CA's National Popular Vote Proposal a fraud

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

The National Popular Vote Proposal isn't what it seems.
It diminishes the votes of California citizens, instead of
giving them the one man one vote that it pretends to deliver.


Forwarded with permission of Dr. Rebecca Mercuri:

The California State Legislature recently voted in favor of AB 2948, the
National Popular Vote Proposal, and the bill is on Governor
Schwarzenegger's desk awaiting signing. It is URGENT that the Governor
receive communications, especially from California citizens, requesting
that he VETO this bill, as it stands to remove the state as a
decision-maker in all Presidential elections. Comments can be sent to
the Governor via his website at http://www.govmail.ca.gov.

A copy of the letter that I sent on September 9 is below:

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

I have learned that the National Popular Vote Proposal, AB 2948 is on
your desk, and want to urge you to veto it.

This bill takes away the right of Californians to have a say in the US
Presidential elections. By forcing California to award all of its
electoral votes to the US popular vote winner, the electors may find
themselves being required to support a candidate that was not supported
by your state's citizens.

Already, the westernmost states have less of a say in the Presidential
elections due to early disclosures of vote totals and polling data from
the states in earlier time zones. This bill further reduces the impact
or even necessity of Californians in the decision process.

Even more dangerously, states that have inadequate or inferior election
equipment or auditing processes may adversely influence the vote totals,
such that an incorrect national popular vote could be used to determine
California's electors.

I hope that you will choose to maintain the right of California's
citizens to choose the electors for your state by vetoing AB 2948.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.

This article also appears at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rebecca__060909_urge_governor_schwar.htm

Please forward this message to interested parties.

[Peace Patriot]

1. God, the Electoral College is such a nightmare, and I tend to agree with

Dr. Mercuri that fiddling with one piece of it, like this, could have the effect of disenfranchising Californians--more than we are already disenfranchised by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia "trade secret," proprietary vote tabulation, and early east coast election reporting--and may have unintended or outrageous consequences, such as California's Electoral Votes going to a candidate that the majority of California voters didn't vote for!

I mean, what are these stupid, corrupt California Democratic legislative leaders THINKING? And why aren't they banning SECRET vote tabulation by Bushite electronic voting corporations?!!!!

They have a 2 to 1 majority in the legislature, and THIS is all they can think to do?!!!!!!!!!!

They make me want to swear like a sailor. But I will refrain. My disgust with the Calif Dem Party leadership increases every day. They seem to have done everything they can to help the Bushites turn this into a "red" state. Now they want to "award" OUR votes to Condoleeza Rice or Jeb Bush in '08, after Diebold & brethren fiddle the vote everywhere else. These so-called Democrats helped Schwarzenegger and Bush Junta "special ops" swift-boat our good Sec of State Kevin Shelley out off office, after he sued Diebold, and then helped Schwarzenegger APPOINT Diebold shill Bruce McPherson to that office. They keep calling me for money. No way! No way, you jerks!

[rumpel]

2. We even have one that is proud

of consistently not casting a vote - I forgot his name. He was interviewed once and he said, something to the effect of, when he does not vote the other legislators come to him and he can negotiate better... total power trip.

I think these days, the people can not monitor much what their reps are in fact doing - all media information is on national legislature. Media consolidation is perfecting this - even if you have the occasional daily local news broadcast, rarely do you hear or read about any state legislations of your own state- unless it is around election time - or after the fact of a bill passing or failing. I only know mine and a handful of others - I would totally fail, if there was a test of who is representing what area in the state...

and this should not be acceptable

[eomer]

3. This bill would not disenfranchise California voters.

From the bill:

-snip-

This bill would ratify a specified interstate compact that requires the
chief election official of each signatory state to appoint the slate of
presidential electors that was nominated in association with the
presidential ticket that received the largest national popular vote total.
This compact would only become effective if states cumulatively
possessing a majority of the total electoral votes have ratified the
compact.

-snip-

Article 3. Manner of Appointing Presidential Electors in
Member States

Prior to the time
set by law for the meeting and voting by the presidential
electors, the chief election official of each member state shall
determine the number of votes for each presidential slate in each
state of the United States and in the District of Columbia in
which votes have been cast in a statewide popular election and
shall add the such votes together to produce a “national popular
vote total” for each presidential slate.

The chief election official of each member state shall designate
the presidential slate with the largest national popular vote total
as the “national popular vote winner.”

