Massachusetts moves to circumvent the electoral college
The Massachusetts House and Senate appear poised to pass legislation that would circumvent the electoral college, however Governor Patrick has not stated whether or not he supports this bill.
If this bill is passed, Massachusetts will automatically give all its electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of how the state’s voters voted. Several states have already adopted similar legislation– Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington. Once enough states pass similar legislation, the electoral college will be for all intents and purpose dead and the president will be elected by popular vote.
I have mixed feelings about this prospect: on one hand I feel that the different states have the right to hold their elections as they see fit, but on the other hand, there is the very real possibility that a state’s voters could vote overwhelmingly for one candidate only to see the state’s electoral college vote for the other candidate. Under this scenario the voters will would have been ignored.
The constitution calls for electors to vote for the president and vice president, but nowhere does it say that the states have to hold a popular vote that the electors must adhere to; the constitution simply states that the electors shall meet and cast their votes. Theoretically the electors would cast their votes based on the will of the people, and for that reason this seems like an attempt to circumvent the constitutional process for electing the president.
Article 4 Section 4 of the constitution guarantees each state a republican form of government, that is what the electoral college provides the states with, although only two states– Nebraska and Maine– use proportional allocations of electoral college votes to provide a true republican form of government. The fact that states already have differing methods of handing out their electoral votes tells me that Massachusetts is well within her rights to change the way she hands out electoral college votes.
The founders feared democracy almost as much as they feared monarchy and that is why they worked so hard to set up a republic. It would seem to me that if people want to move away from the electoral college and vote for the president using a popular vote system that the proper way to do this would be to introduce a constitutional amendment and go through the proper process for amending the constitution.
Am I missing something here? What do you think?
America's Watchtower 
“If this bill is passed, Massachusetts will automatically give all its electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of how the state’s voters voted. ”
Link to the actual bill
Click to access MA-H4156-of-2010-Moran.pdf
Your quote is a correct interpretation. By my reading, we only need one person in MA to cast one token vote, apparently (if this goes into effect).
LikeLike
Ma. would still have to send their entire delegation because of the 270 EC voted needed to win the presidency.
LikeLike
Massachusetts moves to circumvent the electoral college?? Can we disown the Massholes and move on to saving America?? Just wonderin’…
LikeLike
You’re right – a state can direct its electors to vote however they say. The Constitution is silent on the issue. Most states have hitherto directed their electors to vote for whomever won the popular vote in the state, but nothing’s prevented Nebraska and Maine from going their own way. Accordingly, nothing should deter Massachusetts and the other states you noted from choosing this way.
Frankly, I’ve always preferred the proportional approach taken by Maine and Nebraska – my take would be that the electors be assigned to congressional districts, and however the district votes (D or R), that’s how the elector should vote. The two electors representing the Senate seats would vote for the state’s popular vote winner.
I’m sure if this system were in place nationwide, there wouldn’t be all the controversy over the EC or this new approach. The winner-take-all approach was started by states wanting to increase their influence in Presidential elections; the current effort seeks to give that power to the people, who today are so much more than, and yet so much like – the average citizen of the eighteenth century against whom the Framers sought to protect their Union, while saving the people from the government.
LikeLike
It seems that the proportional approach would be the most republican form of voting. I didn’t know the reasoning behind states changing to a winner takes all system, but your explanation makes total sense.
LikeLike
Dividing a state’s electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system. What the country needs is a national popular vote to make every person’s vote equally important to presidential campaigns.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would less be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
The district approach would not cause presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the state. Under the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws(whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state’s 53 districts. Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Under the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, two-thirds of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, seven-eighths of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
LikeLike
? So campaign hard in the ten largest population centers, and the rest of the country be damned? Hmph, that makes sense. Thats exactly what the electoral college is trying to avoid.
LikeLike
It seems to me to be not such a brilliant idea. If people vote for one candidate and then another gets their votes, it’s not fair at all.
LikeLike
There is a very rare chance of this happening, but the chance is there.
LikeLike
Its another powergrab by the limousine Libs. Look at the states enacting the legislation, enough said.
But like the Brown-Coakley senate race, this will eventually backfire on the limousine Libs. The DNA of this country is to the right, and there is a whole lot of flyover country that is going to put a stop to this.
LikeLike
The key is to think of it not in terms of “the state favored X but the Electoral College votes went to Y due to the National Popular Vote.” The state’s population had a fair representation in the election, every single one of their votes affected the outcome (which is not the case under the current system), and if the candidate that “won” that state loses the election, well, that’s unfortunate for those people but the national majority elected its President. The President of the nation should be the candidate who gets the most votes nationally and the National Popular Vote system would achieve that.
