Will MI correct the Electoral College bias towards Democrats?
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  Will MI correct the Electoral College bias towards Democrats?
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Author Topic: Will MI correct the Electoral College bias towards Democrats?  (Read 3427 times)
hopper
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« Reply #25 on: March 17, 2015, 12:27:31 PM »
« edited: March 17, 2015, 12:30:20 PM by hopper »

It's unlikely to make a difference, and even if it were to pass, the bad publicity could end up doing more harm to the Republican party.
In MI yes it would do damage to the 2016 Presidential Candidate there. Nationally no it wouldn't do much damage I don't think(maybe some though.)
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hopper
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« Reply #26 on: March 17, 2015, 12:29:13 PM »

Go to national popular vote, split electoral votes proportionately in all states, or stick with the current winner-take-all by state system. Assigning electoral votes by Congressional district does more to confirm the artificial divisions of some states into gerrymandered districts than to represent the People.

Any trick that effectively distorts the result of the popular vote other than the well-recognized winner-take-all system will be seen as disenfranchising voters.
True.
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kohler
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« Reply #27 on: March 17, 2015, 12:43:39 PM »

It's only happened once in the last 100 years that a Presidential candidate has lost the popular vote and still been elected President.

And that was Republican Bush 43.

The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes. In 2012, a shift of 214,733 popular votes in four states would have elected Mitt Romney, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of 4,966,945 votes.

After the 2012 election, Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."
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Türkisblau
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« Reply #28 on: March 17, 2015, 05:03:40 PM »

Terrible, terrible idea especially with gerrymandering the way it is, really telling that Snyder refuses to sign something so blatantly partisan.

Either respect the electoral college or get rid of it...
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henster
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« Reply #29 on: March 17, 2015, 05:23:06 PM »

Seems like it comes up every year now but never happens. It died last year and the year before that, its like the bills that come up every year eliminating DST.
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #30 on: March 17, 2015, 11:19:46 PM »

Seems like it comes up every year now but never happens. It died last year and the year before that, its like the bills that come up every year eliminating DST.


Yeah, I remember Giuliani proposed dividing CA 55 electoral votes, if Kerry somehow won OH 20 electors, would have been a equal swap, and conspiracy theory.


Or in 2008, when the GOP tried it in PA, to give the GOP a share of its electors. 

But, they didn't lift a finger to ensure a fair election, on the butterfly ballot or dimple chads to correct the wrong, that got Dubya in office, and started this in first place.
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Xing
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« Reply #31 on: March 18, 2015, 05:50:42 PM »

Okay, if we split Michigan's electoral votes, how about we do the same for North Carolina? How about Texas?
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kohler
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« Reply #32 on: March 20, 2015, 11:58:43 AM »

Go to national popular vote, split electoral votes proportionately in all states, or stick with the current winner-take-all by state system. Assigning electoral votes by Congressional district does more to confirm the artificial divisions of some states into gerrymandered districts than to represent the People.

Any trick that effectively distorts the result of the popular vote other than the well-recognized winner-take-all system will be seen as disenfranchising voters.

The state-by-state winner take all method is well-recognized as "disenfranchising" voters.

The National Popular Vote bill ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
   
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count.
   
When states with a combined total of at least 270 electoral votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes.

National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state.  Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate.   In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
         
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don't matter to candidates.  Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
      
   
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #33 on: March 20, 2015, 04:12:09 PM »

Go to national popular vote, split electoral votes proportionately in all states, or stick with the current winner-take-all by state system. Assigning electoral votes by Congressional district does more to confirm the artificial divisions of some states into gerrymandered districts than to represent the People.

Any trick that effectively distorts the result of the popular vote other than the well-recognized winner-take-all system will be seen as disenfranchising voters.

The state-by-state winner take all method is well-recognized as "disenfranchising" voters.

In practice, yes -- in that large parts of the electorate become irrelevant in Presidential elections... such as blacks in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Missouri; unionized workers in Indiana; non-Mormon voters in Utah; and Hispanics in Arizona and Texas who can be ignored once the primaries are over because their states are 'sure Republican'.  Likewise on the other side denizens of the rural parts of Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who vote heavily Republican.

