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The Electoral College

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  • that guy in AZ
    12-01-2018 10:37:31 AM
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    We had some discussions a while ago about the Electoral College, but they have disappeared into a cloud somewhere.

    There have been 5 times in our country's history where a candidate lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote to become president. Each time it has happened, the victor was even worse than the last time it happened. We all thought George W. was a terrible president - but Trump is even worse.

    Believe it or not, there was one time when a candidate lost both the popular vote AND the electoral vote, and still managed to get elected. It happened in 1824, and was summarized on the History Channel this morning:

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/presidential-election-goes-to-the-house

    There have also been two times in our nation's history that a son and his father were both elected president. In both cases, the son was a much less successful president than his father.

    John Quincy Adams was not as good as his father, John Adams - and George W. Bush was not as good as his father, the late George H.W. Bush, who died yesterday at the age of 94.

    The twist in this story is that John Quincy Adams, his father, and George W. Bush only served on term , but George W. managed to get elected twice. The frustrating thing about George W.'s election in 2000 is that the fact that 101,000,000 people voted, but he got elected due to a difference of 537 votes in Florida - and he would not have won at all if the Supreme Court had not stopped the recount.

  • Dutch
    12-01-2018 10:51:59 AM
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    Guy, I've written about this many times. The Electoral College should be banned forever. Only votes should count. If the Electoral College is maintained it means that the "dumb" part of the country continues to "rule". Ask McConnell and his cronies. Sorry but this is absolutely the dumbest country in the world!!!
  • Chet Ruminski
    12-01-2018 02:10:16 PM
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    Dutch said:

    "If the Electoral College is maintained it means that the "dumb" part of the country continues to "rule"."

    To bad that the electoral college was kept such a secret that nobody but people catering to dumb people campaigned there. But wait a minute, Wisconsin ,Pennsylvania and Michigan, are rated 10th, 21st and 27th in intelligence in the 50 states. The state's that decided the election

  • that guy in AZ
    09-19-2020 09:30:18 AM
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    On September 18, 1969, the U.S. House of Representatives voted by an overwhelming 338 to 70 to send a constitutional amendment to the Senate that would have dismantled the Electoral College, the indirect system by which Americans elect the president and vice president.

    “It was the only time in American history that a chamber of Congress actually approved an amendment to abolish the Electoral College,” says Jesse Wegman, a member of the New York Times editorial board and author of Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.

    The House vote, which came in the wake of an extraordinarily close presidential election, mirrored national sentiment about scrapping an electoral system that allowed a candidate to win the presidency even while losing the popular vote. A 1968 Gallup poll found that 80 percent of Americans believed it was time to elect the nation’s highest office by direct popular vote.

    Yet just a year later, the Senate bill that would have ended the Electoral College was dead in the water, filibustered by a cadre of Southern lawmakers intent on preserving the majority’s grip on electoral power in their states. Despite widespread bipartisan support for the amendment in both large and small states, the Senate came five votes shy of breaking the filibuster.

    https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-nearly-abolished-thurmond

  • Dutch
    09-19-2020 09:51:54 AM
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    Yes again it shows that the "backwards" southern States rule this country ask McConnell and Linsey Graham.

    As I've said a million times this is no longer 1797, so update the government to reflect 2020, because CA and other States have "grown" a lot more than Kentucky. But yeah they seem to love it to be ruled by corrupt hillbillies.

    Why the refusal to do the right thing?, because they love "McConnell" and the idiot Rand Paul? Why stick to an outdated Constitution? and a zillion lawyers who can't read? Like the "second amendment" which says nowhere that you as private citizen can own an AR 15 or a AK 47 with lots of "rounds". An absolute crazy dumb ass country for sure!!!!! And people here still think everything here is according to the law; which is half ass since 1750. Ask Boris, he's got the same problems, because British junk laws never worked ask their ex colonies. I guess people here are so stuck in their "island" ways that they never will accept what the rest of the world does.

  • Dutch
    09-22-2020 11:01:08 AM
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    No one even discussed who or what the "electoral college" on how it can be corrupted. I bet Trump made an study of it. He likely knows who is part of it and already "researched" who can be "bought". Yes America your "vote" does not count if an Trump gets involved. Get used to it America that everything here can be bought
  • that guy in AZ
    09-23-2020 08:37:43 AM
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    Frank Bruni published an interesting discussion of the Supreme Court vacancy this morning. Embedded in his column is one glaring fact - the Electoral College should be eliminated.

    "In 2018, Democrats won 22 of the 35 Senate elections, with candidates who got roughly 17 million more votes than the Republican candidates got. (And I’m not even counting, among those 22, two independents who caucus with Democrats, Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.)

    But the structure of the Senate — in which less-populous states get the same say and sway as much more populous ones — favors Republicans. As Philip Bump of The Washington Post observed this week, “The Senate has since 2014 been controlled by Republicans who cumulatively represent less than half of the country — the longest such stretch in a century.”