The presidential elector certifying official of each member
state shall certify the appointment in that official’s own state of
the elector slate nominated in that state in association with the
national popular vote winner.

-snip-

http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/ab_2948_bill_20060810_amended_sen.pdf#search=%22california%20%22AB%202948%22%22

There are two scenarios:

1. Not enough states join the compact to form a majority of the electoral college votes
   
2. Enough states join the compact to form a majority of the electoral college votes

Under scenario #1 the bill does nothing at all. The electoral college system, and California's part in it, are unchanged.

Under scenario #2 the presidential winner is effectively the winner of the popular vote and the electoral college vote is merely a formality. Here's how that would come about. The popular votes of the fifty states plus DC are added up and the winner is determined. Each state in the compact casts their electoral college votes for the national popular vote winner. The electoral votes cast in this manner by the member states of the compact form a majority of the electoral college votes and therefore the winner of the popular vote automatically becomes the winner of the electoral college vote. The electoral college votes of all the states that are not members of the compact become moot -- but the votes of the citizens of those states are not moot because they go into the national popular vote that determines the winner.

I'm not saying that I support this bill or this approach. Rather I'm thinking through what it means and how it works. I don't see how it disenfranchises California voters. It either does nothing or it makes the winner of the popular vote the winner of the electoral college vote and therefore the winner of the presidency.

If this system had been in place in 2000 then Gore would still have been the winner.

If it had been in place in 2004 then the result would have been flipped -- Bush would get the win (but a dirty, questionable win given the significant amount of vote suppression, vote counting "error" and dirty tricks).

My early reaction is that I would oppose this approach because it represents an end-run around the Constitution. If we want to change the system from electoral college to popular vote, which amounts to departing from the intent of the founders, then we should do it by amending the Constitution, not by a tricky way of thwarting that intent.

[slackmaster]

4. Sorry eomer, I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of, disagree with you

If it had been in place in 2004 then the result would have been flipped -- Bush would get the win (but a dirty, questionable win given the significant amount of vote suppression, vote counting "error" and dirty tricks).

If it had been in place in 2004, Bush would have had a very strong win in the EC thanks to the influx of 55 votes from California which he didn't get in the 2004 that actually happened. Arguments over Ohio and Florida would have been moot.

[eomer]

5. That's not what the bill says.

If it had been in place in 2004, Bush would have had a very strong win in the EC thanks to the influx of 55 votes from California which he didn't get in the 2004 that actually happened. Arguments over Ohio and Florida would have been moot.

No, that is not a possible scenario. It is not possible under the bill for just California's EC votes to be changed while those of all the other states are unchanged. At least not the way the bill reads to me.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. Only 11 states have to pass law for it to affect California

Picture this Rovian nightmare:
11 Big Blue states pass this law and not any Red States.

What if only 11 Big Blue states go for this, and no
red states?

The California legislation would not take effect until enough states
passed such laws to make up a majority of the Electoral College votes —
a minimum of 11 states, depending on population

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-legis31aug31,1,888714.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Chilling Scenario Posted by "Senior Citizen" in the comments on my diary at Kos:\

Had this been in effect in 2004 (1+ / 0-)
Recommended by: NC Voter
All of California's electoral votes would have gone to Bush even though California is a blue state and voted for Kerry.

Let me say that again, in case anybody missed it:

Had this been in effect in 2004, all of California's electoral votes would have gone to Bush even though California is a blue state and voted for Kerry.

Okay, I'm sure some people still don't get it:

Had this been in effect in 2004, all of California's electoral votes would have gone to Bush even though California is a blue state and voted for Kerry.

Now you really want Californians to support Democratic candidates, donate to Democratic campaigns, and get out the vote for Democrats, knowing that even if not a single person in California votes Republican, if enough people in other states do, all of California's electoral votes will be given to the Republican?

I know I live in a very strange world, but this is ridiculous. We're supposed to support Democrats, but the Democratic Party doesn't care if our votes all go to Republicans anyway?

The nightmare is getting worse every day.

[eomer]

7. If 11 blue states did this and, hypothetically, those 11 states amounted

to a majority of the EC votes (which is what I take you to mean), then the presidential election would be decided by those 11 blue states and there is nothing the other 39 states could say or do about it. (The joint session of the US Congress that counts the EC votes could theoretically overturn it, but that's a different issue).

The 11 blue states would, under the bill, determine the national popular vote winner (based on the vote totals of all 50 states) and make that winner the EC winner (and therefore President) by casting their EC votes accordingly.

So the winner of the national popular vote would be the winner of the election.

[slackmaster]

14. If other states' EC votes changed, Bush victory would have been HUGE

Do the math.

[eomer]

18. I agree we should do the math.

So let's do it for 2004.

First we need to determine whether the agreement has taken effect under Article 4:

This agreement shall take effect when states cumulatively
possessing a majority of the electoral votes have enacted this
agreement in substantially the same form and the enactments by
such states have taken effect in each state.

If the states that have joined so far don't "possess a majority of the electoral votes" then the agreement does not yet take effect. The election will be handled just like it is now. We can dispense with this case since it makes no change in how the election is decided.

If, on the other hand, the states that have joined so far do "possess a majority of the electoral votes" then the agreement takes effect and we need to continue doing the math. So let's assume they did and keep going.

Next we need to see how Article 3 will come out in 2004. Here is the first step from the first paragraph of Article 3:

Prior to the time
set by law for the meeting and voting by the presidential
electors, the chief election official of each member state shall
determine the number of votes for each presidential slate in each
state of the United States and in the District of Columbia in
which votes have been cast in a statewide popular election and
shall add the such votes together to produce a “national popular
vote total” for each presidential slate.

Here are the 2004 "national popular vote totals":
Bush: 62,039,073
Kerry: 59,027,478

Now we go to the second paragraph of Article 3:

The chief election official of each member state shall designate
the presidential slate with the largest national popular vote total
as the “national popular vote winner.”

Looking at the totals from the preceding step, Bush will be designated as the "national popular vote winner".

Next we use the third paragraph of Article 3:

The presidential elector certifying official of each member
state shall certify the appointment in that official’s own state of
the elector slate nominated in that state in association with the
national popular vote winner.

Under this paragraph, each member state will certify all of their electors for Bush.

Finally we determine who wins the electoral college vote. There isn't a provision in the bill for this step because now we're leaving state law and processing a step that is specified in the U.S. Constitution.

When we count the electoral votes in the joint session of Congress in January we are going to find that Bush is the electoral college winner. We don't need to know the specific number of electoral college votes because we know that the states that have entered into this new agreement all certified their EC votes for Bush and we know from the first step above that these states "cumulatively possess a majority of the electoral votes".

So the bill did just what it was intended to do, nothing more, nothing less. It determined who was the winner of the "national popular vote" and then it turned that winner into the winner of the electoral college vote.

That is what it will always do. If you can set up a hypothetical circumstance under which it does something other than that then you will have a point. I'm certain you won't be able to find one but, if you do, let me know.

But maybe the point you're trying to make is a different one so let me get to that.

It would certainly be true that if mostly blue states had joined this agreement then Bush's electoral college win would be by a greater margin than it was under current law. You would have needed at least one red state to join in order for the agreement to take effect in 2004 since the blue states didn't "possess a majority of the electoral votes" by themselves (if they had then Kerry would be President). So let's say that all blue states had joined plus one red state by 2004. In that case Bush would have received all of the electoral college votes under this system. But the proponents of this bill apparently don't care because their intent was to turn the electoral college into a mere formality anyway -- and that's what they would have done. Bush in this latest case gets all the electoral college votes and is the electoral college winner but the reason he is the winner is because he won the national popular vote.

So should we care that this bill can give more electoral college votes, perhaps even all of them, to the popular vote winner? If the election is not contested then I don't see why we would care. The popular vote winner becomes President and the EC vote count has been relegated to a mere formality anyway.

But in a contested election then we do care. Because the number by which the EC votes are greater than a majority tells you in how many states you need to contest. In 2004 under the old system the answer was one -- Ohio. In 2004 under the new system the answer might have been a dozen or more states that you have to contest, which then becomes overwhelmingly difficult.

So if what this does to a contest of an election is what you are objecting to then I am with you 100%.

When an election is not contested, on the other hand, I have no problem with how the math works. I'm still against it for other reasons but I don't think, in an uncontested election, that it would do anything really awful.

[eomer]

8. Here's why I would oppose this bill.

A contested election is where you can come up with some nightmare scenarios.

