular vote, where of course no one would get all of one state or another.

As for Trump's margin of loss in the popular vote it came from every state in the union. It came just as much from me in Ohio as it did from Joe in California, as it did from Bill in Montana. 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary. Each and every one of them counted the same, regardless of their state. Doesn't matter under the current system, but would under a new popular vote system.

People worry about the small states being ignored, but I contend they are taken for granted as it is, and as far as the tyranny of the majority, at least here in Ohio I don't see Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland ganging up to pillage the rural areas, nor do I hear much about it anywhere else. For the places I do hear about it I have to note that population dynamics are such that some degree of domination is likely inevitable and I note that there would still be the US Senate offering equal representation no matter how few people live in an empty wilderness.
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It's Official: Clinton's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California | Investor's Business Daily

Popular vote total outside California:
Trump: 58,474,401
Clinton: 57,064,530
_________________
Trump: + 1.4 million

no Clinton won the popular vote with at least 2 states NY and CA.
that was it.

but CA pushed her over the edge by a good margin.
the fact is

that the system was setup to avoid that very scenario. where 1 or 2 hugely populist states control who the president is.

no bill and the people in Montana votes only counted because their votes counted in their state.
their votes wouldn't matter against CA and NY.

they would be irrelevant.
 
ludin said:
sure they do clinton in fact won because of that margin of votes in CA.

It's Official: Clinton's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California | Investor's Business Daily

This is exactly why the EC was put in place so no 1 state could determine the presidency.
that the people running for president had to appeal to all people across the country not just the most populated ones.
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California being the difference in this one case does not mean that California will suddenly have more influence. They cast 10.2% of EVs and 10.3% of popular votes.

If Michigan had gone to Clinton instead of Trump by .2% would you now be claiming that Texas had undue influence in the Electoral College system just because it's 38 EV's would be decisive in that scenario?

Of course the larger states are more likely to be the states where you could take them away and change the outcome. It's because in either system they are worth the most. But EVs and Popular Votes don't really make them any more or less influential than the other.
 
apdst said:
It was a law passed via referendum that gave the state the power to deprive citizens of their rights.
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And was struck down because on matter how much the majority wants to do that, they simply cant.
 
Saladin4 said:
The Electoral College was put in by white Virginia slave holders...Time to end it
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I believe you are wrong, AND overly simplifying.

It has been 50+ years since I studied this all spent in a foreign country, but allow me to give it a try.

First, there were no "Americans" then. The men, most over 65 who created this were British and "landed gentry" superior to the working man. IN Britain and America the ruling class very much looked down on the "average" citizen. And those gathered in Philadelphia those days did not believe the "masses" to whom they actually giving a vote (Many wanted the vote only for "landed" citizens); they were very much concerned with the possibility of mob rule dictating who these uneducated people would vote.

Thus the "electoral college". And, it wasn't just the vote for the president, the EC ruled Senate elections as well. My memory does not recall that the same was true of the House.

As an aside, there was ONE very harsh opponent the EC, Benjamin Franklin who when asked "do we have monarchy or a republic?", replied "A republic....if you can keep it."
 
ludin said:
sure they do clinton in fact won because of that margin of votes in CA.

It's Official: Clinton's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California | Investor's Business Daily

This is exactly why the EC was put in place so no 1 state could determine the presidency.
that the people running for president had to appeal to all people across the country not just the most populated ones.
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That is a full of **** argument. Why you might ask? Because if she didn't get the votes she got in WI, ND, FL, TX and ID, she would have lost regardless of her margin of victory in CA. The popular vote is an aggregate of the entire country. In order for her to get to the total she got to, it had to encompass ALL of the votes she got. Without the votes everywhere else, she would have had to win by more in CA for the vote total to get to where it was.

She didn't win because of CA. She won because she appealed to more people across the country, plain and simple.
 
Fearandloathing said:
And you were saying earlier that Americans did so have power over their government.

"will ignore our votes" is NOT even close to democratic thinking
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shrug...

That's what happens when you have a bunch of Dems who don't mind ****ing around with the Constitution.
 
ludin said:
actually it does. if i have 1000 people living in my state and you have 100 living in your state in a popular vote you get no say.
i can do whatever i want to. why? i have 1000 people voting in my state. you can cast all 100 of your votes to one person and since
the people here are going to vote for my guy i win every time.

you get no say.
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That thing you just did there where you have to figure out where I live and how my neighbors vote before determining whether I “get a say”? That doesn’t happen under a popular vote. That’s entirely an artifact of the EC.
 
ludin said:
actually it does. if i have 1000 people living in my state and you have 100 living in your state in a popular vote you get no say.
i can do whatever i want to. why? i have 1000 people voting in my state. you can cast all 100 of your votes to one person and since
the people here are going to vote for my guy i win every time.

you get no say.
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In that scenario you wouldn't have any say in an Electoral College based system either. It's not like it makes states equal to states with 10 times the population.

In an EV system the smaller state could be argued to have even less say. If it was Orange v. Pink and the smaller state was overwhelmingly Pink but the bigger state was only moderately Orange, the Pink could win. In an EV system, Orange would win every time as long as the bigger state was ever so slightly more Orange than Pink.
 
bullseyelqcs said:
That is a full of **** argument. Why you might ask? Because if she didn't get the votes she got in WI, ND, FL, TX and ID, she would have lost regardless of her margin of victory in CA. The popular vote is an aggregate of the entire country. In order for her to get to the total she got to, it had to encompass ALL of the votes she got. Without the votes everywhere else, she would have had to win by more in CA for the vote total to get to where it was.

She didn't win because of CA. She won because she appealed to more people across the country, plain and simple.
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Trump was winning the national popular vote before california was calculated.

he was losing after their polls close it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
 
ludin said:
Trump was winning the national popular vote before california was calculated.

he was losing after their polls close it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
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To figure what out, exactly? That a significant percentage of people who voted for Clinton also lived in California? If that's your point, so what?
 
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