by Guy Page
The Vermont Senate voted 22-7 Tuesday, Feb. 15 to join a national movement to elect a U.S. President by popular vote, rather than through the Electoral College.
S122 requires the traditional use of the Electoral College “except that if the agreement set forth in 17 V.S.A. chapter 58 (agreement among the states to elect the President by national popular vote) governs the appointment of presidential electors.” The bill does not explain how a popular vote agreement adopted by the states would supercede the electoral college established in the U.S. Constitution.
Most of the ‘popular vote’ push comes from ‘blue’ states with large urban populations who believe the electoral college gives an unfair electoral advantage to small states. Both Donald Trump and George Bush won electoral college elections, despite losing the popular vote.
The Senate vote fell along strictly partisan lines, with all Republicans voting no.
The bill now goes to the House. It is unclear when the House Government Operations Committee, busy with legislative redistricting, will have time to consider H122.
Categories: Legislation
Tampering with the Electoral Collage should be left alone as our Constitution states,our forefathers put this in as a safeguard,we need to make sure Progressive Democrats are blocked in all they try ,they are dismantling our Nation for a one world government!!
Maine (enacted a state law in 1969) and Nebraska (enacted a state law in 1992) to change how they award electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
The National Popular Vote bill simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in the first place. The bill is 72% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in the country.
The bill changes state statewide winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
States are agreeing to award their 270+ electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes, by simply again changing their state’s law.
s e (@oldgulph) has had quite a bit to say on this matter…….He/she ,we don’t know who oldgulph is, and yet he/she accounts for 18 of the 43 comments written as well a the vast majority of the words printed in this space as of this point.
Old Gulph obviously has strong views on S122 and is certainly not shy in sharing them……..At this point it would be good to have old gulph tell the readers his/her real name…….No hiding behind the green curtain like the Wizard of Oz.
Time for old gulph to join the majority of commenters and identify him/herself……What are you hiding from old gulph?
These idiots make me want to scream! Don’t they realize that Vermont’s votes will never count again if they get rid of the electoral college?!
Our 3 votes don’t count much now, and nobody cares on the national level how how VT votes. So…..
Get rid of the “Electoral College” and we will have a national scenario like we have here in Vermont where Chittenden Co. with it’s urban population dominates politics much to the distrust and dismay of less urban counties. No thanks !
The bill KEEPS the Electoral College.
Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.
Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0
The current system completely ignores conservative presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.
Under a national popular vote, rural voters throughout the country would have their votes matter, rather than being ignored because of state boundaries.
Voters in the biggest cities in the US have been almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.
59,849,899 people have lived in the 100 biggest cities.
59,492,267 in rural America.
In 2004, 17.4% of votes were cast in rural counties, while only 16.5% of votes were cast within the boundaries of our nation’s 100 largest cities.
19% of the U.S. population have lived outside the nation’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
19% of the U.S. population have lived in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The rest of the U.S., in SUBurbs, have divided almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.
This like most of your other posts are false….
83% live in urban areas and this shoots down most of your other posts:
“It is estimated that 83% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, up from 64% in 1950. By 2050, 89% of the U.S. population and 68% of the world population is projected to live in urban areas”
https://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-cities-factsheet#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%2083,to%20live%20in%20urban%20areas.
I have accounted for all the “urban” voters.
The Census includes SUBurbs with MSAs as “urban.”
Suburban voters do NOT vote the same as Big City voters.
19% of the U.S. population have lived outside the nation’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
19% of the U.S. population have lived in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The rest of the U.S., in SUBurbs, have divided almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.
Not being a constitutional scholar but a voting citizens of the USA, I do have an opinion about why the Electoral College should remain “as is”. The Electoral College isn’t perfect and the founding fathers knew it. It was a compromise for more than a few reasons at the time it was added into the constitution. The Founding Fathers didn’t want anyone to be President that had overwhelming power for instance. They had just won a war eliminating the tyrants in England and the governors that were also tyrants. If you have a poplar vote, overwhelming power of the exective branch is what we will get. But Dem’s know that cities in the US that have execptional large popluations are all Democratic. Therefore, they want to win all the time. A very bad idea. As far as our legislature is concerned, they are nothing but progressives who are wrong headed on so many subjects. Please vote them out of office in the next election cycle.
We are NOT a democracy, we are a Republic.
Mob rule is what they want.
Every other elected political office in the US is elected by one person, one vote popular vote.
With the National Popular Vote bill, we would not do away with the Electoral College, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures, etc. etc. etc.
Mob rule is defined as “control of a political situation by those outside the conventional or lawful realm, typically involving violence and intimidation.”
