Electoral voting effort stalls

[Judi Lynn]

Electoral voting effort stalls
Senate committee tables National Popular Vote legislation
12:51 AM, Jan. 19, 2012

DOVER -- An effort to award Delaware's three Electoral College votes in presidential elections to the winner of the national popular vote stalled Wednesday in a Senate committee.

The National Popular Vote legislation, House Bill 55, is part of a nationwide movement to change the Electoral College's perceived flaws from the 2000 presidential contest in which Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Representatives from National Popular Vote, a California-based advocacy group promoting the legislation, told senators that adopting their proposed law would make Delaware more relevant in presidential contests. Delaware's heavy Democratic voter-registration rolls have made it a solidly blue state in recent elections.
In the 2008 election, 98 percent of campaign spending occurred in 15 competitive states, said Scott Drexel with the National Popular Vote group.

~snip~
Eight states and the District of Columbia have adopted the National Popular Vote model legislation in joining an interstate compact to assign 132 electoral votes to the presidential candidate with the most votes nationwide, Drexel said.

More:
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120119/NEWS02/201190349/Electoral-voting-effort-stalls

[Wilms]

1. Excellent!

National Popular Vote, whatever its appeal, provides more opportunity to rig an election.

[bemildred]

2. How does that work?

I though it would be harder to rig national elections than state or local ones.

[Wilms]

7. Please see post #6. n/t

[bemildred]

8. I don't see how it's worse than what we have in that regard.

It makes it harder to steal the Presidency, much harder I would say. You are quite correct that it is no panacea. OTOH, if one can avoid another Bush selection, that would be well worth it.

[mvymvy]

3. Current System Maximizes Opportunities and Incentives for Fraud

The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud. A very few people can change the national outcome by changing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.

National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.

Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: "To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you'd have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you'd have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .

For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.

Which, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?"

[bemildred]

5. +1.

And it's all this way by coincidence too, no doubt.

[Wilms]

6. It's not like I appreciate our unaudited elections.

But I'm not sure you could even audit NPV. Statisical auditing can give assurance as to who won, not the vote count which would be crucial.

So you steal piles of votes all over the country in NON-BATTLEGRAUND regions where the audits are nil and pad the NPV.

I thought, at first, that NPV was a good idea. But I came to find it was a reaction to the 2000 election, not a solution. Had NPV been in place then, they would have merely changed the method of theft.

[sofa king]

10. And the return for padding in locked states...

Can be 135 electoral votes... or however many e.v.s are tied to those states which have followed that trend. So the incentive for going large and committing nationwide election theft increases dramatically.

However, from a purely Democratic political angle, I think it swings the odds strongly in their favor. It's much more efficient and cost-effective to encourage high turnout in high-population areas, which naturally lean Democratic because those areas actually see their government functioning all around them, and failing whenever the thieves sneak in.

I think it might also strengthen the anti-election theft strategy that President Obama has used so well, which is to build a populist movement so large and motivated that the base of support is beyond the margin of statistical error, making padding and other forms of election-thieving much less viable. Making sure it never gets close enough to steal is the best way to guarantee the result.

However, I personally remain undecided about this issue. I frankly view it as an unwelcome intrusion in the midst of an unacknowledged crisis, which is that the reliability of our elections is reprehensibly low and wide open to exploitation from a myriad of sources. One only needs to look at our collective downturn in fortunes, financial and otherwise, to deduce that election theft and political dishonesty in its many forms has already been wildly successful in the United States of America--for We the People would never have allowed ourselves to sink so low.

[bemildred]

11. The only way to get electoral votes from participating states is to win the national popular vote.

That's the point of the law, that there is no other way to get those state electoral votes, no tricks, all votes are equal, nationally.

[Wilms]

12. Really excellent comments.

Thanks for the insight.

[mvymvy]

4. 75% of Delaware Voters Support a National Popular Vote

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency -- that is, a mere 26% of the nation's votes.

A survey of Delaware voters conducted on December 21-22, 2008 showed 75% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
Support was 79% among Democrats, 69% among Republicans, and 76% among independents.
By age, support was 71% among 18-29 year olds, 70% among 30-45 year olds, 77% among 46-65 year olds, and 77% for those older than 65.
By gender, support was 81% among women and 69% among men.

Under the current system, presidential campaigns, after the primaries, ignore Delaware.

Now presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections. Voters in states that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.

National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate.

With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.

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): AK -70%, DC -76%, DE --75%, ID -77%, ME - 77%, MT- 72%, NE - 74%, NH--69%, NE - 72%, NM - 76%, RI - 74%, SD- 71%, UT- 70%, VT - 75%, WV- 81%, and WY- 69%.

In the lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, including the Delaware House of Representatives, and been enacted by three jurisdictions.

Most voters don't care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans consider the idea of the candidate with the most popular votes being declared a loser detestable. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Overall, the bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes -- 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

Based on the current mix of states that have enacted the National Popular Vote compact, it could take about 25 states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the compact.

[halthouse1]

9. Conservative commentary

Should presidential elections no longer use the Electoral College and have the winner selected purely by the winner of the popular vote instead? Some believe that is the case!

The coments at this article at The Political Commentator suggests differently however: http://politicsandfinance.blogspot.com/2012/01/no-more-electoral-college-presidential.html