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Politics Who Loves the Electoral College? Not Maryland.

Posted by on April 10 at 16:30 PM

In a bid for more attention (eventually) one of the states that tends to be most overlooked by prospective presidential candidates has approved pulling out of the electoral college altogether:

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland officially became the first state on Tuesday to approve a plan to give its electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the candidate chosen by state voters.

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1

Why can't our state join in? It never helped us in any way, shape, or form.

2

I hate the Electoral College. This is a great plan.

3

Three cheers for Maryland! Here's hoping the rest of the States soon follow suit.

4

cool. now we just need 260 more electoral votes for the proposal to go into effect.

5

There's many reasons not to like this proposal (its blatant unconstitutionality being one), but may I single out that if our state had this in effect in 2004, all of our electoral votes would have gone to Bush? Would you want Washington's delegates to have voted for Bush against the will of the majority of its people?

6

OK, so why don't we just legalize popular vote elections, and thereby join the 11 other states that have formally amended the US Constitution - once we have 26, it's game over.

7

Joshua H at 7 - the proposal seems perfectly constitutional. The constitution says that states may send delegates in a manner they see fit.

8

Oh, beautiful! I've been gunning for the Maine/Nebraska approach...but this is far better.

9

Joshua - What's your point? That sometimes the national popular vote will run opposite to individual states'? What a groundbreaking revelation. Wow. What exactly is your point?

"Would you want Washington's delegates to have voted for Bush against the will of the majority of its people?"

Well, since in a presidential election I'm not voting for the president of the State of Washington, but the United States of America, I don't really care much which presidential candidate the majority of Washington's people are voting for. And maybe, just maybe, if the candidates were focused on winning the popular vote and not the vote of a few select 'swing states,' the candidates might not be spending the majority of their time and money on Florida and Ohio.

10

Washington has been a potential swing state for the past two elections, so I'm not sure that the argument that we're uncatered to really applies. I remember a number of candidate visits over the past two presidential elections. And hey, swing states change all the time. (But what's the disadvantage of not being a swing state? Our votes still count, no?)

Where I think this interstate compact is unconstitutional is that 1) it's an end run around the Constitution of the United States (i.e., a bad thing, and probably not legal) and 2) disenfranchises those states that decide against giving their delegates to the winner of the popular vote. The second point is the nail in the coffin, and it's in light of that that this proposal - even if enacted - will not stand.

And in the end, I don't see a good reason to throw out 200+ years of handiwork. We're a nation of states. States are important to this country. It's kinda why we're called the United States of America. If there's a persuasive argument for the popular vote, why didn't we do this in 1789?

11

Hold on there, cowboy - we have to give a persuasive argument for a popular vote? For a simple, direct expression of democratic will? Uh, no, we really don't. If anything, we need to make a persuasive argument for the electoral college - an unwieldy, bungled mess that misdirects democratic will and causes candidates to take large swaths of the population for granted (and sure, swing states change, but that is completely beside the point; most states, at any given time, are a fairly sure bet - all that means is that a slightly different 80% of the states, with their unique challenges and difficulties, will be mostly ignored in each election cycle).

Any first-year PolySci major can recite the initial reasons given for the establishment of the electoral college (mostly having to do with a pervasive fear of mob rule in a completely untested system of representative democracy). The "inertia" argument is pretty dumb, buddy. Why make any changes whatsoever to anything in our government? It's been good enough for 200+ years, right? I feel better about American government already!

12

Counting was illegal then.

13

Hold on there, cowboy - we have to give a persuasive argument for a popular vote?

Uh, yes. If you want to change the Constitution (much less subvert it through this proposal). you have to make a persuasive argument. That's controversial?

But hey, there may be some great reasons to do so, and I'm all for a discussion on amending the Constitution (even if I may not be for a popular vote)... however, I profoundly dislike the idea of trying to get around the Constitution of the United States because it's inconvenient to change it. (Also see: the past six years.)

14

Maryland, My Maryland!

15

Joshua,

A few points:

1) This proposal is pretty clearly Constitutional. Interstate compacts are fairly common, and according to the Constitution, every state gets to decide (through its legislature) how it will apportion electors. Even now, not all states apportion electors the same way. Maine and Nebraska, for example, aren't winner-take-all.

2) You are arguing that original intent demands that the electoral college be a winner-take-all state-by-state contest, but the electoral college wasn't used that way at the nation's founding. In the elections of 1792 and 1800, more than half the states had electors appointed by their legislature. In 1824, 6 of the 24 states still appointed electors. The founders' original intentions required neither a popular vote of any kind nor consistency on the part of states in how they chose electors.

3) Finally, you say that this proposal "disenfranchises those states that decide against giving their delegates to the winner of the popular vote", and this makes me think you don't understand the proposal. Once the compact reaches a set of states that represent an electoral majority, the compact goes into effect. At that point, all the states in the compact vow to go with the overall winner of the popular vote in the country, *not* the winner of the popular vote in just the states in the compact. Thus, every voter's vote counts, as every voter's vote moves the nationwide tally. How does this disenfranchise the states not party to the compact? The voters in those states still have an effect on the election.

16

I hate the electoral college as much as the next person, but this is a bad idea. A purely popular vote marginalizes the small states needs and focus' only on population centers. At least with the electoral college, states like Wyoming are guaranteed a 3/538ths say in who becomes our next Pres. while population wise the proportion is surely smaller. The fact is that our states federal "worth" should not be decided purely on the basis of how many people live there (thats why every state gets two senators). Just because you need less people per square mile to grow corn than to make movies, does not mean that the set of people with the life experience and outlook that comes with movie making should have more say than the farmers of America.

In the same way "might makes right" is horrible, so is "numbers means importance." A better solution is a proportional splitting of electoral college votes along with instant runoff ballots to fend off the "King Maker" argument associated with a three way split of electoral votes.

17

Peter -

How far does that argument go? Should Eastern Washington farmers have a greater say in statewide races (even though they're few in numbers), because they're often marginalized in state politics?

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