    Trump is in a position to make that third court appointment because of the Electoral College. As I noted, he lost the popular vote. That does not make him an illegitimate president. But it does advance the argument that we’ve drifted too far from one person, one vote, and the Electoral College should be scrapped."

    There's a reasonably good chance that the Democrats can score a trifecta in November, gaining the White House and the Senate, and retaining their majority in the House. If they do that, they need to revisit 1969 again, and eliminate the Electoral College.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/opinion/trump-supreme-court-appointment.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

  • that guy in AZ
    11-03-2020 09:37:38 AM
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    Here's another argument for eliminating the electoral college.

    Something’s happening in Texas. Before today’s election, 9.7 million Texans had already voted — 108 percent of total ballots cast there in the last presidential election. In just four years, Texas has catapulted from second-to-last in voter turnout to a national leader in early voting. This is no coincidence. Now that this once-red state is emerging as a toss-up, residents are turning out in record numbers, believing that their votes will finally have a meaningful effect on the presidential election. Though this is a tremendous success story, it also underlines one of our Constitution’s greatest failures: Under the electoral college, some votes matter far more than others.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) may have said it best: “Call me old-fashioned, but I think the person who gets the most votes should win.” The electoral college is indeed an undemocratic travesty, and no matter who wins this election, it’s time for us to move toward a national popular vote.

    It’s mathematically possible to win the electoral college with less than 22 percent of the popular vote. That’s an extreme case, but the fact remains that, under the electoral college, a voter in Wyoming has nearly four times the power of a voter in California. By creating artificially narrow results, the electoral college makes it 40 times more likely that the results are close enough that the outcome could be swung by unelected judges. No wonder 61 percent of Americans support the electoral college’s abolition, according to a recent Gallup poll.

    Ditching the electoral college via constitutional amendment would be tough. But there’s another way — one that doesn’t rely on Congress or the states. It’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, introduced in 2006. Under the compact, states pledge to award electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. As of today, 15 states plus the District of Columbia have joined, adding up to 196 electoral votes of the 270 required for the compact to go into effect.

    This compact would bring us into a new political era. A true “one person, one vote” system would finally give voters in states such as Texas a compelling reason to vote, driving up turnout. Parties would be encouraged to build infrastructure everywhere: rural communities, urban centers and everywhere in between. Importantly, it would also mark the end of minority rule — no more using stacked courts to intervene on behalf of the loser in close elections.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/03/no-matter-who-wins-its-time-get-rid-electoral-college/

  • Dutch
    11-03-2020 12:27:19 PM
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    Again an half ass solution, which makes things even more complicated because not all States join in. Sorry to say all our laws are "half" baked junk. We need an BIG broom to clean all this nonsense up. Like just only "let votes count" and have an "uniform " voting system with the same rules for every one. Also take the "money" out of elections; each time the amount spent it is increasing over the years; the sky is the limit in bribery. I guess they refuse to learn anything here. I bet that there will be an huge fight over who has won, especially if also the "electoral college is "bought" by the Trump "mafia". Is n't time that this country joins the "normal" world of "elections" and lots of other things like "proper laws" for our "leaders"?

    No this country "knows it all" and keeps digging its own grave.

  • that guy in AZ
    11-05-2020 10:18:32 AM
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    Colorado voters have backed the National Popular Vote Compact, a nationwide effort that would effectively neutralize the Electoral College and ensure that the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in the nation as a whole becomes president.

    The issue was on the ballot as Proposition 113, which passed according to the Associated Press and New York Times. For the moment, Colorado’s decision to enter the compact will have no effect, but it could prove consequential if several more states join this agreement.

    The Electoral College is the Rube Goldberg-like device that the United States uses to choose a president. Each state is assigned a certain number of electoral votes, equal to the number of lawmakers it sends to the Senate and House of Representatives. Constitutionally, the District of Columbia gets three electoral votes. To secure the presidency, a candidate must win a majority of these electors, or 270 in total.

    Though Colorado’s vote is good news for the National Popular Vote Compact, the compact’s supporters still have a long road ahead of them if they hope to negate the Electoral College in the future. For one thing, they still need to convince several more states to join the compact before it can take effect. While some states with a large number of Electoral College votes — like California and Illinois — have joined, other consequential states — like Texas and Florida — have not done so thus far.

    https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21530891/colorado-proposition-113-national-popular-vote-compact-results

  • that guy in AZ
    12-11-2020 09:34:23 AM
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    that guy in AZ Wrote:

    On September 18, 1969, the U.S. House of Representatives voted by an overwhelming 338 to 70 to send a constitutional amendment to the Senate that would have dismantled the Electoral College, the indirect system by which Americans elect the president and vice president.