Did anyone realize that the state in which John McCain won the most votes was... California? McCain lost his third through seventh 'best' states for popular votes and his ninth through twelfth such states. On the other side, Barack Obama had Texas as the fourth-best state in total votes cast for him (indeed, he won more votes in Texas than in Illinois).   

There has been no effective Supreme Court challenge to winner-take-all in any state. Until there is such a challenge, the flawed system that we now have remains in practice.

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Such would require either a Constitutionally-accepted compact among states wielding in the whole 270 or more electoral votes or a Constitutional amendment that would so order the votes of the states to be so distributed. Of course, what happens if a State governor is granted the prerogative to cast 50 million votes on behalf of the winner of his state? 
   
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Obviously one needs protection against mass disenfranchisement of voters, phantom voting, and rigged elections at the state level (still possible).

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Such would have saved America lots of trouble in 2000; I think that many of us can imagine how different America would have been with President Al Gore. On the other side we have the potential of having a President who has won 270 electoral votes by narrowly winning enough states with narrow margins while losing most of the rest by margins characteristic of Goldwater in 1964 or McGovern in 1972. Imagine a President who lost the popular vote 52-47 yet won 273 electoral votes. (Invert that and that is how the US House of Representatives was in 2012).   

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kohler
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« Reply #34 on: March 20, 2015, 04:53:46 PM »

Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….” 
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York's use of  winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision).

National Popular Vote is a compact.  Article I-Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution specifically permits states to enter interstate compacts. There are hundreds of major compacts currently in force (and thousands of minor ones).

The compact would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.

No State governor would be granted the prerogative to cast 50 million votes on behalf of the winner of his state.   Governors can't cast popular (beyond their own single vote) or electoral votes on behalf of their state.

Article II of the National Popular Vote intestate compact
"Right of the People in Member States to Vote for President and Vice President

Each member state shall conduct a statewide popular election for President and Vice President of the United States."

Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code requires all states to report the November popular vote numbers (the "canvas") in what is called a "Certificate of Ascertainment." They list the electors and the number of votes cast for each. 
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Landon1993
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« Reply #35 on: March 20, 2015, 06:47:30 PM »

I agree with pbrower! Good for Governor Snyder for blocking these bills, and for confirming my decision to vote for him was the right one! If Far right Republicans cannot win in a general election without changing the rules to benefit them (like doing away with the congressional redistricting commission in Arizona), then they will lose support over time and be known as the  Corruption Party.
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Free Bird
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« Reply #36 on: March 20, 2015, 07:35:05 PM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs
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SteveRogers
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« Reply #37 on: March 20, 2015, 07:40:11 PM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs

Haha at Republicans panicking because they can't win a state fairly.
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Free Bird
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« Reply #38 on: March 20, 2015, 07:41:43 PM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs

Haha at Republicans panicking because they can't win a state fairly.

Because of ing Detroit tilting the whole state that would otherwise be a likely Republican state
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Stockdale for Veep
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« Reply #39 on: March 20, 2015, 09:14:48 PM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs

Haha at Republicans panicking because they can't win a state fairly.

Because of ing Detroit tilting the whole state that would otherwise be a likely Republican state

And Dems would win Texas if you only counted Austin... Better roll out some new ID rules, too many people voting.
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SteveRogers
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« Reply #40 on: March 20, 2015, 11:33:56 PM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs

Haha at Republicans panicking because they can't win a state fairly.

Because of ing Detroit tilting the whole state that would otherwise be a likely Republican state

Yes, I agree: If it weren't for all the Democrats living in the state, it would probably be a Republican state.
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jeron
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« Reply #41 on: March 21, 2015, 03:30:52 AM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs

Haha at Republicans panicking because they can't win a state fairly.

Because of ing Detroit tilting the whole state that would otherwise be a likely Republican state

Obama would have won Michigan without Wayne county, both in 2008 and in 2012.
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Nyvin
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« Reply #42 on: March 21, 2015, 06:57:59 AM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs

Haha at Republicans panicking because they can't win a state fairly.

Because of ing Detroit tilting the whole state that would otherwise be a likely Republican state

I've heard this opinion before on other states also....it makes me wonder why people focus on where people live in a state geographically and try to separate them from the rest of the people in that state.    Why don't you just see it as 1 person 1 vote, regardless of where the people live?
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #43 on: March 21, 2015, 07:06:17 AM »

Introducing gerrymandering into presidential election trully seems like a great idea.

