[quote=straightUp]So you like it better the way it is now... with the lives of those living on the west coast and upper east coast being controlled by the sparsely populated red states.
Did you know that one citizen in Wyoming has the power outvote five citizens in California?{
Not true~~}If your answer is yes, then I know that fairness means nothing to you, as long as you get what you want.
If your answer is no, then you are like the majority of the American people and just don't really know what the problem with the EC is.
I can explain that.
First thing to know... There is nothing wrong with the EC itself.
According to the U.S.Constitution, the people elect their representatives and the representatives elect the president. So in a sense, no one on this site has EVER elected a president. All we have done is cast votes for which president we would like our representative to elect. The representative is not legally obligated to vote according the will of his district, but if he wants to be re-elected, then he ought to, right?
But what if there are more convincing reasons for a representative to vote against the will of his constituents? I mean, corruption can be a powerful thing. Well, the founders thought of that and their answer was to use surrogate voters that would be chosen in the same way as jurors are. So, regular citizens chosen to help the government make decisions. Together, these surrogate voters (one per representative) form the Electoral College.
So the EC was established as an anti-corruption system. It was NEVER meant to be a population compensation system. In other words, they did NOT invent the EC to prevent large states from controlling small states. They actually had a different system for that. The number of seats in the House of Representatives would expand in relation to population growth in order to maintain a consistent ratio of representative to citizens. This way ALL voters have equal power, regardless of size differential between states. So that's the second thing to know.
The third thing to know is that the Apportionment Act of 1911 stopped the expansion and set the number of seats to 433. A few years later two more seats were added (Arizona and New Mexico joining the union) and it's been set to 435 seats ever since. Meanwhile, the population continued to boom, faster in some places than other places, which is important to point out because the ratios diverge.
So the problem is that one representative is shared with more people in densely populated districts than in sparsely populated districts. This is why a voter in Wyoming has more power that four voters in California.
The way to fix that is to take the total population and divide that by 435 to get the required population per district. But watch out - California would wind up with a lot more districts (and therefore EC votes). But that doesn't mean anyone in California has any more power than anyone in Wyoming. It DOES mean California will get more districts, but then again California has more people..
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Why is it so many of your posts do not “quote reply”?? Frustrating it is...
I’m sure you are aware of the recent Supreme Court ruling case on electoral college votes right?
2020
On July 6, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states have the power to require presidential electors to vote for their party’s candidate for president.
More specifically, the decision allows states to pass laws requiring presidential electors to cast their votes in a manner that faithfully reflects their commitment to vote for the person they promised to choose when they were nominated as an elector.
So unless I misunderstand your comment of : The representative is not legally obligated to vote according the will of his district, but if he wants to be re-elected, then he ought to, right? ~ then I must respectfully disagree..Faithless electors is not what States look for when appointing their Representatives and do hold them accountable based on their own state laws of such..
This clear reaffirmation of the power of states to appoint their electoral votes “in whatever way it likes” supports the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and Article II, section 1 upon which National Popular Vote is based. States have broad authority over their electors, and nothing in this case would suggest this plenary power would suddenly be limited if the states’ electors were awarded to the National Popular Vote winner.
And second, the Court’s decision reinforces the validity of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under National Popular Vote, states that combine for at least 270 electoral votes agree to award their electors to the presidential candidate who wins the most individual votes across the nation. (Fifteen states and the District of Columbia, totaling 196 electoral votes, have already passed the measure.)
In the 18 states currently without faithless elector laws, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would operate in a manner identical to the system that they have been using for over 200 years. In these states (which currently use the state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes), the presidential electors are chosen by the political party whose presidential candidate receives the most popular votes inside the state, and there are no additional requirements placed upon the elector.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would operate in the same way, except that the presidential electors would be persons chosen by the political party whose presidential candidate receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia....
Finally, I disagree whole heartedly with your closing paragraph.... Cali, NY etc would control the election given their over populated states...Exactly why our founders made sure to address the EC vote to balance it all out..
This Supreme Court decision, is so strong that it would seem to allow states to remove faithless electors even without a state law...
Plenty to read should you wish..
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdfhttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/07/14/supreme-courts-faithless-electors-decision-validates-case-for-the-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/amp/