US inches closer to change in how presidential elections are counted

[Into the Night]

“I think this is a very straightforward, long-term plan to get us to a point where the United States is frankly what most people think it is, which is a place where every person’s vote counts the same as every other person’s vote,” Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger said after signing legislation to add the state to the National Popular Vote Compact.

“Unfortunately, that is not the case when it comes to presidential elections, where by virtue of having the Electoral College, depending on the state you live in, your vote does count differently.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/5831164-us-inches-closer-to-change-in-how-presidential-elections-are-counted/

So Virginia is allowing people who are not citizens of Virginia to vote. That is not the voice of the people of Virginia, Hugo.

 

[Into the Night]

This would take a change to the Constitution, a new Amendment.
and that takes 2/3 of the states to pass it.
As it is now it is in the Constitution that it is up to the states legislatures to decide how they want their appointees to the EC to be selected.

According to the State of Virginia constitution, the choice of which electoral college members are chosen is conducted by popular vote of the people of the State of Virginia, NOT people from any other State.

Only citizens of the State of Virginia are authorized to vote in elections held in the State of Virginia.

State legislatures can decide to just appoint them themselves and not even hold elections.

States MUST conform to the Constitution of the United States and their own State constitutions, Tball.

But if they did that I am sure most of them would be looking for a new job.

Ignoring constitutions is not a job.

Yes this would take an amendment to the Constitution , taking 2/3 of all states in the US to pass it into law.

There is no amendment to allow citizens of another State to vote for the citizens of any given State, Tball.

Democrats, once again, are planning election fraud while claiming 'vote of the people'.

 

[Into the Night]

Every election in the United States is popular. The President is ONLY election not by popular vote.

Wrong.

Go read the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the States, which you ignore, Hugo.

 

[Into the Night]

What is a state other than its people?!

People of another State voting for the people of a State? You don't want a vote of the people, Hugo!

 

[Into the Night]

I was surprised when the GOP didn't take Democrats up on their plan for proportional voting; they would have gotten a bigger chunk of the California and New York Congressional delegations if they had.

You are surprised that the GOP doesn't want to violate the Constitution of the United States and all State constitutions like you do?

 

[Into the Night]

NO it does NOT.
IT does say it is up to the legislatures of the states to decide HOW they want to appoint their delegates to the EC .

Ignoring all State constitutions won't work, Tball.

States do NOT even need to hold elections , their state legislature can just appoint whom ever they want and tell them how to vote, but I am sure if they ever did this they wouldn't have a job for long.

All States hold elections for the legislature to choose which electoral college members it sends.

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

And they have. It is in their own constitutions, which you are conveniently ignoring, Tball.
It is also a violation of the Constitution of the United States to allow citizens of one State to cast votes as citizens of another State. See Article I.

 

[Jake Starkey]

States still exist, unless you are suggesting their governments are now totally subordinate to the federal one. States perform most day-to-day functions people rely on, not the federal government. So, while each voter may be equal, states won't be, and voters in low population states will get screwed royally by voters in high population ones.

States are the representation of the republican ideal.

Voters are that of the democratic ideal.

The idea is how to make them work together, and it seems we are not doing very well.

 

[Jake Starkey]

You have ZERO clue how the US government works, and all three of those minions of ignorance you claim "own(ed)" me don't either. A national popular vote screws people living in low population states.

Stop it, goober boy. We act like, supposedly, a fusion of a democratic republic.

I don't think we are in place where we do it well.

 

[Into the Night]

If you look at the actual history of this, the electoral college was a compromise between Congress appointing a President, and direct popular election of one. The biggest problem with the electoral college method right now, is "winner take all." If electors were proportioned by congressional district or popular vote percentages by state much of the issues with a "popular vote" would be eliminated.

"Winner take all" is perfectly valid. That is up to the people of that State and their legislatures.