“ . . . the mechanics of the Electoral College allowed the defeated president to incite his followers into mounting the first attempt in U.S. history to seize the presidency by violence. Far from preventing them, the anti-majoritarian mechanisms of presidential elections were the crucial culprit in creating the “tumult and disorder” and the “heats and ferments” that so worried the authors of the Constitution.”- David Frum, 2/15/21
“In the past, [Republican] party elders, party leaders … exploited the crazies in order to win elections and then largely ignored them after the elections,” “What has happened since then is that Trump opened Pandora’s box and let them out. He not only let them out, he affirmed them and provoked them. And so now they’re running wild and they are legitimatizing these delusions.”- Mac Stipanovich, former GOP operative from Florida
“Republic not a democracy” is one of the more overt examples of the GOP slide toward fascism in an era already rife with undemocratic Republican power plays. It is part of ongoing efforts to delegitimize the election process itself.
[The] difference between a democracy and a republic [is] the delegation of the government, the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest.”
In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.”- Madison
Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election by the Electoral College of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.
That is a false dichotomy! Being a republic does not negate being a democracy. Even if you add the word constitutional to republic. Most Constitutional republics around the world are democracies, like France, Germany, Ireland, etc. The US is, I would argue, an oligarchy not a democracy, and not much of a republic. The core definition of a republic is: The HEAD OF STATE governors at the consent of the governed. As apposed to a Monarchy, like Britain. The great scholar Sheldon Wohlen referred to the US (Back in the 70s I think) as an inverted totalitarian state, where corporate interests control all levers of power, there by replacing typical dictatorship of a single person, or junta, with a faceless cabal of corporate interests. Since Citizens United, that is more true than ever. How much of a republic could that be?
The “House” won’t “consider” this any more than the Senate did, any more than ANY of the bills they pass now…if it’s leftist, radical, flies in the face of the Constitution & benefits their Marxist-type political agenda, they’ll pass it.
These abject morons are essentially attempting to create a VT Republic again – one where racial discrimination is encouraged (against whites), drugs use & abuse are enabled, & life-ending measures for babies, the sick, & the elderly are openly employed. Sorry, idiots – federal law usurps state law, you are governed under the U.S. Constitution – like it or not, and VT can NOT succeed.
Vermont has been overtaken by evil. And it is up to “the people” who truly are in control of these supposed “public servants” to right these wrongs – as in the blood of patriots as Jefferson spoke of.
Federal law does not usurp state law. They try to tell you it does so they can consolidate power, yet another trick. A state law always trumps a federal law. Now what the feds have been doing for decades now is saying you can’t have this Federal money unless you comply with this law. That’s how they make you believe that a federal law carries more weight than a state law.
Now laws that are in the constitution are different because when the state as a democracy signed on to the Federal as part of the Republic it had to agree with abiding by the Constitution (which they do not anymore IMO).
This is important because each individual state is a democracy where the popular vote inside the state determines who the electors will vote for (at least in Vermont because in Vermont they must vote the way that the state does, but in most States the electors can vote however they choose). However as a whole we are a republic because we do not elect whoever got the most votes. Instead each state has the same amount of power through the electoral college.
This stops any state that has grown in population to be large enough to overrun the rest of the population and gives a fighting chance to the smaller States on purpose.
For instance California is only one of 50 states giving it 2% of the vote. However with this method they are 12 and 1/2% of the population (40 mil out of 320 mil) so they would therefore get 12 and a half percent of the vote.
The reason you want to give equal representation to each individual state is so that each individual state can be something different than the other states because maybe there’s varieties in climate, varieties in ideas, varieties in beliefs, varieties in business, varieties of the people that live there. All of those are very important, they constantly berate us about diversity and equity and yet they do everything they can to remove real diversity and equality.
National Popular Vote is a STATE law, enacted by STATES, using each STATE’s exclusive and plenary Constitutional power to choose how to award electors.
National Popular Vote allows individual states to use their unqualified and absolute right to have the Electoral College accomplish a goal that more than two-thirds of Americans, throughout the country, have consistently supported since polling on this began in 1944.
States enacting National Popular Vote replace their state or district winner-take-all laws to guarantee every vote, everywhere, in every election matters to the candidates, is equal and counts, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists, who vote as rubberstamps for presidential candidates. In the current presidential election system, 48 states award all of their electors to the winners of their state. This is not what the Founding Fathers intended.
The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution, and enacting the National Popular Vote bill would not need an amendment. State-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by 48 states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral vote
National Popular Vote is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors. Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes (and all three stopped using it by 1800).
