aGameOfThrones
04-19-2011, 04:40 PM
President Barack Obama formally opened his 2012 campaign last week. Regardless of whom you’d like to see take the oath of office on Inauguration Day, 2013, we can all agree that it should be the candidate Americans actually elect.
Yet election rules now make it possible that the loser will win the presidency, because almost every state awards all its electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote there. And given how electors are allocated, a candidate can collect a majority of electors, without a majority of the votes nationally.
These problems can be avoided, however, simply by changing the way that states allocate their electoral votes: States would agree to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the nation’s popular vote, not the state’s. So voters in every state would then become important to the final count.
This proposal, called the National Popular Vote plan, already has broad bipartisan support. But it could gain momentum if the public was allowed to vote on it – which the Constitution allows.
There have been various efforts to force the states to adopt some other rule – for example, amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College. But the problem is not the Electoral College. It is the choice that most states are making in allocating their electors. The culprit? The state “winner-take-all” state system used by 48 of the 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill can ensure every vote counts – not just in swing states. It preserves the Electoral College, while guaranteeing that the candidate who receives the most votes in the 50 states and the District of Columbia becomes the president.
The plan calls for the states to pass a law that would award all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. To ensure each state that the others won’t cheat, the bill enacts an Interstate Compact, binding all that subscribe.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53434.html
Yet election rules now make it possible that the loser will win the presidency, because almost every state awards all its electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote there. And given how electors are allocated, a candidate can collect a majority of electors, without a majority of the votes nationally.
These problems can be avoided, however, simply by changing the way that states allocate their electoral votes: States would agree to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the nation’s popular vote, not the state’s. So voters in every state would then become important to the final count.
This proposal, called the National Popular Vote plan, already has broad bipartisan support. But it could gain momentum if the public was allowed to vote on it – which the Constitution allows.
There have been various efforts to force the states to adopt some other rule – for example, amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College. But the problem is not the Electoral College. It is the choice that most states are making in allocating their electors. The culprit? The state “winner-take-all” state system used by 48 of the 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill can ensure every vote counts – not just in swing states. It preserves the Electoral College, while guaranteeing that the candidate who receives the most votes in the 50 states and the District of Columbia becomes the president.
The plan calls for the states to pass a law that would award all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. To ensure each state that the others won’t cheat, the bill enacts an Interstate Compact, binding all that subscribe.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53434.html