One problem is that an election that would otherwise have been a close EC vote could become not close at all in the EC count. Now instead of having to contest in just one or a couple of states, you may have to contest in quite a few. In the extreme case -- if almost all states joined this compact -- then you would be looking at one of the candidates getting all or almost all of the EC votes. To contest such an election you would need to go to state court in maybe 10 or 15 states and try to overturn the result in all of them. That's obviously not practical, if even possible at all given the time constraints.

Another problem is the nature of such a contest under state law. The EC votes of the state would be awarded based on that state's determination of the total vote in 50 states. So in state court you are going to have to bring in facts from 50 states. And you have to have that same fight about the facts in 50 states separately in state court in each of the 10 or 15 states that you contest. It would be possible for a contest to be decided one way by the courts of some of the compact member states and the opposite way in other member states even though the underlying 50-state facts were the same.

A third concern (and IANAL so this is just a layman's guess) is that there is no body of precedent and it seems likely that an election contest could easily descend into total chaos.

I believe this is a very ill conceived proposal. I think that any system of electing the President by national popular vote will suffer from some of these problems no matter how carefully crafted and therefore I'm against a popular vote system no matter how it's formulated. But this particular proposal is not carefully crafted to say the least and I agree with other posters, albeit for different reasons, that it is a potential nightmare.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. Im for popular vote, just not this law

This law could create a scenario where 11 Blue states sign on,
and the GOP plays a good chess game and doesn't.

This works if all states do it, not 11.

It makes the Blue states too vulnerable.

CA has been a winner for us all these years, why risk that?

[eomer]

10. That depends on whether the 11 states amount to a majority of EC votes.

If the 11 blue states do amount to a majority of EC votes then the blue states are not vulnerable. Quite the opposite -- they are in charge and the other 39 states are moved somewhat to the margin.

If the 11 states don't amount to a majority of EC votes then this law has no effect whatsoever. California's EC votes (and every other state's EC votes) will continue to be cast exactly as they are now without this new law.

Could you be more specific about the scenario where blue state EC votes are at risk? Are we talking about 11 blue states joining the compact, no red states joining the compact, and the 11 blue states amount to a majority of the EC votes?

[Bill Bored]

11. LIke so many other things in life, it's not so simple.

The way it looks to me is that it only takes effect if a majority of the electoral college supports it. This could be as few as 11 states, but could be a lot more states, depending on the electoral votes they control. So the 11-state argument is a straw man. If it does come down to 11 states, they will in fact be the ones with the majority of the voters anyway -- not just some swing states that can't even make up their minds who to vote for.

Once the majority of the EC is dependent on the popular vote, then the winner of the popular vote will win the election regardless of how the other states vote. The whole idea of winning any particular state will be irrelevant. Just like winning a particular county or precinct is now in a statewide election.

I think this is better than a few swing states controlling the election now, who may NOT have either an electoral college OR a popular vote majority. The only reason THEY have as much clout as they do is because they just can't seem to make up their minds if they're Republicans or Democrats. Not exactly the kind of folks who you want deciding an election really, is it? Their power is derived from them sitting on the fence and waffling or perhaps even because they are just plain uninformed!

In terms of the fraud scenarios, they will have to steal a lot more votes to win the popular vote than to win a few corrupt states like FL and OH. So the effect of that corruption will be diluted because they may actually have to steal NY and CA now too! And personally, I'd love to see some actual campaigning in states besides FL and OH and the other "battlegrounds" who just can't seem to make up their minds who to vote for, even given 4 years of the WORST President in history! Why not come to NY or CA or even Texas to get out the votes for our side instead of just assuming these states are all locked up. You can find voters anywhere and they should be found. That's what democracy is all about isn't it?

Texas is supposed be a Blue state if not for the gerrymandering. But no one tries to GOTV in Texas for President because the electoral college says it's not worth the trouble! (Of course this doesn't explain why they have 2 Repuke Senators, but that's another issue I guess.)

I think I'm for the national popular vote, barring some of the nightmare scenarios which I still have to study, but haven't had time to as yet.

[eomer]

13. How would you contest an election under this system?

If, let's say, 20 states joined the compact and 30 didn't then what happens when you start contesting such an election?

The contest would be processed separately within each state because the bill doesn't change the law in that regard. You have 20 states that each individually did the math of adding up the national popular vote (hopefully all came up with the same totals and the same winner). They all certify EC electors for that winner. In the other 30 states the certified EC electors are split between the two candidates.

Now you have to go to court in some of the 20 compact states and get them to change who they certify as the national winner. It is unlikely you could get that done in all 20 compact states so you're going to pick some of them -- enough states to change the EC result.

You may also choose to contest some of the 30 non-compact states because the bar you have to get over is to change enough EC votes to win the EC count, just like it is now.

If such a contest is even possible at all, which seems doubtful due to the expense and logistics of it, at best you have a really screwed up mess. Because now you may end up determining the POTUS through a mixed system where some of the EC electors were chosen based on the traditional system that is winner-take-all at the state level and the rest of the EC electors were chosen based on the new system that was supposed to be winner-take-all at the national level. Some of the national popular vote compact states will have cast their EC votes for the originally certified winner and others, the ones where you successfully contested, will have cast their EC votes for the originally certified loser.

I'm sure the presumptive winner will play the "not enough votes in question to change the result" card and now you've got to somehow show that millions of votes at the national popular vote level are in doubt and get a bunch of state courts to agree.

You've also got to bring evidence from across the 50 states into each one of the state court contests that you are pursuing. I've got no idea how this part would work but it doesn't sound pretty.

One further thought on how this would work (or not work, I guess): the more states that passed this bill and joined the compact the worse it would get. In the extreme case if all 50 joined then you would have to go to court separately in enough states to make up a majority of EC votes. So you are simultaneously pursuing a state contest in, say, 11 to 20 states. And even if you could be successful then you have the strange result that some of the states cast their EC votes based on one determination of the national popular vote winner and the other states casting their EC votes on the opposite determination of that same factual question.

I think anyone who supports this bill should go ahead and say they are opposed to having an ability to contest the election of the President. Because, like Dr. Phil says, "Not. Going. to Happen."

Either that or say that they favor a second step of federalizing the whole thing so that it can be contested in federal court -- one contest that decides the whole thing. But that probably requires amending the Constitution, doesn't it? Well, maybe the SCOTUS would be willing to just ignore the Constitution and come in and declare a winner like they did in 2000, there's always that hope <sarcasm>.

I'd be happy if someone can show me a way for election contests to occur under this system that is not insanely messed up. Until then I will be strongly opposed.

[Bill Bored]

12. One other point:

I'm not totally opposed to smaller states having a bit more of a say in the election than their populations might be entitled to under the popular vote system. This is one thing the EC was designed for. No state, no matter how small, has less than 3 Electoral Votes. What bothers me is the disproportionate amount of power and attention given to the swing states simply because they are as a whole uncommitted, apathetic and ambivalent!

It's as if the more voters sit on their hands in these states, the more attention they get in the race for President. That doesn't seem fair to those other states who actually have convictions, whether you agree with them or not.

If it were not for the swing states, the Electoral College wouldn't be so bad. Perhaps this is a temporary phenomena? What other ways are there to get the swing states to make up their minds and take a side? If a President as polarizing as Bush didn't do it, I can't imagine what else will.

[Febble]

15. not just attention, but

dare I say it - fraud. Your EC is a huge incentive to fraud.

Now, I don't happen to think that the popular vote was stolen, so at least some people will disagree with me here. If people think that the popular vote was stolen in 2004, then something like this bill would simply offer an endorsement to massive theft.

But the fact remains that Gore would have been the incumbent in 2004 if this law had been in place in 2000. In fact, he might have won Florida - because there would have been less incentive for voter suppression.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

16. scenario if 11 large blue states sign on

Sharing two paragraphs of email from Dr. Rebecca Mercuri - with permission -

(Emphasis mine)

* Say the FairVote folks are able to convince 11 large blue states that
constitute the majority of electoral votes in the USA to sign on to this
plan. Then the plan would go into effect. Say those blue states then
happen to all vote blue in the Presidential election, but only by slim
majorities -- say 50.5% to 49.5%. But say the red states all voted
HEAVILY red, and there were enough red votes around the country to have
a popular vote majority for the red candidate. The way we now do things,
the president would be blue, because the states with the majority of
electors voted blue, even though the popular vote throughout the entire
USA was red. Under the FairVote plan, the 11 blue states who voted blue
would be REQUIRED to cast their electors for red, giving the presidency
to someone who their citizens did NOT select.

* Now let's go one step further and throw unauditable voting machines
into the mix. Let's say that the 11 blue states all have auditable
voting machines and run proper recounts and have good accountable
procedures and transparency in their elections. But the red states all
have black box voting machines that can be corrupted through Hursti
hacks and other attacks. Now these red states manage to come up with
ridiculously high red vote totals, high enough to sway the entire US
popular vote in their favor. Remember, there's no way to do any sort of
recount in those states. But the blue states with the legitimate
elections are still going to be required to cast their electoral votes
for the red candidate, because their laws decreed they have to go along
with the US popular vote, even if there's no way to check it. Basically,
under the FairVote plan, Florida and Ohio could decide how California
casts it's electors.

[Febble]

17. Oh, I see the point

it's just that I'd so like to see the President of the United States elected by popular vote. There seems no point in any other system for that particular race, and it would make fraud a heck of a lot harder.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

20. I am for the Popular vote, by all means

I just want to avoid pitfalls that Dems often fall for.

They must not play much chess in Dem-land, because
Rove keeps kicking our a&#es

I would like to see that we don't jeopardize the clout that Dems have
and trade it off.

GOP is better at manipulating us for our weaknesses and
lack of strategic thinking.

Perhaps there is a better way to do this popular vote thing.
I think it is worth striving for.

[eomer]

21. On fraud, harder or not.

Under the EC, fraud in partisan states is rendered irrelevant. Those states were going to be a certain color anyway and the EC doesn't care how red a red state is. Partisan states are automatically calibrated by the EC so that their influence on the election is proportional to their population, cheating or no cheating.

And that goes for fraud both by the dominant party of the state (red on red and blue on blue) as well as the other way around (red on blue and blue on red). There's not much incentive to cheat on a lost cause or on one that is a slam dunk.

But a heavily partisan state that gave no incentive at all to cheat under the EC suddenly wakes its cheater instincts under the popular vote. (Is there a smiley for that sound of sudden interest that Tim Allen makes? The one that sounds sort of like Scooby-doo.)

There are obviously a lot of red counties in heavily red states but there are also a lot of red counties in heavily blue states (because the blue voters are concentrated). The popular vote would open up cheating to all those disenfranchised cheaters whose cheating doesn't count for anything under the EC.

Here's a page with some good blue/red maps at state and county levels:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

[Febble]

22. Well, that's one way of looking at it

My take was that you'd need more cheaters. Your take is that you'd get more cheaters.

Well, I still think the EC should go with the popular vote. For one thing, it would make sure that candidates treated all voters equally.

And of course, the cheating needs to be stopped.

[eomer]

23. That sounds right.

Another angle is that, as you say, it would be harder to cheat but, I think, it would also be harder to reverse a stolen election. The "enough votes to change the result" bar would be way too high.

OTOH, maybe it would be easier to catch some of the cheating since there would need to be more of it but I think you would only catch them after it's too late to change the result like they're still trying to do in Ohio.

Many ways to look at it. I do agree that stopping the cheating is the bottom line and, if we could ever accomplish that, then a popular vote system would be good by me. My reasons for opposing it are practical ones and if those could be worked out then I could think about it just on principle and would probably like the popular vote better than the EC.

[Febble]

24. Well, it's true

that with the EC as it is, you've got a good a priori hypothesis for where to expect fraud. So I take your point. At least people knew it was worth looking in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico in 2004.

But it still grieves me to think that if you hadn't had the EC in 2000, we probably wouldn't even be talking about this, yesterday would probably have been just another day, and we might be making a start on climate change.

Oh well.

[eomer]

19. Now we are getting somewhere.

Once we start talking about dirty elections then I am on board with the position that this system could produce some awful scenarios. And I agree with Mercuri's analysis.

In the case of a clean (or at least relatively clean) election then it's more debatable. It's true you can construct a case like this where a blue EC win becomes a red popular vote win. But it can also happen the other way around. In a clean election where the EC goes one way and the popular vote goes the other way then each of us may have our own ideas and preferences for which is a better or more fair system. I'm somewhat ambivalent myself. I lean toward the EC system but wouldn't be aghast at having a popular vote system. In a clean election.

It is in the case of dirty elections where we get into some real problems. Maybe that is what you were getting at all along and I'm glad we've moved the discussion further along now.

[Einsteinia]

25. GREAT SYNOPSIS--SEE:

Electoral College Reform in CA Synopsis
http://www.califelectprotect.net/AB2948.pdf