Massachusetts' Legislature Favors Popular Vote over Electoral College: Will Your Vote Get Neutralized?

I haven't forgotten that was a player in the 2000 elections.

A lot of transparent work would have to be done to insure that electronic vote fraud, glitches and other forms of high mischief could be spotted.

This will make no difference if I don't have confidence in the vote.

And I don't.

Gena Haskett is a BlogHer CE.
Blogs:Out On The Stoop ( http://outonthestoop.blogspot.com ) and Create Video Notebook
( http://createvideonotebook.blogspot.com )

And dump the electoral college altogether?

Some people are concerned about how this would affect campaigning and promising and on and on. I personally would push for the politics itself of being a candidate and winning changing but that could take generations (still might be worth it).

Jill Writes Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

In The Arena: Jill Miller Zimon, Pepper Pike City Council Member ( http://jillmillerzimon.blogspot.com )

I think the Electoral College had it's place--back when the Pony Express was THE way to get information disseminated quickly. Nowadays, with the speed at which information is shared, the EC is outdated. It focuses too much on too few states, and doesn't appropriately account for the will of all the people.

~Margaret

Just Margaret ( http://maurhoffbarney.blogspot.com )

There's no question - I was beside myself with Gore having won the popular vote and not the electoral. But I was also very very pleased with how the SCOTUS decision, no matter what I thought of it, did end it, with great effort being put into election reform (meeting with very mixed results, but I know in Ohio, definitely some improvements over time).

Few things get to be higher stakes than a presidential election and when that's the case, sadly, there's just no restraint on what some people may do. I honestly am at a loss for how we affect some people's behavior in this regard.

Jill Writes Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

In The Arena: Jill Miller Zimon, Pepper Pike City Council Member ( http://jillmillerzimon.blogspot.com )

It certainly isn't an impetus to get me to the polls. If anything, it sort of sends a "why bother" message. I'll still vote, but certainly, it sometimes feels more like a motion rather than an action.

Melissa writes Stirrup Queens ( http://stirrup-queens.com ) and Lost and Found ( http://lostandfoundandconnectionsabound.blogspot.c... ). Her book is Navigating the Land of If ( http://thelandofif.blogspot.com/ ).

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. It would no longer matter who won a state. Elections wouldn't be about winning states. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.

The bill has been endorsed or voted for by 1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska -- 70%, DC -- 76%, Delaware --75%, Maine -- 77%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74% , Massachusetts -- 73%, Minnesota -- 75%, New York -- 79%, Washington -- 77%, and West Virginia- 81%.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 30 state legislative chambers, in 20 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Maine (4), Michigan (17), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), New York (31), North Carolina (15), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California (55), Colorado (9), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), New Jersey (15), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), and Washington (11). The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes -- 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

National Popular Vote is a bipartisan coalition of legislators, scholars, constitutionalists and grassroots activists committed to preserving the Electoral College, while guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who earns the most votes in all fifty states.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all rule (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but now used by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.

Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided "battleground" states and their voters. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just six states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Massachusetts (the 13th largest population state, with 12 electoral college votes) and 19 of the 22 smallest and medium-small states (with less than 7 electoral college votes) were not among them. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states, and candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections.