N.Y. Lawmakers Aim To Curb Electoral College

[fjc]

BY JACOB GERSHMAN - Staff Reporter of the Sun

July 31, 2006

A national effort to institute the direct popular election of the
American president is gaining momentum in the New York Legislature. A
small but growing number of state lawmakers who want to make New York
a more potent force in presidential campaigns are pushing legislation
that would enter the state into an interstate compact rendering the
Electoral College obsolete.

With little fanfare, five Republican assemblymen in May proposed a
bill that would direct New York's electoral votes in presidential
elections to the candidate who wins the plurality of the national
vote. The compact would take effect only if the number of states
entered into identical agreements represented a majority of the
electoral votes. Once the threshold of 270 was met, which could be
done with pledges from as few as 11 of the most populous states (or as
many as 39 sparsely populated states), the candidate who won the most
votes in the nation would be elected president.

http://www.nysun.com/article/37025

[Bill McBlueState]

1. good

Anything to get us closer to an actual popular election for President is worth doing.

[krkaufman]

6. Actually, it's VERY bad.

This is bad juju.

Unless and until we get control over election methods and systems, this would be a VERY BAD thing, indeed.

Basically, Republicans could steal the votes of California and New York voters (e.g.) without ever having to actually commit election fraud within those two states. They'd just need to steal enough popular votes via the states that they already corrupted in order to win the election. (Hasn't it been theorized that Bush's popular vote total in the last election didn't reflect the exit polls?)


Election reform is needed, yes. But we could begin to approximate the popular vote simply by splitting the Senatorial bonus electors for each state between the top two vote recipients (within the state or nationally) and then apportion the remaining electors for the state according to the percentage of the vote won.

However, even this plan is not without concerns... one party or the other could lose significant power if a greater number of "Red" or "Blue" states converted from the "Winner Takes All" approach to proportional apportionment. Oh, and the smaller states, who benefit heavily from the current system, are likely to be none-too-eager to change.

[4bucksagallon]

2. Yes, we have got to get rid of this electoral BS.

Of course it won't happen but it sure sounds good.

[PATRICK]

3. Sidestepping actual reform

By Republicans no less. It would certainly spare Pataki or Guiliani the embarrassment of losing their own state.

Seriously, it would be great, if merely for reasons of their own advantage, one or both parties came around to ditching the college, but this smacks to me of the worst of all worlds swirling around while democracy is getting flushed. Bush in 2000 presumed a "plurality" but the money and suppression and fraud and biased media wasn't enough. In 2002 and 2004, thanks to weak response to MORE of the above it was enough for that magic "plurality".

You would STILL have a patchwork electoral college with a QUICKER call for a "winner" based on an amorphous national plurality trend which would bury a lot more than the pride of few small states with committed electors.

You now have electors instructed by the voter to choose a candidate in one state and electors instructed by the state to look only at the national plurality. You now have an apples and oranges complexity in the electoral system that can be gamed differently.

When the Dems in the Nixon years nobly objected to the destruction of the college it was because they narrowly almost won the other way and they had surrendered somewhat to notion of maintaining a northeast-labor core to power big chunks of electoral votes. Probably the GOP was also short sighted in trying to ditch it for that same electoral base reality. Twice the GOP profited form the electoral trumping the plurality and twice fraud was involved. Will the non pact states wait to sue AFTER the others toss their electors to the winner?

Maybe this is better than it feels. Maybe there are no legal problems, no political gaming worse than what we have already. It sounds like one of those cure all alternatives to the real thing and much too simple. What we have in effect are states like NY without e-voting joining with the crowd and making the state contest irrelevant. In the present twisted scenario it silences and dissolves the red/blue thing and scrutiny of state by state methodologies of piling up numbers in the first place. In a fair future it does sound simple and neat. Not so today with a public so misinformed and with so much money arrayed against their own interests. It would also reward the shallow general campaign of the shiniest common denominator and remove the president from all concerns to any interest- too much to the extreme of being beholden to a special region. And with so much invested now in vote suppression, voter ID and tally pumping it might appear more than attractive to the "new GOP".

[slackmaster]

4. I totally disagree with this kind of "reform"

Basing the assignment of electoral votes on events outside of the state would effectively disenfranchise voters in the state.

If a Presidential election was predicted to go heavily in favor of one major party candidate (and for purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter which party), voters in a state that based its assignment of electoral votes on the proposed system, would have little incentive to bother going to the polls. That would have obvious negative effects on other issues that appeared on the same ballot.

This is a bad, bad idea. It's been floated here in California as well.

[hedgehog]

5. This would ensure 1 person , 1 vote provided there is an honest count

I'd hate to see my vote in New York go the other way because of cheating in Florida! If an honest count is ensured, I go with the popular vote even if it goes against me. I'm wondering what this would do for turn-out in Western States? Does anyone remember when Jimmy Carter conceded before people in California got off from work?

[krkaufman]

7. Oh, and another thing ... how would you handle a recount ...

... for a nationwide popular vote? With the current system, recounts are limited to statewide; with a national popular vote, a recount would require going through ALL the votes cast nationwide.

There ARE some benefits to the current system. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.