Jerry Brown endorses popular vote bill for California

Yurt said:
i'll ask again:

what precedent is this setting? other states have already done this, other states are free to ignore it.
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No state has it active yet due to the 270 electoral votes clause. They'll have to convince about 130 more electoral votes to go along with it before it will be an active concern. At that point, whoever wins the popular vote across the US will win.

I'd like to know what they'd do if it was enacted, then another state was added that dropped them below 270, there is no provision to reverse it in such a case.
 
cawacko said:
So this means if Candidate A wins California but Candidate B gets more votes overall then Candidate B gets CA's 55 electoral votes?


Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that would award all of California's 55 Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote in presidential elections.

The movement by a group called National Popular Vote aims to prevent a repeat of 2000, when Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but Republican George W. Bush won the electoral vote. The proposed change would ensure the winner of the national popular vote becomes president.

With Brown's signature Monday, California became the eighth state to sign on, giving the effort 132 of the 270 electoral votes it needs to take effect.

California and most other states currently have winner-take-all systems that give all the electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes in that state.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/08/08/state/n131327D33.DTL
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You mean the Governor did that with out a plebiscite?

So if Candidate A wins the popular vote in California but Candidate B wins the popular vote nationally all of Californias electoral votes got to Candidate B? That's fucked up and it defies the will of the people.
 
Yurt said:
this undermines each states importance in the overall election process. while california is certainly entitled to make this change, this change gives power to other states over california's electoral votes. some might argue that this is a good thing because it might have the effect of candidates actually campaigning in more states as the heavy electoral states won't have as much sway. sounds like a good argument, but i'm not convinced yet. imo.....this is all about the butt hurt dems who are still whining about al gore's loss in 2000. had gore won, this change wouldn't even be on the horizon in such a grand scale.
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Not only that but I question it's affectiveness. Even had this rule been in place in 2000 it wouldn't have changed the outcome. Al Gore won the electoral votes in all those states.
 
Yurt said:
what does that have to do with your jealousy of my great state? i like the system as is now...though i am not convinced it is the best system. i explained more in post 3
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????....how can I be jealous of your state when I don't even know where you live?......
 
Damocles said:
Easily. I think it is stupid. I believe that the electoral college was set up for a purpose, and it wasn't that it took forever to get results.
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if I recall, it was to prevent states with large populations from overpowering the others......ironically, the state with the largest population has just abandoned itself to control of people in other states......
 
Epic, CA no longer will matter in presidential elections. You can ignore it, not spend a single dime on it, and funnel all of your money into the other 49 states. Then, when you win the popular vote, you get the Cali-55.
 
cawacko said:
So this means if Candidate A wins California but Candidate B gets more votes overall then Candidate B gets CA's 55 electoral votes?


Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that would award all of California's 55 Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote in presidential elections.

The movement by a group called National Popular Vote aims to prevent a repeat of 2000, when Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but Republican George W. Bush won the electoral vote. The proposed change would ensure the winner of the national popular vote becomes president.

With Brown's signature Monday, California became the eighth state to sign on, giving the effort 132 of the 270 electoral votes it needs to take effect.

California and most other states currently have winner-take-all systems that give all the electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes in that state.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/08/08/state/n131327D33.DTL
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Yet another Dem idea that wasn't thought out very well.

What are the odds of a Rep winning in CA these days?
 
Again, the law doesn't take effect until states with 270 electoral votes agree to it. This point seems to be lost on some of you.
 
David St. Hubbins said:
Again, the law doesn't take effect until states with 270 electoral votes agree to it. This point seems to be lost on some of you.
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again, another Dem idea that was not very well thought out. Tell us... what states do you think will sign on for it? You think it will be the small population states that trend Rep or the large ones like CA, NY that go Dem every time?

There is a reason we have the electoral college.
 
Superfreak said:
again, another Dem idea that was not very well thought out. Tell us... what states do you think will sign on for it? You think it will be the small population states that trend Rep or the large ones like CA, NY that go Dem every time?
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It doesn't matter. Once states representing 270 electoral votes sign it, it becomes law and we have a national popular vote election. And, for the record, states of various sizes have passed it.


Superfreak said:
There is a reason we have the electoral college.
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There isn't a good one.
 
the electoral college is important. it forces candidates to appeal to a broader base instead of just focusing on population rich areas or ideas.
 
Yurt said:
the electoral college is important. it forces candidates to appeal to a broader base instead of just focusing on population rich areas or ideas.
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The electoral college forces candidates to appeal to a narrow subset of "swing states" instead of the the nation as a whole. It's asinine.
 
