Connecticut is joining a coalition of other states trying to bypass the zaniness of the Electoral College, which has led to US presidents being elected even though they lost the popular vote. While the most recent time this happened (in 2016) is noteworthy for the resulting disastrous choice it foisted on us, this is about far more than Trump, but about an avoidable breach of democratic (small-D) will in a representative government.
The scheme, now passed by 11 states (if CT’s governor signs the bill), says that they agree to give all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. This doesn’t go into effect until 270 EC votes’ worth of states pass the compact; the CT bill will bring that number up to 172, well over half the votes needed.
What’s been interesting is reading the reaction to the bill, mostly from folk on the Right who see this as some sort of fiendish Democratic plot.
“This is blatantly unconstitutional!” — Um, not so far as I can tell. The Constitution mandates the Electoral College (the states send electors to actually vote for the president), but not how those EC votes are allocated. That’s why, for example, some states do a “winner takes all” choice, while a few allocate out ECVs based on congressional district votes, etc.. As CT voters would have their votes counted in the total popular vote, their voting rights are preserved.
“The Founding Fathers hated direct democracy; that’s why they chose the EC mechanism!” — While it’s true that some of the Founders mistrusted direct democracy, the EC mechanism was developed more because communication within and between the states was so slow. Rather than gathering and sending in tallies, it made more sense to elect delegates to an election convention (essentially what the EC members are) and have them go to vote a few months later.
“This weakens smaller / flyover states, and means you’ll have New York and California electing the President.” — This argument is telling for what it says (liberal hordes will control the country!) and what it doesn’t say (one man, one vote, is a dangerous proposition!). It also ignores population powerhouses like Texas and Florida.
While it’s true the EC mechanism was also set up to give smaller states (esp. in the early days of the US) a leg up over more populous states, by assigning into the EC count for each state not only the number of US Representatives (which are based on the population), but the number of US Senators (which every state, regardless of size, gets two of), smaller states get a little more oomph. I.e., of the 538 EVs, 100 of them, close to 20%, come from those Senatorial seats. And 100 (or even 50) EVs are more than enough to swing an election, as we know.
That goes away under a popular vote mechanism (however devised), but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, even coming from a smaller state (population-wise). We are not the assemblage of autonomous states under a weak central government that the Founders largely envisioned, for better or worse, and really never will be again (the rhetorical states-rights federalism of the GOP always gives way to maintaining strong central power whenever any of its own oxen are gored). Just like the US would object to every country in the UN General Assembly getting two extra votes, whether a large nation like the US or a tiny one like Tuvalu, so too this “small states have some inherent right to extra representation” that means the vote of someone in California (or Texas) counts less than the vote of someone in North Dakota or Rhode Island is an unfair artifact of history.
In other words, why, for purposes of electing the President, does Rhode Island have a right to be more powerful, voter-for-voter, than Texas?
“This will mean that candidates ignore everywhere except for the Big Cities!” — This is a variation on the previous, and really has a lot of the “can’t trust those liberal hordes, especially Those People” overtones to it, but it’s got a little different spin. Will candidates just go to Big Cities to campaign and ignore the hinterland?
Honestly, I kind of doubt it. Or, if they do, it’s only a variation on the focus by presidential candidates on the “Purple” states that seem in play, largely ignoring states that are seen to be a lock. Montana doesn’t get a lot of love either way.
But, again, this is somehow saying that we need to treat the population differently — that “Big City” voters are somehow less valuable or less enfranchised than “Heartland Farmer” voters. If all of them are treated the same, tallied into popular votes, then candidate will be forced to make an effort to show that they care about people in Cornbelt, Nebraska, as representatives of the people in Wheatland, South Dakota, etc.
This also has the effect of enfranchising people in states that have all-or-nothing EV allocations but who are not members of the majority party in the state. How many Californian Republicans have you heard bemoaning that their presidential vote is meaningless because all of that state’s EVs will go to the Democrat? Under a scheme like this, those votes suddenly count, and those voters can be energized to participate more.
“This lets all them Illegals vote!” — That’s usually not quite how this is phrased, but it’s the fundamental message.
One thing this scheme does is make accurate tallies of the popular vote everywhere more important, from a presidential standpoint. The all-or-nothing EV allocation at present means that, unless it’s a real squeaker in a state, a margin of error is somewhat tolerable. Start looking at national voting on a popular basis, and those zany accusations thrown about by Trump about “millions” of ineligible voters throwing the election have to be paid more attention to.
But that’s already the case to a certain degree, as the GOP (usually) keeps pushing the meme that illegal voters are everywhere (or at least in liberal districts). If this forces more attention on cleaning up our voting processes in a just fashion — ensuring voting rights, not just making them difficult to exercise — perhaps that’s a good thing.
Does this scheme have any chance of success? Hard to say. People wanting to reform the Electoral College — by Constitutional Amendment or by state-based workarounds like this — have been pushing at the idea for decades. I have my doubts about a state-based system working, but this one has the advantage of not being incremental (it doesn’t trigger until it can actually settle the matter) and not requiring everyone to sign on to make it work fairly (as do EV allocation schemes).