    “It was the only time in American history that a chamber of Congress actually approved an amendment to abolish the Electoral College,” says Jesse Wegman, a member of the New York Times editorial board and author of Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.

    The House vote, which came in the wake of an extraordinarily close presidential election, mirrored national sentiment about scrapping an electoral system that allowed a candidate to win the presidency even while losing the popular vote. A 1968 Gallup poll found that 80 percent of Americans believed it was time to elect the nation’s highest office by direct popular vote.

    Yet just a year later, the Senate bill that would have ended the Electoral College was dead in the water, filibustered by a cadre of Southern lawmakers intent on preserving the majority’s grip on electoral power in their states. Despite widespread bipartisan support for the amendment in both large and small states, the Senate came five votes shy of breaking the filibuster.

    https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-nearly-abolished-thurmond

    The article above highlights why the Georgia senatorial race is so important.

    In 1969, the House overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to dismantle the Electoral College, but the act got torpedoed in the Senate. However, even if Moscow Mitch manages to maintain his grip on the senate, there IS another way to put the thing to bed.

    It's called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and its passage is closer than you might think.

    Currently, 15 states and the District of Columbia, accounting for 196 electoral college votes, have passed the law. Organizers need 74 more electoral votes. Both chambers of the Nevada legislature passed the bill, but it was not signed into law, which would bring in six more electors. One house of the legislature has passed the law in an additional eight states: Arizona, Arkansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina and Virginia. Those eight states account for 82 electoral votes. If it became law in all of them, we would at long last elect our president by popular vote.

    https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/its-time-end-electoral-college

    Of the states mentioned above, Biden won in Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, and Virginia, and Nevada, so there is a chance that the necessary 82 votes could get picked up. At the earliest, though, it won't happen until the 2022 midterms.

    If you look at the interactive map below, you'll notice that there are only 6 states where no action at all has been taken, which means the eventual passage of the act in the necessary number of states is not as far fetched as you might think.

    https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state-status

  • Schmidt
    12-11-2020 10:30:38 AM
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    This National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has a considerably better chance of passage than a constitutional amendment. However, as we get to the last few states it will become increasingly politicized and difficult to sell with the "misinformation propaganda machine" of the Republican Party going all out.
  • Dockadams
    12-11-2020 05:47:09 PM
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    Chet Ruminski Wrote:

    Dutch said:

    "If the Electoral College is maintained it means that the "dumb" part of the country continues to "rule"."

    To bad that the electoral college was kept such a secret that nobody but people catering to dumb people campaigned there. But wait a minute, Wisconsin ,Pennsylvania and Michigan, are rated 10th, 21st and 27th in intelligence in the 50 states. The state's that decided the election

    We definitely have some dumbshits here in Wisconsin Chet. My next door neighbor has his trump signs in his front yard still. He also has successfully killed the grass that was in his front yard too, he complained that cats were shittin' on his grass, so he covered the entire lawn with cardboard boxes so cats wouldn't poop on the grass. Now the yard is nothing but dirt and mud. (Hint: if you don't want to step in catshit, STAY ON THE CONCRETE PAVED SIDEWALK!)

    Then he complained to the landlord that my newly purchased camper took up so much space, he couldn't maneuver his F-150 into his parking spot. HUH. I hooked my dodge durango up to my 25' travel trailer and turned the trailer around and backed it near the edge of the parking lot next to the tree line. If I can do that, an F-150 would be like parking a Kia. He also has his truck plastered with I stand with Trump stickers. What an asshole. Comparable to members of the GOP.

    I guess he didn't have the balls to come up and ask me to move my camper, odd because he claims to be an ex-marine. I've finally met a ex-marine with no gonads! Who is also a trump ass crawler!

    To say that republicans piss me off would be an understatement.

  • Dutch
    12-11-2020 06:22:17 PM
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    Dock, you "paint" the right picture; looking at the present situation, then indeed it pisses me off as well. I guess they are only satisfied if this country is run by "dictators" and be the "slaves" for them. The GOP is only interested in "raking" in the "money" for themselves; Trump shows them how. Sick country for sure. But yeah I warned about all of that years ago. But people called me "nuts".
  • Schmidt
    12-28-2020 06:27:38 PM
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    The latest ploy from the Daily Mail:

    "Rep. Louie Gohmert and Arizona's slate of Republican Electoral College 'electors' have filed a federal lawsuit to get a judge to say Vice President has the power to pick pro-Trump electors when he presides over Congress next week to finalize the election results.

    "The group, which includes Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward, sued Pence and asked that Texas-based U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle grant the vice president expanded powers to choose pro-Trump electors.

    "The suit argues that the Electoral Count Act, which was passed in 1887, violates the 12th Amendment, which outlines the procedure for electing the president and vice president. "

    ========================================

    Leave to Louie...sheesh!

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