Should the Electoral College be replaced with a direct, popular vote system?
According to a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of Americans say they would amend the Constitution to replace the Electoral College with a popular vote system when electing presidents.
Following the 2000 presidential election in which Democratic candidate Al Gore won the popular vote yet failed to secure the necessary electoral votes over Republican George W. Bush, Gallup reported that Democrats were much more likely to favor replacing the Electoral College than Republicans. However, a majority of Republicans now favor adopting a direct election for the first time.
The Office of the Federal Register states that over the past 200 years, more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to replace the Electoral College with a direct popular vote (more than any other subject), but none have been passed and sent to the states. To alter the current system, three-fourths of the states would have to ratify the proposed amendment. We want to hear your thoughts on this topic.
I definetly believe the electoral college should be replaced by the popular vote. It doesn’t make much sense to me that more people can want a candidate to be president, but that candidate can lose based on the number of votes a particular state has.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. There would no longer be ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of other states.
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA ,RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC, HI, IL, CA, NJ, MD, MA, VT, and WA. These 9 jurisdictions possess 132 electoral votes– 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
agreed! + GREAT topic @concreteloop; this is what makes u different from other cites.
Very Interesting! I wonder why the republicans are now majority in favor of it? However, I do agree. if the majority of the people in this country want one canidate over the other then that should be the end of it. Too many “politics” in choosing the “peoples leader”
I would like to think that our elected officials are running for office to help the country but it has become apparent over the last 20 years that it’s more about money. I look a the money being spent to run some of these races and think to myself…why can’t this money be used to reduced deficits instead of raising taxes? Wishful thinking I guess, but the 2000 electtion and changing of the rules to the supreme court have all but banished the idea of being “elected by the people, for the people”.
On a side note, what we should perhaps look at overhauling the amount of money that members of Congress and the Senate can make. It bothers me a bit that they are elected to represent “the people” when they are millionares and members of the elite in this country. In the grand scheme of things, it is them that’s the problem…not the POTUS.
I never really understood it’s point until I did some more research. While the reason’s it was first put into power are no longer an issue, there are new reason’s that we may need it. There are pros and cons.
The Electoral College makes a candidate focus on states needs, spreading them around the country. Meaning, with a popular vote system it could give even more power to special interest groups. Which already have lobbyist for them trying to influence the government. With a popular vote a candidate will no longer have to prove himself across the country he can just focus on special interest groups who have millions and millions or members/followers across the country. An example of these is NRA, who has always been majority conservative and always in Washington pushing or trying to ban laws that affect them. Since they have lots of people the candidate can cater to what they want, do what they want to get elected and stay elected. He won’t have to win states or other peoples votes or listen to their concerns. <– this is probably why republicans are in favor of this…don’t believe the hype people.
The con is that, someone who gets the popular vote may not win the election, like Bush and Gore. Also I think it lowers the moral of voter turnout. People don't vote or if they do vote, feel like it doesn't really count anyway. It does add more bureaucracy to the election process.
@lemaracqt7
thnx for the explanation im still somewhat confused though
The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to over 2/3rds of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all method (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only the current handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters. There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win. 9 of the original 13 states are considered “fly-over” now. In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree already, that, at most, only 14 states and their voters will matter. None of the 10 most rural states will matter, as usual. Almost 75% of the country will be ignored –including 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. This will be more obscene than the 2008 campaign, when candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
More than 2/3rds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election. That’s more than 85 million voters ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
Voter turnout in the “battleground” states has been 67%, while turnout in the “spectator” states was 61%.
I am SO in favor of this! A lot of Americans, I believe, don’t even realize how much their vote doesn’t count and its the Electoral College that elects our President! I am definitely in favor of the US now electing Presidents based on popular vote.
Looking at how simple the average American is, I wouldn’t trust most of them to give me the time if they were looking directly at a clock, much less “elect” a leader. The reason why the electoral college was set up in the first place was for the express purpose of maintaining the authoritative ability and preeminence of certain states because each state acts as a relatively SOVEREIGN ENTITY in and of themselves, binded together only by the federal charter known as the Constitution. This is why laws and statutes vary from state to state. America is a CORPORATION (known as the “Corporation of Homeland Security”), not a country, and in a corporation, a PRESIDENT is SELECTED by a board of chairman (in this case the international bankers), not ELECTED by those at the bottom of a corporation i.e. maintenance men, cleaning ladies, secretaries, delivery boys, etc. I dare anyone that works in a corporation to state that there was an election held to appoint the president of their corporation lol. What makes you, or any other of the average obtuse Americans, think that you’re qualified to “elect” a president even if you had the power to do so. Most of you can’t even maintain your households and neighborhoods, much less the so-called “free world”. Even the white man and woman are waking up to the hypocrisy of this system, which is why they are staging these pathetic “Occupy Wall Street” rallies, while many black people are still trying to figure out a way to get Obama re-elected lol.
Judah,
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, Only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote. Since then, state laws gave the people the right to vote for President in all 50 states and DC.
The current system does not provide some kind of check on the “mobs.” There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
If a Democratic presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Democratic party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. If a Republican presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Republican party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. The winner of the presidential election is the candidate who collects 270 votes from Electoral College voters from among the winning party’s dedicated activists.
It`s all an ILLUSION. Choose who you want The Eliticists are the ones who determine public policy..i.e. The Rockefellas, Rotchilds, Wall Street, JP Morgan, etc. Wake up.
Leave it alone brotha. Let these black rats chase the cheese lol. Every 4 years black people (particularly black females) go through the same ritualistic rigmarole of acting as if the political climate can be or needs to be recalibrated in order to “make a difference” lol. They have no spiritual third eye or insight whatsoever. This is why Christ warned his apostles to remember Lot’s wife. She turned back and looked because she loved the ways of Sodom (as most of these women love America), and America is constructed in the order of Sodom, Babylon, Rome, Egypt, and Greece.
I like the current system. it gives smaller states a say.
Now political clout comes from being a battleground state.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws, presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are almost invariably non-competitive,in presidential elections. Six regularly vote Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota), and six regularly vote Democratic (Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC) in presidential elections.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska — 70%, DC — 76%, Delaware –75%, Idaho – 77%, Maine — 77%, Montana – 72%, Nebraska — 74%, New Hampshire –69%, Nevada — 72%, New Mexico — 76%, Rhode Island — 74%, South Dakota – 71%, Utah – 70%, Vermont — 75%, West Virginia – 81%, and Wyoming – 69%.
In the lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers — including one house in DC, Delaware, Maine, and both houses in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It has been enacted by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Vermont.
I find it funny people want a more “direct” voting system when I bet majority of their asses didn’t even vote in their local and state elections. SMDH… well if it happens I hope people learn from their mistakes.
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