We shall see.
Connecticut state Senate passes bill giving electoral votes to presidential candidate who wins popular vote
The Connecticut state Senate on Saturday voted in favor of a measure to give the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.
go and change the vote to take donald trump out from the office of president yeah
See, this is exactly why I tell my friends I don't do politics. I don't vote because I've always known that our votes don't really count! It's just a ploy to pacify the masses into thinking they have clout… When the Electoral College can choose a president that actually lost, according to the people, and put him in office, why should I waste my time and energy following campaigns and trying to make educated choices about the candidates?
You do realize if you take away electoral votes all candidates are going to have to do is campaign in cities and not in rural areas taking away the votes of several citizens outside of urban environments… the electoral college has become imperative in a generation where illegal immigrants who by the Constitution do not have the right to vote vote anyway and disrupted the popular vote balance and States like California and New York
The Electoral College was designed not to make the election of President easier alone, it was also designed to make sure that every square inch of this country that has earned statehood gets to say who is their next president, if you look at the map per square inch of the United States based on districts Trump won fair and square, if you waited for the official vote counts to end he would have still won but only by popular vote instead the reason why Hillary won popular vote is because they stopped counting the votes… let that sink in for a little bit before you read this article.
+Riley Chance Nothing of what you say is borne out by, for example, the detailed explanations of the Constitution in the Federalist essays. Look at the relative sizes and populations of the original 13 states, and it should be obvious that your argument doesn't hold water.
+christopher shannon This isn't about taking Donald Trump out of office. If it does so next time around (assuming he runs), all to the good, but it's more about having the process be fair.
To me voting don't mean a thing you know how many times we have voted between these recently years and a thing didn't change in fact we got( DONALD TRUMP)!!!! whooooo hooooo! Such a bad thing!!
+Jamila Marr Because if you don't play you can't win.
The EC isn't a completely bad system. Its roughly democratic (just not enough so, and on a state-by-state scope), and tends in most cases to accentuate differences (through the winner-takes-all setup). It's flawed, but it's the system we have, and electors are generally bound to vote per the popular vote dictates of their state.
And even if the presidential vote seems (for the moment) futile, there are always federal, state, and local reps and ballot propositions to vote for.
+Riley Chance I think I addressed your comments on "they'll ignore the farms for the big cities" note above, but not only is it wrong, but in sum, all you're saying is that rural votes should count individually more than urban votes, which I reject on principle.
You seem to rationalize this by arguing that urban votes are substantially influenced by illegal voting. Which argument is, to put it most charitably, not at all borne out by any evidence. (Put uncharitably, it's nativist and racist and paranoid, not to mention delusional.)
Where you come up with the idea that Clinton won the popular vote only because they stopped counting I have no idea. Vote tabulation is not done in separate passes for each race, and even if some county clerk on the West Coast decided that the presidential race was already settled, those same ballots included votes for federal, state, and local issues, and would be tabulated for all of the above.
(Even if it were true, (a) it doesn't change my argument, since my intent here is not to relitigate Clinton vs. Trump, but to come up with a system that better represents the popular vote, and (b) that should be exactly what you want, since every legitimate voter would be represented in the results, rather than, say, the 4.5 million Californians who voted for Donald Trump having zero influence on the election.)
+Queen Cummings You got Donald Trump because a lot of people did vote for him. In other words, voting did mean a thing.
+Dave Hill That is fine, but if it is one person one vote then there needs to be voter identification to prevent illegal voting which would include non-citizens, people voting more than one time, people voting when they are dead…..
+Jeff Stepputtis Voter fraud is basically a non-existent problem in the USA – existing safeguards are more than adequate to prevent anything more than trivial and inconsequential instances. (See link.) By contrast, the type of "robust" voter ID mechanisms you allude to are specifically designed to suppress voter eligibility and turnout in minority and less-affluent communities. Voter ID card measures, for example, are never accompanied by proposals to make issuing suitable ID easier, cheaper or less bureaucratic. By contrast, proposals to mass-register new voters and ensure that their ID records are up to date are almost always opposed by the GOP.
https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth
+Dave Hill Yeah, I have no interest in winning with this system/game. It wasn't built for people like me to win on a mass scale. Trying to win a game designed for your failure is futile. And don't tell me it isn't… as a full American mixed with Black, Native and White, 2/3 of my ancestry was destroyed by this system. And of the last 1/3 only some truly thrive and prosper, if they are of a certain elite group. I'm just trying to surviving it right now, and look for some loopholes toward my success. There are certain rights and privileges I'll continue to appreciate while I search though, I won't deny that. But it's a game I really don't want to play, so I'll continue riding the bench… only jumping in for necessary times, when the key players need a little breather.
