Love to know what people think of this story, not sure what to make of it myself.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breakin...News_links

I heard about it.

Ever since Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the election this has been a sticking point with a lot of Democrats. They are the ones really pushing to abolish the system.

It does bring up an interesting Constitutional argument.... States do have the authority to handle the election process within the state. However, the idea of their electoral votes only going to the winner of the popular vote might be held Unconstitutional. If the Massachusetts voted for a Democrat and a Republican won the national vote, one could argue that their vote doesn't count. How would Massachusetts react if a Republican won the national vote, but lost the Electoral College. Because of this outcome, Massachusetts electoral votes swung the election for the Republican. Wouldn't that be ironic?

I have seen arguments from some from the left arguing that some of the wording of the 14th Amendment should cancel out the Electoral College. I think that would be tough sell for two reasons: One, if that was the intention of the writers of the 14 Amendment, why didn't just flat out say that? Two, there already been a number of elections since the passing of the Amendment and it has in over 100 years never been challenged in Court.

I feel this is an Democratic attempt to side step the Amendment Process. If they really hate it so much, just do a Constitutional Amendment and be done with it.

I guess your point of view on this topic would come from what philosophy you have about the role of our government. The Founding Fathers envisioned a Federal Government that got it's authority from the States as they being the sovereign entities. The concept of the Electoral College was the States electing the President. However, this concept has eroded from the Civil War, passing of the 17th Amendment and post FDR.

I can understand a person's point of view if they champion the idea of ending the Electoral College. I just believe a Constitutional Amendment is a better approach compared to what Massachusetts is trying.

The way I understand the Massachusetts proposal and your comments, Lambo, it would work kind of like the British "first-past-the-post" system, so that all votes in a state not cast on the candidate who wins that state would effectively be lost - which would be even worse than the current model.

The proper way to go would of course be to just count the popular vote nationwide and be done with it, but that would probably be seen as "the evil federal government taking power away from the states" and is not going to happen anytime soon...

(07-29-2010 12:51 AM)Michael Riber Wrote:  The way I understand the Massachusetts proposal and your comments, Lambo, it would work kind of like the British "first-past-the-post" system, so that all votes in a state not cast on the candidate who wins that state would effectively be lost - which would be even worse than the current model.

The proper way to go would of course be to just count the popular vote nationwide and be done with it, but that would probably be seen as "the evil federal government taking power away from the states" and is not going to happen anytime soon...

I don't know I have mix feelings about the system on won hand f you just count the popular vote then everyone gets one vote and they all count equally but the effect of that is likely to cause a campaign and priority concentration on a few heavily populated states and cites while the rest of the country is given little to know attention, on the other hand the current system has four times given the Presidency to someone who has not won the majority of the peoples votes something not fair either. PArt of the problem is ridged party loyalty held by many people that all but insures that most states will always go one way or the other and think we might be seeing that begin to change some but only time will tell. My idea would be to keep the current system but to follow the example of same states and move to a percent base distribution of the states' Electoral votes based on the popular vote in each state thus bringing Electoral College more in line with the popular vote without totally scrapping the pros of the system.

As I understand it each state has the complete right to divy up it's electoral votes any way they want. They could write a law saying they put the names of the candidates in a hat and pick one, and it would be 100% constitutional.

I do think this proposed method is rather stupid, since it means their electoral votes would be divied up by what OTHER states voted, not just their own.

I can see Democrats liking this proposed law more than Republicans, since it lowers the power of the Electoral College. Right now statistically the college favors Republicans, since the current population in the US has more small states with Republican leanings, and fewer large states with Democrat leanings, and because states get 2 extra electoral votes for their Senators. The many smaller states have a few percentage points advantage over the few larger ones. Right now, statistically, the smaller state you live in the more your vote counts to electing the president, if only slightly.

I'm much rather see the states each seperate their electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote in that state. So if a state has 20 votes, and the vote in that state is 60% to 40% then one candidate gets 12 votes, the other 8 (round to nearest numbers in case of odd fractions). Sadly most big states will NEVER do this because each state's governor and legislature want to deliver the ENTIRE state's electoral votes to their party, not split it.

Note: Currently Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes, but they have all of 9 votes between them!