Epoch Times: Delaware Gov. John Carney, a Democrat, signed a bill would hand over the state’s presidential electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of what voters say in those states, The Associated Press reported on March 28.
Delaware is the 13th Democratic-leaning state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, according to AP. The initiative started after Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 but lost to George W. Bush. It gained steam after Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.
The Electoral College is embodied in the U.S. Constitution in the 12th Amendment. A change in the U.S. Constitution would require the support of two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of state legislatures.
President Trump voiced his opposition to the move to abolish the electoral vote earlier this month.
“Campaigning for the Popular Vote is much easier & different than campaigning for the Electoral College,” he tweeted. “It’s like training for the 100 yard dash vs. a marathon. The brilliance of the Electoral College is that you must go to many States to win.”
But with the popular vote mandate, candidates are forced to focus on “just the large states.”
Meanwhile, cities would end up running the United States, he wrote. more here
I’m fine with winner take all, but there are 538 Electors so it would seem that the sanest thing to do at this point of perfidy would be to make the percentages of electoral votes the same as the percentages of popular votes. Anything less is tyranny.
This essentially takes away the validity of the voters of his own state. Why isn’t this being challenged in court?
If states do this and don’t abide by 12th amendment as written and law, Their votes will be deemed null and void I would think.
This is a recipe for election chaos.
This is voter suppression and disenfranchisement. Pure and simple.
Not to mention it is unconstitutional.
DemocRATs proving that without enforcement, laws mean nothing! Expect more of this kind of defiance of law and order to win at any cost.
Well it’s not a win if they flaunt the Constitution! All they want to do is tie up the next election in court challenges for the next four year term, just like they’ve tried to tie up this administration in phony Russian Collusion charges!
Then we all know what’s next… the population of illegals will eventually be high enough to turn an election.
Power and money.
The left has succeeded in destroying public education and is hard at work on free speech and the right to bear arms.
When people ask them why they don’t look at Venezuela and realize that’s what they’re work towards, they aren’t thinking. The people pushing for all this Constitution destroying bulloney do realize that’s what they’re working towards. What they see is the lavish lifestyle of Maduro and that is what they are actually working for.
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1Tim 6:10
Notice it does not say, Money is the root of all evil. It’s the LOVE of money.
This also explains why leftists are always miserable and have no sense of humor.
If Delaware already leans left, all they would be doing is inviting the possibility to have its electors vote otherwise.
It would be funny to see the Dem Delaware voters crying “No taxation without representation.”
With the popular vote movement, if it is successful, making individual votes in a State only a part of a larger vote including jurisdictions out of state I have one question: What would that do to the standing of citizens and organizations to challenge elections outside their own States as well as within their own?
Please, lord, let this boomerang on them like every other stunt they’ve tried during the Trump Era. May they always be fighting the next war with the tactics of the last war. And may Trump win the popular vote, if only by 50 votes. Okay, lord, that last one may be a bridge too far, but do what you can.
The way I read the 12th amendment, the electoral college is required for the election of a President. In haste, the democrats are not seeking to constitutionally eliminate the amendment-there is not sufficient time for that- they are seeking to manipulate it. Depending on the outcome of their efforts, it is possible that all electoral votes would go to a popular vote candidate, thereby negating any differing outcomes in the individual states. And those are the votes that determine the winner in the election.
Did you ever wonder how north korea has unanimous elections?
This is one way.
States cannot amend the Constitution with silly laws unless 75% of the states agree!
Unable 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.”
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country. It does not abolish the Electoral College.
The National Popular Vote bill is states with 270 electors replacing state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states, to guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, in every state, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire, Ohio, or Florida. The bill would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states possessing 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.
. Without statewide winner-take-all laws, under National Popular Vote, all votes would actually help the candidate each of us actually vote for.
In presidential elections, current state statewide winner-take-all laws create the illusion that entire states voted 100% for the state’s winner, because the laws award 100% of each state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most votes in the state. However, for example, in Connecticut, the actual vote was 898,000 votes for Clinton; 673,000 for Trump, 49,000 for Johnson, and 23,000 for Stein.
The price that a state pays for its winner-take-all law is that no presidential candidate has anything to gain or lose by soliciting voters or catering to voter issues in 38 states in the November general election. The Democratic candidates take blue states for granted, The Republican candidates take red states for granted. Every voter in safe states—Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green—ends up without any meaningful influence or voice in the presidential election.
Some voters have voted for every presidential election since the early 1990s, but state winner-take-all laws for electoral college votes have made sure not a SINGLE vote in their life for president has mattered because they are in the minority party in their state. They could have never voted for President, and still had the same impact. None.
If you add up all the runner-up votes and all the surplus votes cast for president, then about 60% of all votes cast for president under the current system do not matter at all.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, in every state, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire or Florida. The National Popular Vote bill would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
The National Popular Vote bill would give a voice to the minority party voters for president in each state. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don’t matter to presidential candidates.
Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004.
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.
Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0
The current system completely ignores conservatives presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.
Neither the current system nor the National Popular Vote compact permits any state to get involved in judging the election returns of other states. Federal law (the “safe harbor” provision in section 5 of title 3 of the United States Code) specifies that a state’s “final determination” of its presidential election returns is “conclusive”(if done in a timely manner and in accordance with laws that existed prior to Election Day). National Popular Vote is based on the same legal mechanisms and standards that have governed presidential elections since 1880.
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and various members of Congress who later ran for Vice President and President such as then-Congressman George H.W. Bush, and then-Senator Bob Dole.
Past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN).
Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”
Eight former national chairs of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have endorsed the bill
In 2017, Saul Anuzis and Michael Steele, the former chairmen of the Michigan and national Republican parties, wrote that the National Popular Vote bill was “an idea whose time has come”.
On March 7, 2019, the Delaware Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill in a bi-partisan 14-7 vote
In 2018, the National Popular Vote bill in the Michigan Senate was sponsored by a bipartisan group of 25 of the 38 Michigan senators, including 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
In 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the bill.
In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the bill.
In 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill by a 28–18 margin.
In 2009, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed the bill
There is nothing in the Constitution of 12th Amendment that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the Electoral College and the presidency.
I agree- it is not abolition of the electoral college that is sought, but rather a manipulation of it, and in my opinion, for nefarious purposes.
The intent of the original language in the amendment would need to be considered to justify such an alteration to the practice of voting in our country. I do not believe the authors of the amendment envisioned such an alteration as is being suggested. It is a result of today’s lawyers and their weasely ways. It is being brought to us by the same folks who introduced ‘affluenza’, ‘if it doesn’t fit…’ and now, chicago justice ala foxx.
No, I don’t like it. Nor do I think our founding fathers would either.