And, actually Frank, many Republicans support this solution to the unfairness created by the Electoral College system now. Saul Anuzis was Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party for four years and a candidate to head the Republican National Election Committee in 2009 and he views NPV as both a fair solution and as a way to bolster support for Republican candidates up and down the ticket.
http://www.thatssaulfolks.com/2010/04/01/national-popular-vote-why-i-support-it/
In my opinion NPV wouldn’t favor either party, it would favor candidates who were able to build the broadest national support, and that is a very good thing.
LikeLike
Toto’s response is correct; my proposal wouldn’t institute a popular vote, it wouldsimply make the electoral college more local, retaining the possibility for the will of the majority to be thwarted.
I don’t know why some right-wing folks so oppose the NPV idea, unless they see the MA label attached are are simply responding in kneejerk fashion. The first thing it would accomplish is to eliminate the lock the Dems have on the electoral votes of California and New York (86 EC votes right there – talk about a head start!)
The USA the Framers contemplated had neither high-speed transportation nor mass communication. Voters could evaluate candidates only on the basis of the printed word or in person, at campaign events. The idea that the EC would give incentive for the candidates to campaign in smaller states, and thus attend to the issues that mattered to them, was based on the technological sophistication of the time.
The main reason I can see for opposing this perfectly legitimate approach to Presidential voting is the possibility of thwarting the will of the majority.
LikeLike
MA is a wonderful place. I spent 2 yrs. At Ft. Devens & learned that “Yankees” are really nice people.
It’s wonderful to see MA starting to at least discuss true People’s Rights & let them be heard. I’m proud of you MA.
LikeLike
Just got this link tweeted to me:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/07/26/100726crbo_books_gottlieb
It’s a review of a book about electoral math and the different ways different societies have approached the issue of electing leaders. It’s a review, not the book itself, but it’s pretty comprehensive, and explores especially the winner-take-all approach so many societies cling to, especially showing how less popular candidates can manipulate such systems to enhance their chances. Here’s a paragraph:
“In a contest between two people for one job, first past the post (winner-take-all – GY) seems to be merely common sense. But, as soon as there are three or more candidates on the slate, it can quickly go awry. The least popular candidate could easily win, if the opposition to him or her splits its votes between two or more other candidates. Say sixty per cent of voters are right of center and forty per cent are to the left. In a three-way contest with two equally popular right-wing candidates and one left-winger, a first-past-the-post vote will elect the left-winger, whom only a minority want.”
LikeLike
So, say 90% of the people of MA want one candidate, but another wins the popular vote. That means that despite their overwhelming support, they would not support whomever they voted for. Seems pretty backasswards to me.
LikeLike
The Constitution says only that the States may select their electors in any manner they choose, and SCOTUS precedent says they can give them any voting instructions they care to.
What’s being presented here is an “outside the box” approach to circumventing not the Constitution, but a way of doing things that made all sorts of sense two centuries ago – in fact, as recently as 100 years ago – but whose relevance and utility has expired in the communication and transportation environment we now have.
Who among us doesn’t want the President to be the choice of the majority of Americans? Who is proud that we have a system that inadvertantly has, on multiple occasions, presented us with a President who did not earn the majority of votes cast, and on some occasions gave us a President who couldn’t even win a plurality of votes?
“Because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is not a good reason to keep on doing something, or to keep on doing it the same way.
LikeLike
See, the idea is that the choice of President should reflect the will of the people, not the inequities of the electoral college. Did you know, for instance, that the electoral college violates the principle of one person, one vote?
More to the point, why should a Californian’s vote for John McCain count for absolutely nothing in the 2008 election? Why should the value of any American’s Presidential choice be determined not by his own preferences, but those of his neighbors?
It’s time the people selected the President.
LikeLike
No, No, NO! A thousand times NO! The President of the United States is NOT a President of the People. He is a President of the UNION! And as such, he or she should NOT be elected by a simple national popular majority, but by the will of the states IN that union.
The President is NOT, and never should be, a direct representative of the People, but representative of the Union as a whole. You want a direct representative? Look to your Congress men and women. THAT’S WHY WE HAVE THEM!!! The Senate and the House, the Legislative branch, represent the direct will of the People, not the President.