^^^

What could possibly go wrong!
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TheElectoralBoobyPrize
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« Reply #44 on: March 21, 2015, 10:42:12 AM »

Ignoring all the partisan fights here, it is INTERESTING that the Electoral College has actually benefited the Democrats in the presidential elections since 2000. In 2004, a uniform swing less than Bush's national popular vote margin would have given Kerry Ohio and the election...also Iowa and New Mexico.

Really though, it's just a function of how the states allocate electoral votes (winner-take-all). Maybe PR (not CD's) would be fairest of all...
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kohler
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« Reply #45 on: March 21, 2015, 12:14:47 PM »

Ignoring all the partisan fights here, it is INTERESTING that the Electoral College has actually benefited the Democrats in the presidential elections since 2000. In 2004, a uniform swing less than Bush's national popular vote margin would have given Kerry Ohio and the election...also Iowa and New Mexico.

Really though, it's just a function of how the states allocate electoral votes (winner-take-all). Maybe PR (not CD's) would be fairest of all...

Issues with a system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state

It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;
It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant), and
It would not make every vote equal.   
It would not guarantee the Presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country.

Most Americans don't ultimately care how well their presidential candidate fares in their state  . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate.  Most Americans think it would be wrong for the candidate with the most popular votes to lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter  in the state counts and national count.  It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
   
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently.  In the 39 states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-83% range or higher. - in recent or past closely divided battleground states, in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.   
         
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
               
NationalPopularVote.com


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Bojack Horseman
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« Reply #46 on: March 21, 2015, 01:38:27 PM »

How about Republicans actually try and win an election fairly and by a system that has been in place for centuries rather then try to alter the rules because the demographics are not favoring them and they are doing little in the way of changing to win on a national level ?!

I never remember Carter Mondale or Dukakis coming out with this after they lost lopsidedly.

This
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President Punxsutawney Phil
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« Reply #47 on: March 21, 2015, 01:40:36 PM »

How about Republicans actually try and win an election fairly and by a system that has been in place for centuries rather then try to alter the rules because the demographics are not favoring them and they are doing little in the way of changing to win on a national level ?!

I never remember Carter Mondale or Dukakis coming out with this after they lost lopsidedly.

This

Wolverine said it best. This is a pretty disingenuous thread title.
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MT Treasurer
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« Reply #48 on: March 21, 2015, 04:15:39 PM »

The Electoral College always has a bias. If you had exluded the votes of Philadelphia, Miami and Cleveland in 2012, Romney would have won the Electoral college (and thus the election) despite losing the popular vote big time.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #49 on: March 21, 2015, 05:10:09 PM »

Haha at Democrats panicking because they may lose EVs

Haha at Republicans panicking because they can't win a state fairly.

Because of ing Detroit tilting the whole state that would otherwise be a likely Republican state

Wrong. Michigan has given a plurality of votes to Democrats in each Presidential election beginning in 1992. Any scheme that would have given the majority of electoral votes in Michigan to the Republican Party in any subsequent election would be a gross distortion of the vote of Michiganders.

The split of congressional districts in Michigan (see also Ohio and Pennsylvania) is so designed that Democrats would need an effective majority of 55-45 or so for Democrats in the net vote for Congressional seats to break even in Congressional representation. Republican-designed reapportionment of districts has ensured that a small number of seats are easy wins for Democrats but all other districts have a clear built-in advantage for Republicans.

The worst possible result (short of a partisan governor deciding the electoral results on his whim) would be that districts allocate votes as they vote ion the Presidential race and that the winner of the majority of such districts gets the two other votes.

By the way -- why does a (presumably black and poor) vote in Detroit have less value than the vote of some rich farmer or executive? The vote is the only participation that anyone surely has irrespective of his economic plight. Government is responsible to the por as well as the rich lest one have a plutocratic oligarchy.

But keep pushing the agenda of the Koch syndicate and its legislative arm ALEC upon us all and your satisfaction at us liberals moaning and gnashing our teeth will soon be your nightmare, too. If black voters are the difference between democracy and fascism, then all hail the votes of black people who can keep American politics more moral than is the usual case of a plutocratic oligarchy.   

 
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