National Popular Vote Update

Ok, today has just turned into revisit old postings.  It is not like President Obama named his choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court this week or anything.

Back in 2008 I had a discussion about the National Popular Vote Movement.  

For a quick review: this is basically a movement towards a popular vote system without amending the Constitution.  Individual states pass laws that require their electoral votes to be given to the winner of the national popular vote for President.  Once this has passed in the number of states equallying 270 electoral votes, it will effectively make the Electoral College meaningless.  Click here for a link to the website.

Current Status:

5 States have passed a measure into law. (Total of 60 Electoral Votes)

5 Have passed it in both houses of the legislature.

8 Have passed it in one house of the legislature

7 Have passed committee 

8 Have had hearings

15 Have introduced bills

2 Are currently drafting bills

We will see what happens.  I still am not sure whether this is the best idea, but I believe the constitutional implications of enough states passing measures like this will be unique.

National Popular Vote Update

The National Popular Vote movement is a movement in state legislatures to drop out of the Electoral College. Since states determine how they distribute their Electors to the Electoral College, it is possible, as Maryland and New Jersey have done, to apportion all of their Electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. See my post about Maryland passing this measure last year. In both Maryland and New Jersey, this will not take effect until states representing at least 270 Electoral Votes pass similar measures. It has already been vetoed in Hawaii and California, but is pending in a number of states either in the legislature or on the Governor's desk. It will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.

I am not a big fan of it, I prefer a proportional electoral college system where if you win 70 of the popular vote in a state, you get 70% (or a rounded percentage) of the Electoral votes in that state. If there are 10 Electors, you get 7 of them. Interestingly enough, Minnesota and Oklahoma have joined the proportional party with Maine and Nebraska. Too bad solid states like New York, California, Georgia and Texas will never pass a proportional rule for the Electors.

New Electoral College System

I found this method of administering the nomination of Electors to the Electoral College very intriguing: The state of Maryland Senate has passed a bill that would compel the Electors chosen to cast their vote for the candidate who wins the majority vote in the country. If passed by the house and signed by the governor (who said he would) this would take effect once states representing at least 270 electoral votes. It will be interesting to see if many people pick up on this and other states try to pass similar statutes. This would effectively eliminate the Electoral College without a Constitutional Amendment. Roll that one around in your head for a bit.

Presidential Elections have always been one of those things I have had a problem with. I do not like that the popular vote of the country could significantly vary from the controlling electoral vote. I have gone through a several versions of ways states can improve it, such as dividing votes by who wins congressional districts (done by Maine and Nebraska) or dividing up electoral votes based on a percentage of the popular vote won (my most recent favorite). I will be watching the Maryland plan to see how it is received by other states.