David St. Hubbins said:
The electoral college forces candidates to appeal to a narrow subset of "swing states" instead of the the nation as a whole. It's asinine.
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those states are not narrow. using the popular vote will narrow their focus and allow them to ignore much of the country. that is simply the reality nigel. read your history.
 
Yurt said:
those states are not narrow. using the popular vote will narrow their focus and allow them to ignore much of the country. that is simply the reality nigel. read your history.
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History? I don't recall a time when the United States utilized a popular vote system to elect the president so I'm not certain how history will be any guide here. The reality is that the "swing states" are a very narrow slice of the American population and receive an inordinate amount of attention and pandering from the candidates.

There is no good reason not to use a popular vote. Inertia is not a good reason.
 
David St. Hubbins said:
History? I don't recall a time when the United States utilized a popular vote system to elect the president so I'm not certain how history will be any guide here. The reality is that the "swing states" are a very narrow slice of the American population and receive an inordinate amount of attention and pandering from the candidates.

There is no good reason not to use a popular vote. Inertia is not a good reason.
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i never said we used the popular vote.

1888 - Harrison vs Cleveland

THE CRITICS CHARGE: In this election, critics believe they have their best case against the Electoral College. Grover Cleveland won the popular vote while Benjamin Harrison won the electoral vote. Since no major issues of fraud, voter irregularities, or Congressional meddling is alleged, this is a straight up case of the system being wrong.
BACKGROUND: The main issue, if not the only issue, in the campaign was the tariff, brought to the forefront by the incumbent president Cleveland. He proposed lowering it, widely favored in the South; Harrison wanted to keep higher tariffs, widely favored in the North. One of the most civil and boring elections in history was also one of the closest. Cleveland had only a 0.8% lead over Harrison in the popular vote.
WHY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULDN'T BE BLAMED: While this may be the critics best example to show the Electoral College is flawed, supporters would say this election shows why the system works. The Electoral College system encourages candidates to make their appeal as broad as possible in order to win. Cleveland basically ran a campaign based on one issue supported by a single region of the country and ran up the vote in that region, thereby padding his popular vote. In the six southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, Cleveland received over 65% of the vote. In those six states Cleveland beat Harrison by 425,532 votes. In the other 32 states combined, Harrison beat Cleveland by 334,936 votes.
CONCLUSION: To say the Electoral College failed in 1888 is to not understand how the system works. The Electoral College prevents one region of the country voting as a block from unduly directing the outcome of the election to the rest of the country. The real reason Cleveland won the popular vote (by only 90,536 out of 11,379,131votes cast) but lost the election was because of unusually high support in a single region of the country.

http://www.presidentelect.org/art_evpvdisagree.html
 
Yurt said:
i never said we used the popular vote.

1888 - Harrison vs Cleveland

THE CRITICS CHARGE: In this election, critics believe they have their best case against the Electoral College. Grover Cleveland won the popular vote while Benjamin Harrison won the electoral vote. Since no major issues of fraud, voter irregularities, or Congressional meddling is alleged, this is a straight up case of the system being wrong.
BACKGROUND: The main issue, if not the only issue, in the campaign was the tariff, brought to the forefront by the incumbent president Cleveland. He proposed lowering it, widely favored in the South; Harrison wanted to keep higher tariffs, widely favored in the North. One of the most civil and boring elections in history was also one of the closest. Cleveland had only a 0.8% lead over Harrison in the popular vote.
WHY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULDN'T BE BLAMED: While this may be the critics best example to show the Electoral College is flawed, supporters would say this election shows why the system works. The Electoral College system encourages candidates to make their appeal as broad as possible in order to win. Cleveland basically ran a campaign based on one issue supported by a single region of the country and ran up the vote in that region, thereby padding his popular vote. In the six southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, Cleveland received over 65% of the vote. In those six states Cleveland beat Harrison by 425,532 votes. In the other 32 states combined, Harrison beat Cleveland by 334,936 votes.
CONCLUSION: To say the Electoral College failed in 1888 is to not understand how the system works. The Electoral College prevents one region of the country voting as a block from unduly directing the outcome of the election to the rest of the country. The real reason Cleveland won the popular vote (by only 90,536 out of 11,379,131votes cast) but lost the election was because of unusually high support in a single region of the country.

http://www.presidentelect.org/art_evpvdisagree.html
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I imagine you think you've made a point, but I'm not getting it.
 
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