This was a few days ago, but I just saw it today and wanted to put my two cents in as well.
I DEFINITELY think that it is time for us to discard the Electoral College as it has now cost the Democrats two separate presidential elections and clearly does not adequately represent the will of the people.
What's more I think that doing away with the Electoral College will inspire more people to vote, since their vote will CERTAINLY count and they will not be disenfranchised by the knowledge that no matter who they vote for their state ALWAYS goes for either the Republican or Democratic candidate.
It will also make it MUCH more difficult for foreign nations (I'm looking at you Russia.) to hijack our elections, or for machines to change enough votes to steal victory away from the candidate with the most support.
The downside of course is that it will certainly take longer to tally the votes and in fact we may not be able to determine a clear winner for several days.
However I would much rather practice my patience and KNOW that the person who throws the victory party a few days late had the most votes, rather than wonder for months who had actually chosen the person preparing their inaugural address.
My vote still won't count.
ReplyDeleteMy state doesn't vote in the primaries until June. By then the candidates have already been chosen so my vote doesn't count for squat.
Not like we decide anyway. The parties decide who is going to win out of the primaries and make sure it happens. Primary voting is pretty much a sham. Gerrymandering takes care of the rest. That will continue.
True. The only change you can enact with your vote is at the local or state level, those elections are extremely important.
DeleteYou can skip voting for POTUS, but unfortunately most people ONLY vote in presidential elections.
I vote in EVERY election for everything and every position on the ballot. I study my election materials but I skip all of the flyers that crap up my mailbox.
DeleteDo away with the Electoral College, or change the way people are appointed to that body. As originally intended the EC was designed to prevent a madman from becoming president. The 2016 EC failed in their duties.
ReplyDeleteSo true. Time to change since it has failed in its intent, finally or just bigly.
DeleteRight on. If the EC had been implemented to operate as originally intended,Trump would have not been elected. Maybe a tweak could fix it.
DeleteWhy should why should the tallying take longer? In Canada, they have the results within one or two days!
ReplyDeleteThere will be mail in ballots to count. There will also be provisional ballots. Those will take the longest as they'll have to verify they were cast by legitimately registered voters.
DeleteFrom all I've read I have to say the electoral college has served it's purpose and it is time for it to go. A 4:19 said, it's purpose was to prevent a madman or foreign pawn from becoming president. It failed miserably. I also don't think the 'slave' states need undue influence any more.
In France (a smaller country, but bigger than most of the states of the US)the results are known within hours of the closing of the booths, though all ballots are paper. I've volunteered once for counting ballots ; per hundred of ballots there are two persons who read the vote, and two person who count, and if the results of the counting are different, the counting starts again.
DeleteOf course, the voting itself happens on a sunday, so every worker can vote.
If there are enough voting places, the counting is easily done within 2 to 3 hours.
I am fearful that our pampered countrymen won't "waste" a precious weekend day voting. At least on a tuesday people are up for work? I could be wrong. I think it should be a holiday off in middle of week lol. We are mostly a country of entitled brats.
DeleteIt's evident that the American voting process is sub-par when compared to other democratic countries. The whole shebang from start to finish is way too long and resembles a side show carnival. Yes, other countries are far ahead when it comes to electing their government officials. Something has to change.
DeleteNo Electoral College = no Donald Trump - and, the country would have been saved from the maniac ruining our country!
ReplyDeleteIndividual votes and majority count wins! It's the only honest way of electing anyone to serve in our government!
No Electoral College = no Dopey & Darth.
DeleteCan we survive a third?
http://thehill.com/media/351112-baldwin-wins-emmy-for-snl-trump-impersonation
ReplyDeleteThe Founders purposely created the Electoral College to keep electoral power in the hands of an elite group of electors rather than those of the general population.
ReplyDeleteI'd heavily recommend keeping the College intact as a safeguard against the rapidly degrading intelligence quotient of our American citizens.
The general population is a lot more educated and a lot more engaged than it was during the time of the Founding Fathers. We don't need a bunch of elites on EITHER SIDE decided who we should vote for.
DeleteThat got us Kerry and Hillary and you see how that turned out. They won, but they lost.
No, they lost, and they lost.
DeleteHillary was so close to winning the Electoral College, 80,000 votes away in fact. Wonder if she'd still be advocating to abolish if she would have gotten those few votes and won?
ReplyDeleteShe talked about abolishing it at least twenty years ago.
DeleteIt's a rigged system. Putin just upped the anty. He'll do it again too. The Republicans are playing with fire, and Donald answers to Putin. It's not going away.
ReplyDeletethat and the return of paper ballots. no electronic ANYTHING.
ReplyDeleteagree
DeleteI also agree
DeleteSNL scored at the Emmy's.
ReplyDeleteI loved Alec Baldwin's acceptance speech. He said this, holding up his award, was as close to winning an Emmy as Trump would ever get.
Kate won, Melissa won, the show won.
Handmaid's Tale also won as well as Veep. Julia Louise Dreyfuss also had a Trump dig.
I hope he was watching and squirming at every little jab.
I am a little disappointed in Colbert. He started off strong then kinda disappeared or was muzzled or something. And who was that announcer guy? It was like he took over by the end of the evening.
I haven't watched in years but I did this time just to see Alex and Kate WIN.
I couldn't understand a damn thing that dj guy said. neither could my teenagers lol.
DeleteFirst of all, we should return to paper ballots with carefully controlled and supervised counting procedures - no computers necessary. Then, eliminate the Electoral College.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
I agree!
DeleteHahaaaaaa
ReplyDelete'Change the whole system that has always served this country so that Hillary can win!'
You folks are crazier than the Palin lovers!
People have been debating the electrol college for at least thirty years. There's nothing crazy about it. It's an antique.
DeleteThere is no 'debating' the electoral college. It is constitutional law. You want to change it, then propose a constitutional amendment and have it ratified. Campaigns are well aware of what it takes to win the Presidency via the electoral college. Hillary's campaign fucked up and thought they could win the rust belt and the midwest whilst essentially ignoring them. oops.
DeleteThe founders created the Electoral College, but the states made it winner-take-all.
DeleteUnable 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."
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation's first election, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.
States have the responsibility and constitutional power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond. Now, 38 states, of all sizes, and their voters, because they vote predictably, are politically irrelevant in presidential elections.
BUT- We'll keep us our unelected SUPER DELEGATES,,.
ReplyDeletehttp://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/18/politics/hillary-clinton-2016-trump/index.html
ReplyDelete"Hillary Clinton just floated the possibility of contesting the 2016 election"
The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
ReplyDeleteAll voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
Candidates, as in other elections, would allocate their time, money, polling, organizing, and ad buys roughly in proportion to the population
Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting, crude, and divisive and red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes, that don’t represent any minority party voters within each state.
No more handful of 'battleground' states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
In 2017, the bill has passed the New Mexico Senate and Oregon House.
The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 35 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 261 electoral votes.
The bill has been enacted by 11 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the way to guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country
NationalPopularVote