+Colm Buckley How does it surppress…ID's are required for everything else, driving, traveling, collecting…but this is surpressing? Not at all. I also find it hard to believe that you think there is negligible voter fraud going on…..what is the color of the sky in your world.?
Of the arguments against doing away with the Electoral College, the most persuasive is the small states argument.
Obviously we don't retain everything that the Founding Fathers established – no 3/5 persons, for example.
And obviously the small states would still retain power in the Senate, which certainly helped people such as Joe Biden achieve national prominence.
But do we want to do away with this slight advantage to the smaller states, especially since the Constitution itself has no concept of popular vote for President? (As you note, the precise method of choosing electors is not specified; they could be chosen via wrestling matches and it would be Constitutionally valid.)
+Jeff Stepputtis See this link for more details. The details of the various "voter ID" initiatives proposed over the years have been to require IDs which are expensive or onerous to obtain. Not everyone has a driver's licence, for example – should people who can't afford a car be deprived of the right to vote?
As I said before, if someone proposed automatic, free provision of suitable ID, it would be much less of an issue. Somehow, though, this is never proposed.
Regarding the supposed prevalence of voter fraud – did you read my previous link? They diligently followed up on every accusation of voter fraud (not just every proof; any suspicion with the remotest shred of plausibility was followed), virtually no malevolent fraud was uncovered. Do you have genuine information to the contrary?
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet
+Jeff Stepputtis I'm fine Voter ID with that if you can demonstrate it's a significant problem worth the expense … and if you then make it an governmental priority obligation to assist all individuals who should be able to vote to have the ID to do so, rather than making it a series of hoops to jump through for people who are poor. who have limited transportation choices and hours to go places, who don't have good records on them, etc.
Otherwise, you're just systematizing discrimination, not against wrongdoers, but against the poor.
+Jamila Marr The system, the game, don't go away just because you're tired of playing (and losing) it. It is literally the only game in town, and by not participating, you actually help perpetuate it for yourself and others.
That may be the thing you have to do to survive. But it's also reality.
+Jeff Stepputtis "ID's are required for everything else, driving, traveling, collecting" …. and, believe it or not, there are a lot of folk who don't do those things. And the reason they don't (and don't have IDs) is because they are poor, because they can't afford a car, because they don't fly places by plane, because they don't "collect" things that require that sort of ID.
"what is the color of the sky in your world.?" …. Better question, what substantive evidence do you have that non-negligible voter fraud is actually occurring? Because asserting it without evidence doesn't mean much in the face of activities that can actually disenfranchise citizens.
+John E. Bredehoft To me, the principle of votes being treated equally and majority ruling within constitutional bounds should take priority over "North Dakota wants to feel special."
This effort has been going on for a while: https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2006/04/11/bypassing_the_e.html
anit that fair in elections sir
+Dave Hill You're right, the game doesn't stop because I'm tired of playing it. But there are loopholes in the rulebook. If you research correctly you can find and figure out a guaranteed win. That's what I do while I ride the bench. I know the game is set up for a majority of the population to fail… it's refs never call a fair game… so you've got to go around that. In my opinion, voting isn't going to change that. Politicians are groomed from a young age, by the time they are in office they are programmed to think and do things a certain way. They all lie to obtain the votes and never follow through on most of what they say. That's at all levels, although a local vote gives a bit more power to the voter, it's still just a game and an appeasement to the masses. They'll less likely revolt …if they think they have power and had say in the decision making process.
yeah make america try to take down this president trump anit that right
+Dave Hill Yes there is a cost to getting a license, there would be no cost to getting a voter ID so why would they not? They have an ID to get state and federal assistance….apparently that isn't discriminatory….And they do it…..And again to assume there is no voter fraud is naive…
+Jeff Stepputtis Nonetheless, almost every existing mechanism for obtaining voter ID has a cost; either in monetary terms (ie: a fee), or in time or other burden (eg: collect a bunch of documentation which might involve visits to multiple state offices, or visit an office with restricted opening hours). The ACLU and other organizations have repeatedly opposed these measures for exactly these reasons; they are inherently discriminatory, and in the main no effort has been made to mitigate their problems. It's hard to escape the conclusion that this is deliberate.
You've asserted (several times now) that believing voter fraud to be negligible is naïve. However, you have not provided any actual data to back up this assertion (versus the Brennan Center link I provided, for example). Do you have any information to this effect, or is it your individual opinion?
voting is not important because it's not going to change nothing at all and plus how could voting change something with the government and the government is corrupt and evil you would never know with kind of dirty underground work they got going on because I'm telling you Donald Trump was voted in secretly because you have to really look at the big picture there is more people who don't want him president then that do even his own race
+Queen Cummings I know that's right, I work in the Neuro ICU with stroke, brain tumor, spinal injury patients and in the last month I've had multiple different patients tell me "Asshole" or "I don't say his name" or "That's not my president" and my favorite "Donald Duck" when I ask whos the president to see if they are oriented. Lol even after a stroke people still know they don't like him!