Wells Hall Off Topic Board

So then it will be challenged and your side will win. Thus far it has not happened.

Federal law cannot determine how a state appoints it's electors. The Voting Rights Act only comes into effect if a state chooses to hold a popular election for electors.

From Article II:
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."

From the 23rd Amendment, which extends that section of Article II to the District of Columbia:
"The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment."

The 14th, 15th, 24th, and 26th amendments plus the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act only come into play if a state (or Congress in the case of the District of Columbia) chooses to hold a popular election for electors.

I vote today. Eager to see if who I vote for is winner.

Even though a hefty broad at Michigan State doesn't want her vagoo legislated,

Ron Paul 2012

1) This is an equal protection issue. If ~12 states collude to determine the election by themselves every other citizen in every other state is guaranteed to be denied equal protection under the law. Boom! It's gone.
2) What if minority groups are clustered in states not deciding the election? Their disenfranchisement is especially covered under the Voter Rights Act. Boom! It's gone.
3) A longstanding constitutional principal is of One Man One Vote. If 50% of the country is given 100% of the effective vote that is a clear violation of this principal. Boom! It's gone.

I'm just getting warmed up. I'm not even a lawyer. But I'm also starting to get a little bored by this.

I don't feel right in trying to decide what candidate a private organization (and political parties are private organizations) puts forward as their candidate for president. I am not part of that organization, so I choose not to vote in their election.

Wisconsin is going Obama in the fall and it won't even be close. Gov. Walker Really charged up the union base with his assault on collective bargaining. I think you will see an energized group of voters on the left and a disinterested, small turnout on the right because it is already clear that right leaning voters really don't like any of their choices at the moment.

If only somebody would have given you a phone call to remind you...

honest ?

how would that help the GOP?

In a 1966 suit brought by Delaware's Republican Attorney General, the plaintiff’s brief argued that the votes of the citizens of Delaware and the other plaintiff states are
“diluted, debased, and misappropriated through the state unit system” (winner-take-all method) used by 48 states.

The U.S. Supreme 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).

The importance of the 1966 Delaware case is not that it set any legal precedent. The controlling precedent recognizing the plenary and exclusive power of the states to allocate electoral votes was set in 1893, and did not need reiteration in 1966. The 1966 case is important because 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 the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The importance of the 1966 case is political. This lawsuit, by the state governments of 12 states, put these states on record as recognizing the illusory benefit to the small states of the two-vote bonus. The Court declined to hear the case because of the well-established 1893 precedent that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision. Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive states who sued New York in 1966. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in any of these small non-competitive states--all are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.

By the way, the 1966 case was brought by the 12 states under the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (not, as Gump says, on appeal from some lower court). It is unusual for the U.S. Supreme Court to decline a request by numerous states to hear a case under the Court's original jurisdiction. The plain interpretation of this refusal was that the Court considered its1893 McPherson decision as being definitive. The U.S. Supreme Court approvingly cited the 1893 McPherson decision as recently as its 2000 in Bush v. Gore.

It is sometimes asserted that the current system helps the nation's least populous states. It is also sometimes asserted that the small states confer a partisan advantage on one political party. In fact, neither statement is true. Twelve of 13 lowest population states are almost totally ignored in presidential elections because they are politically non-competitive. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has "only" 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 lowest population states as important as an Ohio voter.

Didn't vote.

green jacket, gold jacket - who gives a shit?

tRCMB should of gotten together and voted for Tate Forcier for Director of Sanatation.

With National Popular Vote, big cities would not get all of candidates’ attention, much less control the outcome.
The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States. Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.

If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.

A nationwide presidential campaign, with every vote equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.

The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every vote is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

When every vote is equal, everywhere, it makes sense to try and elevate your share where you aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Texas, or for a Republican to try it in California.

Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don't campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don't control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn't have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.

In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.

Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.

There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.

The National Popular Vote bill would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Candidates would have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.