LikeLike
Why? See my last post where I argued against this manner of thinking. Say 90% of Massachusetts supported one candidate. Say a majority of the country supported another. Since we are all voting for the President of the United States (not the President of Massachusetts), that second candidate wins. Massachusetts can still point out that it was against that choice (as they famously did with Nixon, for example), but every vote from Massachusetts was fairly counted. That 90% MA candidate simply wasn’t the candidate the majority of the county preferred this election, and we are election a national leader.
LikeLike
* I meant electING a national leader in that last sentence.
LikeLike
Alex,
The problem with this is that the US is a republic. In this, the electoral college was set up to represent states disproportionately to population, so as to allow for smaller, less populous states to have a stronger vote than their much larger counterparts, much like our legislative branch. Why? So that California can’t always dictate what Montana (or insert other small state here) does.
Many are confused to find out that the US is NOT a democracy, nor should it be… that’s for other countries who have chosen it. What this measure does, is change from a state-level how our national offices are decided. The state followed the letter of the law by “thinking outside the box”, but not at all the spirit. This is the same state that changed whether the governor could select a successor to a Senator in 2004, and nearly changed it back in 2008. The same state that chose to combat corruption of politicians by sending them to classes. The state legislature doesn’t seem to have a great clue of how not to screw something up… as evidenced by this latest move.
LikeLike
You seem to think that because we’re a republican nation, we have an obligation to stymie any opportunity for the people’s voice to be heard.
We’re not talking about people voting on every piece of legislation with an iPod app, we’re talking about selecting the President of the US. In the last selection process, my vote didn’t count, and perhaps others here had the same thing happen, because of the winner-takes-all mold that most states have imposed on their presidential electors.
As to the US being a democracy – we’re a democratic republic, and the democratic process is strong here, although technically speaking, no, we’re not a pure democracy, and I doubt any nation of 300+ million souls could ever be.
LikeLike
The issue is that today the Electoral College does not protect small states against large ones; it merely promotes swing states and buries the rest. In the 2008 election, both major presidential candidates spent 98% of their time and money in 15 states (and over 50% in just 4). Only 15 states out of 50 were “swing,” so only those 15 got attention. This means issues that play well in those states get excessive focus, voters in those states have hugely disproportionate influence over who will be our next President, and 35 states worth of people have no effect on who their next President will be. This would be solved by NPV because the swing states would lose their power and all votes, in every state, would count equally.
Do not take this to mean only population centers would garner candidates’ attention in Presidential elections either. People are more concentrated in cities, but advertising costs are much higher too, balancing that gain- look at how commercial goods are advertised. You don’t only see companies paying for television airtime in big cities. Instead of playing to regional concerns in Ohio and Florida, candidates would have to form broad national support for their platform. When every vote counts, victorious candidates would be those that found a middle ground, with policy appealing to the broad mainstream of American voters. Hawaii, New Jersey, and Maryland have already approved NPV- they recognize that the Electoral College has actually created a situation in which they, very small states, get perpetually ignored.
LikeLike
“You don’t only see companies paying for television airtime in big cities. ” — That’s because they don’t have a winner-take-all market, people in Maine won’t shop somewhere because 50.1% of the population did somewhere else. There’s a HUGE difference.
And yes, candidates could focus on the top 15 media markets as the cost per person would be no greater, but allow for greater exposure.
Your 98% statistic is made-up, especially when you use the term “both”. The swing-state template was Obama’s.
LikeLike
Maybe -just maybe- we should demand all these libs making sweeping changes wherever they can pull it off start explaining why we need changes like this in a big hurry.
I don’t see any reason for messing with the Constitution at random while there’s surely far more pressing concerns.
LikeLike
Maybe – just maybe – most of the posters here have done a good job of that.
But just like Arizona doesn’t owe the rest of us an explanation for the legislation she enacts, so Massachusetts doesn’t owe the rest of us an explanation. Nor do Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington.
And if a combination of states whose electoral college votes surpass 270 all enact this legislation, the American President will be elected by popular vote, and it’ll all be legal.
LikeLike
“Messing with the Constitution?”
LOL.
How does this mess with the Constitution?
The Constitution is silent on the subject of how electors vote – it only says that they’re selected by the States however the states want to. The courts have already determined that the States are free to direct electors how to vote (for example, check Nebraska and Maine – they don’t operate like the other states).
LikeLike
Great debate everyone! I am sorry that I don’t have the time to respond to all of these comments one at a time. For the most part I agree with Georgia Yankee, this is not a violation of the constitution becuase the constitution does not mention how states are supposed to nominate their electors or how they are to decide which was to vote. I also think that an electorial that offers proportional delagates is more in line with the intent of the founders.
