Nelson bill would abolish Electoral College

[Phred42]

Saving Democracy = (in part)

- Killing the Electoral College
- Public financing or Elections
- Instant run-off voting
- Paper Ballots

Nelson has part of it here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Nelson bill would abolish Electoral College
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/nelson-bill-would-abolish-electoral-college-2008-06-06.html

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College on Friday, less than a week after the Democrats settled on how to handle delegates from Florida at their national convention.

“It’s time for Congress to really give Americans the power of one-person, one-vote, instead of the political machinery selecting candidates and electing our president,” Nelson said in a release announcing the amendment.

Nelson had announced he would offer the legislation in an address to his state’s senate in March.

Nelson said his principal argument for making the change is that the Electoral College permits a candidate with fewer votes nationally to win the presidency by capturing narrow victories in big states. In 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore won the popular votes but George W. Bush won the Electoral College.

Nelson cited that election along with this year’s contentious Democratic primary in Florida as reasons for his legislation. He sued the DNC last fall for initially refusing to recognize Florida’s full delegation at the Democratic National Convention.

[gateley]

1. Asking of those who understand these things --

would that be a good thing?

How about just counting the popular votes - period? Is that realistic?

Thanking you in advance for your wisdom and enlightenment. :hi:

[Ravy]

2. Counting the popular vote could mean that the candidates

could pander to the 10 big states and forget all about the rest in trying to get a high number of votes there.

The electoral college favors the small states, so I cannot see them voting to abolish it.

[gateley]

4. Ah - makes sense. Thanks. nt

[kenny blankenship]

6. There's another argument in favor of not abolishing the EC and not going w/ popular vote total

If the national popular vote total elected the President there would be an incentive to cheat in all 50 states. Elections are handled by state govt. per the Constitution, and as we all know these govt.s are highly permeable to corrupt partisan influences. In their own little shady fiefdoms in the states, parties get up to the craziest shenanigans--Katherine Harris, Jeb Bushler, Ken Blackwell and so on. What if you gave these irresponsible, corrupt entities the power to gin up votes? Then they would not try merely to slant their own state toward one candidate or the other, but also to attempt to singlehandedly win the election on a national basis for their favorite by running up his/her numbers. Even when a candidate like Bush is easily going to win a state like Georgia let's say, state govt cheaters in GA could be tempted to inflate his vote total to overshadow Florida where he was going to narrowly lose. Instead of just some states having an incentive to cheat, all states would be tempted to cheat, because God knows their neighbors are cheating.

Keeping the Electoral College in place so that the Presidential election goes by states limits the damage one corrupt set of election officials can do. As long as the Constitution makes overseeing the elections the purview of the several states, you have 50 opportunities for crookedness, and there will be a need to contain the damage. The EC does this by limiting the number of votes a state can cast in determining the outcome of the Presidential election. (Registered voters are a bad number to use to limit the input of a state on the overall outcome since in any given year, only a fraction of eligible voters will actually vote, leaving enormous margins for corrupt state officials to play with). The disproportional weight given to small states by the formula for the EC is a problem (for democratic majorities and democracy), and ideally it would be dealt with, but we don't have to get rid of the EC altogether to ameliorate the problem and as long as the management of elections continues to remain in the hands of state govt.s, eliminating the EC could be a bad idea.

[Retrograde]

8. instead of pandering to the big swing states

and ignoring large-population states were it's assumed that the majority of voters will go for a certain candidate? This Californian would like to see some pandering - or, after the last few presidential elections, even a candidate visit or three!

I agree, the small-population states are unlikely to go along with this, and since it takes 3/4 of the states to amend the constitution we're not going to see the electoral college abolished any time soon. I'd like to see a proportional electoral vote in all states, even though this means places like Wyoming and North Dakota are still over-represented.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Can you imagine the nightmare of...

recounts in dozens of states with each candidate trying to find a few more popular votes?

[cynatnite]

9. Only large cities would have a say...

Not that the system we have is so great...it has it's problems, but I think scrapping the electoral college is a mistake if there is nothing to take it's place that would give all states an equal say.

[kenny blankenship]

3. You don't have to abolish the EC outright,

just amend it so that the allocation of electors for Senators is removed, leaving only electors awarded per Congressional Representative. Then there is no more disproportionate, undemocratic, small-state advantage.

That might be easier to do than abolishing the EC altogether. Either way requires amending the Constitution so don't expect small states to ratify it.

[Phred42]

7. Ending the EC will work if

you have these:

- Public financing or Elections
- Instant run-off voting (IROV)

IROV will allow third Party candidates a chance and force campaigning in all states

My 2 cents - I could be wrong.

In any case the EC still gives advantage to the states with the largest number of EC votes I don't thinkit accomplishes what it's advertised to to AND it gives the Party Elites more control

Kind of like 'Super-delegates' which also need to be abolished.

[MrCoffee]

10. Again? They keep floating these "EC is EEEEEVIL" bills/amendments

and they never go anywhere. Remember Bayh/Celler?

[Phred42]

11. Here's more

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=54674

#4
According to an article at http://www.slate.com/id/2105055/ , the states that get the biggest advantage from the electorial college are California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois, due to their winner-take-all approach. Even in those states, I suspect the vast majority of people would support a popular vote election. After 222, it is time for the United States to stop being an oligarchy and become a democratic country like France and Russia who elect their presidents by popular vote.