California Assembly approves electoral vote change

This sounds stupid. Why would it make them bother campaigning more in CA? It doesn't make any sense at all.
 
cawacko said:
Maybe because I'm tired I'm not reading this right but I'm not getting the purpose here. It says this is to make California more relevent. But if the state still has 55 electoral votes what is the difference?


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/19/national/a172235D13.DTL&tsp=1
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not much, it is a rare thing for the electoral vote to go other than to the winner of the popular vote

it would be better to move the ca primary up to jan 2 or the first tuesday in january that is not a holiday

or how about this, a constitutional amendment placing all primaries on the first tuesday of september and that said primaries be by popular vote
 
It's part of a national popular vote movement to get states to agree to award their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. Candidates would campaign more in high population states than they do now (Republiacns typically write off NY and CA, Dems. TX) because right now it is a winner take all system on a state by state basis. Republicans will not win California and it doesn't matter if the candidate loses by one vote or eleventy billion votes, a loss is a loss and you get no electoral votes. Under the revised system based on national popular vote, the margin of loss in California matters for electoral vote purposes. The difference between a one vote loss in CA and an eleventy billion vote loss in CA has a big impact on the overall national vote total.
 
this is nothing but a step towards disenfranchising less populous/more conservative states. nothing more, nothing less. doesn't suprise me it's out of california.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
this is nothing but a step towards disenfranchising less populous/more conservative states. nothing more, nothing less. doesn't suprise me it's out of california.
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It seems like more of a step toward eliminating the electoral colledge, an astoundingly outdated institution.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
states with high population/large cities that are predominately liberal will have more power in a popular vote count than would an electoral system where numerous states that are less populous but more conservative.
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But a popular vote election gives equal value to each vote, which is not the case under the current electoral system. How does that disenfranchise anyone? Under the current system, in a two candidate race, a candidate earning 78.05% of the popular vote could still lose the election:

http://www.doughnutorbitals.com/2011/05/it-is-possible-to-win-us-presidency.html

It's an absurd system.
 
Yurt said:
good lord you're nit picky

i'm going to laugh if a pub gets the national vote and cali's liberal electoral votes have to go to a pub

:)
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The way this thing is structured, it doesn't kick in until a critical mass of states adopt the same law.
 
Yurt said:
good lord you're nit picky

i'm going to laugh if a pub gets the national vote and cali's liberal electoral votes have to go to a pub

:)
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It isn't going to happen until a bunch of states go for it. I think it is rather silly. We have separate elections for a reason. If they want their electoral votes to "count" and have people to run campaigns rather than just ceding their electoral votes to the Democrats they should apportion electoral votes. Republicans might run there if some of their electoral votes might go their way.
 
Damocles said:
It isn't going to happen until a bunch of states go for it. I think it is rather silly. We have separate elections for a reason. If they want their electoral votes to "count" and have people to run campaigns rather than just ceding their electoral votes to the Democrats they should apportion electoral votes. Republicans might run there if some of their electoral votes might go their way.
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There is no good reason to have the electoral college rather than a national popular vote. If we were starting over from scratch, we wouldn't design it that way (and we sure as shit wouldn't hold elections on a Tuesday, but that's another matter).
 
David St. Hubbins said:
There is no good reason to have the electoral college rather than a national popular vote. If we were starting over from scratch, we wouldn't design it that way (and we sure as shit wouldn't hold elections on a Tuesday, but that's another matter).
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I basically see it as a way for the votes of the state to count for the candidate who wins in that state. Imagine living in say Montana and all your electoral votes going for some other candidate than the one who won because of a popular "national" vote that isn't even part of your election. We have separate elections for a reason. Each state has their "voice" in these elections.
 
Damocles said:
I basically see it as a way for the votes of the state to count for the candidate who wins in that state. Imagine living in say Montana and all your electoral votes going for some other candidate than the one who won because of a popular "national" vote that isn't even part of your election. We have separate elections for a reason. Each state has their "voice" in these elections.
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It's a stupid way to elect a president. States don't vote, people do. The candidate receiving the most votes of the people should win.
 
David St. Hubbins said:
It's a stupid way to elect a president. States don't vote, people do. The candidate receiving the most votes of the people should win.
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If we were designed as one entity rather than separate states you might have a point, but we were not. This gives each state's election the attention it deserves.
 
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