return2ozmaLarge Majority of Americans Want to End Electoral College
jordanlundThe only reason they want a popular vote system is because it would have worked in their favor in 2000 and 2016.
The minute it goes against “their” candidate they’ll scream to go back to the electoral college.
See the multi-state pact here:
www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation
Currently passed in 17 states for 209 electoral college votes, it doesn’t take effect until there are 270 accounted for.
But do you really think the residents of a state like Oregon, or Washington, or California will just be OK with their electoral college votes being passed to a popular vote winner who is a Republican?
Especially if that person failed to win their state?
Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote
One-page explanation (PDF) The National Popular Vote law will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It will apply the one-person-one-vote principle to presidential elections, and make every vote equal. Why a National Popular Vote for President Is Needed The shortcomings of the current system stem from “winner-take-all” laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each separate state.
EndOfLineIs the suggestion here that the only people who support the electoral college are those who don’t want the president to represent the majority of the voting population?
No, the suggestion here is that the people supporting the popular vote are doing it because they got burned in 2000 and 2016.
Had it gone the other way, they wouldn’t be agitating for it.
If Trump somehow wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college, WA, OR and CA will be THRILLED.
Your suggestion is wrong. Eliminating the Electoral College is advocated for by everyone who supports Democracy. It is also not a coincidence that the Electoral College disproportionately benefits one party over the other. And to cement that advantage they employ anti-Democratic measures in an attempt at voter suppression.
Everyone who supports Democracy… right up until it goes against their interests.
So you don’t think it’s ok to do the right thing, because people want it for the wrong reasons?
I think people want it now because they feel burned by the 2000 and 2016 elections, but the first time it goes the other way they will be like “Wait, not like THAT!”
I look at the 2000 election like this:
Gore won. If we had completed counting the ballots in Florida, however they were counted, Gore won.
www.theguardian.com/world/…/uselections2000.usa
(Published 8 days after the Bush inauguration)
The problem there wasn’t popular vs. electoral college. The problem was Democrats are spineless and refuse to fight. “When they go low, we go high” and all that.
In the end though, if Gore had also bothered to win his own home state of Tennessee, Florida would not have mattered.
In 2016, again, less of a problem with popular vs. electoral and more that Clinton utterly failed to campaign in key states like MI and WI, taking them for granted and assuming they were a lock. Surprise! Not a lock.
Had she done her job correctly, she wouldn’t have lost the EC.
Gore won. If we had completed counting the ballots in Florida, however they were counted, Gore won.
www.theguardian.com/world/…/uselections2000.usa
(Published 8 days after the Bush inauguration)
The problem there wasn’t popular vs. electoral college. The problem was Democrats are spineless and refuse to fight. “When they go low, we go high” and all that.
There were recounts beforehand. Didn’t change the result. The last recount, the one that got interrupted by the injunction and killed by SCOTUS was of a handful of specific counties and counted under a different standard for over- and under-votes than the rest of the state.
If it had been completed, Bush would still have won. According to some media outlets doing research on the topic, had the entire state been recounted under the standard Gore wanted to use for that handful of places, Gore might have won. Some surveys done after the fact also suggested Gore could have won but surveys aren’t votes, it’s why we don’t just let news media do a poll and decide the president that way.
The SCOTUS decision leaned on two things: Election deadlines are enforceable and using different rules to count votes depending on which district you are in violates Equal Protection. They killed the last recount because it violated equal protection and a version of it that wouldn’t could not possibly have been completed before the deadline (about 2 hours after they released the opinion).
The logic behind Bush v Gore is why Trump switched from launching lawsuit after lawsuit in 2020 to bloviating and whining and hoping for a coup starting at about mid December. He’ll do the same this year if he loses - he’ll launch any lawsuit he thinks might have a ghost of a chance until we reach election deadlines then incessantly bloviate in a vain attempt to foment rebellion.