My consern here is that if this is a conserted effort by several states to change the entire system for the EC to a popular vote system. If this is the goal it should be done the proper way, with a constitutional amendment. That would be the only way to let the people decide how the president whould be elected.
LikeLike
There are apparently organized trolls that seek out any discussion of this, and attempt to co-0pt the thread. The frighteningly high smug level, as well as some time with Google, tells me that they are libs. This is the second blog that I’ve seen this happen.
Read the legislation and judge for yourselves. Don’t feed the trolls.
LikeLike
Why do you object to liberals engaging with conservatives? Many of us discuss the issues of the day and find interesting areas of agreement and common understanding.
Thinking that anyone will be “converted” to some state of conservative ideological purity from their liberal views is a fool’s errand, but that’s not the point – the point is to get together and discuss the great issues of the day and try to find ways we can work together to solve our nation’s problems.
Sure, it’s more difficult and time consuming than screaming and yelling, but it’s also more productive.
LikeLike
I’ve already done a post that shows that you guys are organized trolls. “toto” has posted the exact same content on dozens of sites. You aren’t here for debate, you’re here to spam talking points.
LikeLike
J – good point.
However, if the states themselves direct their electors to vote for the winner of the national popular vote, isn’t that an expression of their will?
And for those concerned about the cons-v-libs contest, isn’t it the case that liberal Massachusetts, if it enacts this legislation, is saying that it will sacrifice the strength of its electoral votes to the will of the people, even if the popular vote is for a conservative?
LikeLike
Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, Washington, and Massachusetts are all solidly Democrat states. Coincidence? I think not. Most Democrats believe the US is — and if not, should be changed to — a Democracy. The problem is, we are not. Frankly, I’ll take a slightly imperfect yet wildly successful system that has led our country to the peak of power and success over another system that may or may not feasible here.
LikeLike
Matt, when you accuse me of being a troll coming here for this topic alone, and/or showing up just to stir the pot, you should at least read through some of the rest of the blog. You’d see that what I stated is the absolute truth – I’ve commented on a number of issues, often disagreeing with Steve but also agreeing on a number of issues. There are also a few other issues where we partially agree.
If I’m a “troll,” as you insist, perhaps you could point out a single other site where I’ve said the things I’ve said here, “spammed talking points.” Just to help out, the only other political site I visit is hannity.com, and while I know I’ve discussed this plan there, the most recent such comment was probably during the runup to presidential election.
And if you can’t, perhaps you’d be man enough to acknowledge your error and apologize.
Steve, sorry for the dustup on your site, but the dude’s essentially accusing me of being a liar.
LikeLike
I’ll give you this, Mr. Marshall, you are persistent. Just as you guys are on all the other sites. Nicely played, you but you did not hide your identity quite well enough.
LikeLike
Forgot to mention, Hannity’s site is one of the others that got spammed. How ironic.
LikeLike
ot trying to hide anything – just engage seriously with people. As I’ve done here all along – I haven’t lied or misrepresented myself, or falsely accused anyone else.
Sorry you can’t say the same, and clearly you aren’t man enough to own up to your mistake.
LikeLike
Well, I haven’t been to hannity’s site in a day or two, and haven’t discussed this issue for a while, as I’ve said.
So what’s your point about them being spammed? They have decent mods there, they’ll catch trolls and retreads.
Or are you suggesting that I was somehow involved in what you claim happened?
You’ve made innuendos but proven nothing because there’s nothing to prove – you’re simply wrong. And not man enough to admit it.
LikeLike
I do not believe myself to be in error. I have studied trolling behavior extensively, as well as it’s use by the left.
LikeLike
I suggest that the readers here will come to their own conclusions. Just as I suggested that they read the legislation and come to their own decision.
LikeLike
I do have to come to Georgia Yankee’s defense here. While you have rightly pointed out here and on Conservative Hideout that the trolls are out in full force on this issue I do not believe that he is one of them.
Georgia Yankee has been a regular reader here for quite some time now, I believe that he is honestly debating this issue. I have enjoyed debating him on many issues in the past and he is correct that we do agree on some issues.
LikeLike
Well, based on your words, then I do owe him an apology, which is hereby tendered.
Toto must be the sole troll here, he/she has posted, many times under that name, at the other sites I investigate. I included Georgia Yankee though his agreement on the issue. It is a common tactic to show up in numbers. Especially since he was active on another forum that was spammed.
So, Georgia Yankee, I do apologize for mis-characterizing you.
LikeLike