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Iowa Seeks To Remove Electoral College
Sakebomb
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Registered User regular
www.kcrg.com wrote:DES MOINES (AP) - Iowa lawmakers are considering changing the way the state's presidential votes are counted as part of an effort to break from the Electoral College system.
The proposal is moving through the state Senate and so far has generated little opposition.
It calls for Iowa to join with other states and pledge its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter who wins in Iowa.
Once states representing 270 electoral votes have adopted such a resolution, it would go into force.
Support for such a move has been building since 2000, when President Bush became president despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore.
I remember writing a paper in high school about how I thought Electoral College was an archaic and retarded system.
Thoughts?
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I dislike the electoral college, but I dunno if this is really the way to reform it.
this doesnt apply to the primaries. so, no.
It's legal, too, since the Constitution says that states can award their electoral votes in whatever manner they damn well please.
Now the huge states that gain nothing from the current system need to hop on. CA, NY, TX
damn it... what we need to do is move the Iowa primary, that way we can marginalize them completely.
Lottery rotation of primaries!
The problem is states pulling this "we're going out of turn in order to try to be important" drama.
So states can base who gets their electoral votes based on whether the groundhog sees its shadow? Awesome.
If it passes the state legislature, they can award them to the Dem if it rains on election day if they want. Or a coin toss. Or they can unilaterally declare that their electoral votes all go to Luke Skywalker.
Here's what people don't get. Why are you guys so pissed that places like IA, NH, and OH "get to decide" presidential races? There's a reason that those places have become bellwethers and swing states. It's because they have large populations of people who are middle of the road and not ideologues, so their votes can be influenced one way or another. If we go to straight popular vote you can sure as hell count on it that politicians aren't going to suddenly go "hey, we don't have to go to Iowa any more, let's head off to Seattle, or San Francisco!" They'll still go to those same places because those places have people who haven't made up their minds before the election starts.
Well, the reason Iowa gets such importance attached to it is because the first primary (or rather the first caucus, whatever) is always, always held there for some reason.
Iowa votes for whoever sells out to the farmers more. Ohio is all about turnout; do the Democrats manage to turn out Cincinnati and Cleveland more, or do the Republicans manage to turn out everywhere else in the state more? It's way more about appeal to the base than moderation. And then you've got Florida, which is whoever sells out more to the AARP and takes the hardest line on Castro and the Palestinians.
Your idealized version of "swing states" is quaint and adorable, but entirely bullshit.
It's a compromise between the two extremes. I know it's unfamiliar, because it doesn't happen much these days, but sometimes it does.
Edit: Maybe I didn't phrase this right initially? This would not be an uncommon occurrence.
:oops:
This is exactly what it does. It doesnt take effect until enough states pass it to make the popular vote winner the EC winner.
You mean like Iowa?
scroll down a bit to see a color coded map showing how far along this bill is in each state.
Iowa has enough electoral votes that they probably have little to lose from changing shit up. Besides, they figure they'll control the primaries, anyhow, so who cares about the general? Besides, they've got Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio who are generally going to have the same interests they do. Not so much with the Western states.
By the people, for the people.
Just think, if we had gotten rid of EC earlier, Bush wouldve lost in 2000.
As it is now, a close election nationwide is decided "randomly" on the basis of the geographic distribution of votes.
Edit: And then by the Supreme Court, of course.
Larger-population states with high-density media markets and urban centers would actually stand to gain the most, as running up significant margins in these areas would be key to the Democratic strategy (and therefore cutting those margins would have to be key to the Republican strategy). As it stands now, you don't have to spend too much money in the LA or SF media markets because they're not considered competitive. The more-highly contested media markets covered battleground states.
Entirely unlikely ... Mickey Mouse would win in a landslide.
Also, this would be in no way binding on states would it? Seems like it would be a real mess since state legislatures might flip flop back and forth on the issue.
San Francisco, for example. Tons of people. But expensive as hell and it's so blue that the name of the city is only mentioned by Republicans in a derisive manner- "look at Pelosi and her San Francisco values". If you go to California, you'll want to hit that dividing line that runs down the state as much as you can, the one that separates blue from red. Your Bakersfields, your San Bernardinos, your Fresnos.
An interstate compact is the equivalent of a legally-binding contract between states. It's mentioned in the Constitution.
Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. If you care to keep the lesson going, does this mean that once this passed into law it could never be nullifed (except through federal intervention)?
Right. From the compact:
Note that that will only nullify the NPV if it causes the total number of electors in the compact to fall below a majority.
Oh, also:
Cute.
P.S. popular vote does not mean only urban centers matter, it means areas matter in proportion to how many people live there. Which is how it should be.
I'm all for this. The Electoral College made sense when communication took forever to get across the 13 original states and help equalize the disparity between the smalller colonies and the bigger ones. But nowadays, it's highly unnecessary.
Eh, it would have a major impact on demographic targeting in some pretty interesting ways, and that would heavily influence strategy. If the electoral college gets removed, the ground game in high density, high performance areas becomes really important for Democrats. Churches start becoming more important. It's fascinating to think about, really.
Swing voters aren't idiots, they just don't have the sort of cognitive framework surrounding issues that strong Ds or strong Rs do. Which is also kind of fascinating to study, actually.
Politics is really neat when you think about it like an abstract concept, when you're actually doing it it's just exhausting and kind of sickening if you think about it too hard.
The only problem here is we couldn't move inauguration day up to say, December 1 which is the other reform I'd really like added to the system. The lame duck period is ridiculous.
I find it ironic that you call a massive section of the population of this country idiots for not holding the same opinion formation pattern as you, and in the same post demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the history and purpose of the electoral college.
That is, the Electoral College was created to account for and negate the effects of the supposed "uninformed majority" that you cite in your post, yet you are completely in favor of destroying it. (Via method of dubious Constitutionality, I might add.)
Seriously, screw the Electoral College. Just do it the right way, and try to do it without looking down your nose at other people.