The problem with such a system is--and the Democrats recognize it--is the Democrats would almost always lose presidential elections. They want the alternate to this by being able to spread their often-higher national vote total out to cover the otherwise state by state losses they'd suffer. The problem with that system is it makes all but a handful of high-population states irrelevant to selection of a president.

The problem is that such States are literally allowing citizens of some other State to determine the popular vote within the State. In other words, noncitizens of a State voting in that State.

The Electoral College vs. Popular Vote: How America Elects Its President

Every four years, Americans cast their ballots for president, but the winner isn’t always the candidate who gets the most votes. ContentsWhat Is the National Popular Vote?What Is the Electoral College?How the Electoral College Works: Step by StepWhy the Electoral College Exists: Historical...

govfacts.org

Of these various systems, the congressional appointment one is a non-starter, while using a popular national vote is an absurd foray into tyranny of the masses.

Allowing noncitizens of a State vote in a State is not a popular vote. It is election fraud.

 

[Into the Night]

Basically, the Electoral College is the genius compromise the Founders built to keep the Executive branch independent of the Legislature while still giving the people a real voice. They explicitly rejected two bad ideas at the Constitutional Convention:

First idea: Letting Congress pick the President (that would make the Executive a puppet of the Legislature).

and B. A straight national popular vote (they feared "tyranny of the masses" and regional factions, Madison wrote about this in Federalist 10, and Hamilton explained the EC solution in Federalist 68)....

Instead, they created a system where each state chooses electors equal to its total congressional delegation (House reps + 2 Senators). That’s exactly why it’s 538 today (435 House + 100 Senate + 3 for DC via the 23rd Amendment). The electors meet in their own states and vote. It’s not Congress picking the President, and it’s not a raw national head-count. Hamilton called it “excellent” because it blends the sense of the people with safeguards against cabals, intrigue, and mob rule.

There is no such thing as “the national popular vote.” It’s just an after-the-fact aggregate of 51 separate state (and DC) elections. Campaigns are run, ads are bought, and turnout is driven by the Electoral College rules we actually have. Pretending otherwise is like complaining that a football game’s final score would be different if they’d played basketball rules.

TA Gardner is right that winner-take-all (used in 48 states) is the biggest practical friction point today. Maine and Nebraska already prove a district-based system can work without blowing up the whole republic. But switching to a true national popular vote wouldn’t “fix” anything—it would destroy the federal balance the Founders deliberately created.

Here’s why a national popular vote is insane in practice:
CA + NYC (and a handful of other mega-population centers) really would decide everything. The top 10 states already hold roughly 51% of the U.S. population. Under a national popular vote, candidates would campaign almost exclusively in the biggest media markets and urban corridors. Flyover country, rural states, the Mountain West, the Plains, the South outside a few big cities, all irrelevant. Why spend time or money in Wyoming, Montana, or West Virginia when you can rack up millions in LA, New York, Chicago, and Houston? The Founders designed the EC precisely to prevent coastal or urban elites from steamrolling the rest of the country. Candidates would never leave these states, they would simply not care about the vote from any other group of states.

It would make most states spectators. Right now, even “safe” states still matter because their electoral votes are in play in the broader strategy. Under popular vote, 40+ states become electoral wastelands. Turnout in those places would crater.

Democrats know this math. Their strongest margins come from huge, deep-blue population centers (look at 2016: Clinton won California alone by over 4.27 million votes, more than her entire national popular-vote margin). Spreading those urban piles nationwide lets them paper over losses in the other 40 states. TA Gardner nailed it: proportional or district allocation would expose that geographic weakness, so they push the popular-vote alternative instead.

The Electoral College forces candidates to build broad geographic coalitions across diverse regions, economies, and cultures. That’s not a bug, it’s the feature that has kept the republic stable for 235+ years with peaceful power transfers almost every time. The handful of times the EC and national totals diverged (5 times total) didn’t break the country; they reflected the system working as designed.

