Former Sen. Birch Bayh Joins Coalition to Abolish Electoral College

[radio4progressives]

(edited subject table for mistaken identity)

Former congressmen press changes in presidential elections

BY JEFF ZELENY
Chicago Tribune



A coalition of former congressmen is launching a campaign to change how Americans select their president by reforming the Electoral College system, saying campaigns for the White House should be reliant on the nationwide popular vote rather than simply the outcome in a handful of swing states.

The bipartisan group plans to announce its proposal Thursday and begin a state-by-state effort to amend the Electoral College so the winner reflects the view of the country instead of an individual state or two with a close vote on Election Day. The plan would seek to eliminate the possibility of a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the election, as happened to former Vice President Al Gore in 2000.

"The time is long past to not play Electoral College roulette every four years," former Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., said in an interview. "It is a throwback to 1887."

(snip)

cont...

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/nation/13936431.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[joemurphy]

1. Good for Bayh. n/t

[MH1]

8. Old Bayh, not young Bayh. Not Evan Bayh, Birch Bayh - Evan's father. n/t

[joemurphy]

13. LOL. You're right! Totally missed that.

I was surprised that Evan could do something I liked. My instincts were correct. :-)

[Ignacio Upton]

2. "It is a throwback to 1887."

Gotta get your history right there Evan, it was 1787. I also agree that the EC is archiac. Defenders argue that the EC is needed to give small states a voice in choosing the President, but unless you are in a swing state, your vote is already being taken for granted if you live in Wyoming or Idaho. Also, electors supposedly representing the interests of "the states" merely symbolically cast their ballot in accordance to the wishes of the popular vote in their states. I think that we should go for direct popular vote with some form of Instant Runoff Voting to avoid a Nader-type of situation. If we can't do this, then we could write a constitutional amendment that requires each state to award its electoral votes to different candidates in proportion to their share of the popular vote in that state (Colorado tried this in 2004 with its Amendment 36 intitative, but it was defeated on the arguement that Colorado would be less competetive in the EC with other states still having winner-take-all.)

[radio4progressives]

5. I remember, Salazbar lobbied heavily against it.. ..

that was freaking weird, (imo). good catch on the historical date..

yeah, probably irv would be implemented, i would think. though some are arguing that there are better, more transparent, and less subject to rigging than irv system.. i'm not an expert - though i have seen how it works and it is a bit convuluted - but still far superior to the system we have in place now.

[MH1]

7. Not Evan Bayh, Birch Bayh - Evan's father. n/t

[karynnj]

3. It's his dad, Former Senator Birch Bayh, not him

This would enormously help the Democrats. We have all the urban areas and would then switch to campaigning at least a large part of the time in states that are our base. One regret I have is not going to PA to see Kerry during the 2004 campaign - the CSPAN rallies looked amazing.

I did see him when he came to help Corzine - he was spell binding and because my husband and I were early we were able to see and hear him speak to people afterwards - he was spellbinding when he spoke and afterwards it was clear that he was a genuinely nice guy - surprisingly soft spoken.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Birch Bayh wasa among the first to oppose the war in Vietnam

He was everything his useless son Evan could never be: a real Democrat with cojones!

[flaminbats]

19. Evan should consider what makes him a political force..

it wasn't just name recognition, but the lasting impact his father's political will had on voters! Anderson and Bayh are political heroes for me..two reasons I am not a Republican. If Anderson was welcomed as a candidate in the 2008 Republican primaries, I would probably reconsider. ;)

Democrats could transform this into a winning national issue. what do we have to lose..Congress, the White House? :(

[karynnj]

21. I went to IU from 1968 -1972 (where I had until then lived since birth)

Birch Bayh was a really good Senator. I had really hoped he would be President.

[KoKo]

4. I saw it this a.m...and Gore Vidal in his latest book says Do Away With It

I've resisted all these years...thinking that it was important that "small states" retain their importance.

But after watching three corrupted elections and knowing that most of America will vote because of "Hava Act" on more corrupted machines...I think it's TIME FOR CHANGE.

Let the Popular Vote be the one that's counted. Get rid of these "Super Delegates" who seem to be controlling our States Voting...which contributes to Gerrymandering Districts (a la Tom DeLay in Texas and in many of our states) and after all...WHY SHOULDN'T states with big populations be counted?

My only worry is that it would swing things to the SUN BELT...where the population has increased hugely...But...Why not TRY IT? We could always go back to the "old way?" :shrug:

[radio4progressives]

10. The Major populations centers are West Coast/East Coast

and state capitals. If everyone knew their votes were actually COUNTED, that might dramatically change voter turnout results.

nothing can be as bad as it is now... we do need to drop it asap.

[Initech]

6. Get rid of the electoral vote and get rid of e-voting. NOW!

No matter how we do away with the electoral college, as long as electronic voting is here, we still wont have fair and balanced elections. Get rid of both of them now!

[radio4progressives]

12. yes i agree - we need to fix three things at once...

clean money campaigns, paper ballots only, and abolish EC.

[MH1]

9. You should edit the title to clarify which Bayh. n/t

[radio4progressives]

11. thanks, my bad... not usually that sloppy.. (mortification at work)

i fixed it ... (sheesh, can't believe i did that)

[MH1]

14. 's okay...you caught it in time, no harm done.

:-)

I think this is a pretty cool idea anyway. And maybe some current officeholders will get on board if it starts to look like it's going somewhere.

[radio4progressives]

15. I'm hip...

a few months ago, i caught segment on C-Span featuring a republican pr person who wrote a book arguing against abolishing the Electoral college system - she was from texas (i don't remember her name or the title of the book right now)and the "minority rights" was used as the basis of her argument .. clearly abolish EC movement has been underway and gaining more and more popularity. so they've got their counter movement along with their talking points down pat.

I've been pushing for DU folks to get behind this, and posted a few times - it was met a lot of opposition - which strikes me as really strange, because the logic of it enourmously helping Democrats should be obvious to anyone serious about making sure the Democrats win the white house ever again. (apart from the nailing elections rigging, paper ballots and clean money).

It's logical, and it's necessary. DU needs to kick this in gear instead of wasting time on polling and debating their favorite candidate for '08.

[Pushed To The Left]

16. Good for him!

One person, one vote. Every vote should count! It seems like common sense to me.

[Yupster]

18. Reform the electoral college?

Amend it?

I don't know what good that would do.

They need to either get rid of it or not.

What good would reforming it do?

[radio4progressives]

20. it takes a constitutional amendment to abolish it, and

to replace the EC elections method process with a different method.

[thatsrightimirish]

22. He's only doing that

BEcause he knows it would be a major battle for his son to win his home state. Senator Bayh would have a much better chance in 2008 or 12 in a popular vote.

[dtotire]

23. Voting Rights for ALL Citizens

We should not only abolish the EC, but we should extent suffrage to All citizens--including those living in territories.

[Debi]

24. Get rid of the EC to ensure that smaller states are NEVER considered

in the presidential campaigns.

CA, NY, FLA and TX will be visited, only the high population centers will ever see a candidate leaving smaller states to wonder if they are even considered in the process. New York City alone has almost three times the people in it as the entire state of Iowa. Thankfully Iowa has seven electoral votes so we at least get one or maybe two visits by the candidates during the campaign. How many visits does Montana get w/it's three? If we went to popular vote only about 40 states would be regularly ignored and tossed aside, not a great plan IMO.

[riona]

25. difficult to change ec

repubs very afraid of the huge numbers of "liberal urban voters".