Bottom line: the Founders weren’t idiots. They gave us a republic, not a pure democracy, for very good reasons. Scrapping the Electoral College for a raw popular vote would turn the United States into a country run by whichever side can max out turnout in the biggest cities. That’s not fairness, that’s just trading one set of swing states for permanent coastal dominance. The system we have is still the fairest way to elect a President in a continental republic of 50 sovereign states.

I'm afraid you missed it, Damo.

What Democrats want to do is allow noncitizens of a State determine the electoral college of that State.

 

[Into the Night]

You are stating that everyone in California will vote a certain way, so if we allow a popular vote, they will dominate the country. I point out that if you accept that, you could also accept that all whites would vote the same way, and they would dominate the country. If you want to give people in red states extra votes for not being a majority of the country, why not give Blacks extra votes for not being a majority of the country?

Alowing noncitizens to vote is election fraud, Wally.

 

[Damocles]

I'm afraid you missed it, Damo.

What Democrats want to do is allow noncitizens of a State determine the electoral college of that State.

nah, I simply was trying to get people to understand what the Electoral is and why it is different (but similar to) from a Parliament choosing a Prime Minister.

 

[Into the Night]

There is logic in a state like Cali having more sway than states with fewer than a million population. The reverse makes no sense. A complete majority winning a vote ,like every other vote in the country, makes sense. That is how it should be.

Noncitizens don't count, Sybil...and shouldn't.

 

[Grim Reaper]

Alowing noncitizens to vote is election fraud, Wally.

You didn’t respond to what he said, you just slapped noncitizens voting on top of a point you didn’t understand. That’s not a rebuttal, it’s you dragging in a whole new argument because you couldn’t handle the one already on the table.

 

[Tbird19482]

According to the State of Virginia constitution, the choice of which electoral college members are chosen is conducted by popular vote of the people of the State of Virginia, NOT people from any other State.

Only citizens of the State of Virginia are authorized to vote in elections held in the State of Virginia.


States MUST conform to the Constitution of the United States and their own State constitutions, Tball.

Ignoring constitutions is not a job.

There is no amendment to allow citizens of another State to vote for the citizens of any given State, Tball.

Democrats, once again, are planning election fraud while claiming 'vote of the people'.

I NEVER said they did or were allowing people from other states to vote in their elections you stupid fuck
IF you think I did then show us where I did.
The Constitution saying it is up to the States legislatures to decide how they want to appoint their delegates to the EC, so if they decided they would let people from other states vote in their elections that is all up to them. READ the CONSTITUTION you DUMB FUCK.

 

[Into the Night]

So are the state's representatives. Who speaks for the state / state government?


Absolutely!

Not majority vote, a supermajority vote requirement. That and the 17th amendment ruined the Senate. Requiring supermajority vote in the Senate is unconstitutional except for very specific cases, laid out in that same constitution.

 

[Into the Night]

nah, I simply was trying to get people to understand what the Electoral is and why it is different (but similar to) from a Parliament choosing a Prime Minister.

Fine, but Democrats don't want an electoral college.

 

[Tbird19482]

Wrong.

Go read the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the States, which you ignore, Hugo.

LOL somebody that has never read the CONSTITUTION telling somebody else to go read it , now that is funny.

 

[Into the Night]

You didn’t respond to what he said, you just slapped noncitizens voting on top of a point you didn’t understand. That’s not a rebuttal, it’s you dragging in a whole new argument because you couldn’t handle the one already on the table.

You can't blame your problems on me, Sybil.

It is illegal and unconstitutional for noncitizens of a State to vote for anything in that State.

 

[Into the Night]

I NEVER said they did or were allowing people from other states to vote in their elections you stupid fuck

Yes you did. DON'T TRY TO DENY YOUR OWN POSTS!

IF you think I did then show us where I did.

DON'T TRY TO DENY YOUR OWN POSTS!

The Constitution saying it is up to the States legislatures to decide how they want to appoint their delegates to the EC, so if they decided they would let people from other states vote in their elections that is all up to them. READ the CONSTITUTION you DUMB FUCK.

RAAA. It is unconstitutional for noncitizens of a State to vote in that State.