In the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 and second election in 1792, the states employed a wide variety of methods for choosing presidential electors, including
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council,
● appointment by both houses of the state legislature,
● popular election using special single-member presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using counties as presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using congressional districts,
● popular election using multi-member regional districts,
● combinations of popular election and legislative choice,
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council combined with the state legislature, and
● statewide popular election.
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The state based winner take all system was not adopted by a majority of the states until the 11th presidential election. – decades after the U.S. Constitution was written, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
Maine (in 1969) and Nebraska (in 1992) chose not to have winner-take-all laws– a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes.
There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the Electoral College and the presidency.
It is perfectly within a state’s authority to decide that national popularity is the overriding substantive criterion by which a president should be chosen.
Blah, blah, blah.
STOP CHANGING OUR VOTING LAWS AND GO BACK TO PAPER.
A 2020 Supreme Court reaffirmed the power of states over their electoral votes.
The ruling says electors must abide by state laws and that such laws are constitutional.
The decision held that the power of the legislature under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution is “far reaching” and it conveys the “the broadest power of determination over who becomes an elector.” This is consistent with 130 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Now 48 states have winner-take-all state laws for awarding electoral votes to the statewide winner.
2 award one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.
Neither method is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
The electors have been and will be dedicated party activist supporters of the winning party’s candidate who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
The current system does not provide some kind of check on the “mobs.” There have been 24,605 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 31 have been cast in a deviant way, for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party (one clear faithless elector, 29 grand-standing votes, and one accidental vote). 1796 remains the only instance when the elector might have thought, at the time he voted, that his vote might affect the national outcome.
Pennsylvania law empowers each party’s presidential candidate to nominate all elector candidates directly. The presidential nominee is, after all, the person whose name actually appears on the ballot on Election Day and who has the greatest immediate interest in faithful voting by presidential electors.
North Carolina law declares vacant the position of any contrary-voting elector, voids that elector’s vote, and empowers the state’s remaining electors to replace the contrary-voting elector immediately with an elector loyal to the party’s nominee.
In Arizona, HB2302 went into effect in August 2017. Electors must cast their vote for candidate and vice president candidate who jointly received the highest number of votes in the state. If the elector refuses to cast that vote, they will no longer be eligible to hold their position as an elector.
If any candidate wins the popular vote in states with 270 electoral votes, there is no reason to think that the Electoral College would not elect that candidate.
With the National Popular Vote bill, all of the 270+ presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
Now, and with the National Popular Vote bill, states have 3 – 54 electors.
Less than 100 people in a state in 2020 not filling out the census cost a state an elector.
In 2000, Bush won with 271 electors. 270 are needed to win.
The 25 smallest states combined have had
57 Democratic electors and
58 Republican electors.
CA has 54 electors
Now, states with 3 electors range in population of less than 760,000 to almost a million.
Mathematically NOT balanced, fair, equal, equitable, or proportional.
In 2020
276,765 popular votes were cast in Wyoming (3 electors)
603,650 popular votes were cast in Montana (3 electors).
Each Republican popular vote in Alaska was worth 1.8 times as much per elector as each Republican popular vote in Montana.
More than 900,000 more votes were cast in Pennsylvania with 20 electors (6,915,283)
than Illinois with 20 electors (6,003,744).
Florida (R) with 29 electors (11,067,456) cast almost 3.5 million more votes than
New York (D) with 29 electors (7,616,861).
Constitutionally, the number of electors in each state is equal to the number of members of Congress to which the state is entitled, while the 23rd Amendment grants the District of Columbia the same number of electors as the least populous state, currently three
In 2020, there were more Republican votes in CA than Republican votes in Texas.
None helped Trump in any way.
On October 24, 2016, there were 19,411,771 registered voters in CA.
8,720,417 Democrats,
5,048,398 Republican,
4,711,347 No party preference.
931,609 Other
Trump got 4,483,814 CA votes. Clinton got 8,753,792 CA votes.
CA has 54 electors. 270 are and would still be needed to win.
5,187,019 Californians live in rural areas.
Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws for awarding electors, minority party voters in the states don’t matter.
There are 5 million Republicans in California. That is a larger number of Republicans than 47 other states.
Trump got more votes in California than he got in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia combined.
None of the votes in California for Trump, helped Trump.
California Democratic votes in 2016 were 6.4% of the total national popular vote.
The vote difference in California wouldn’t have put Clinton over the top in the popular vote total without the additional 61.5 million votes she received in other states.
California cast 10.3% of the total national popular vote.
31.9% Trump, 62.3% Clinton
61% of an equally populous Republican base area of states running from West Virginia to Wyoming (termed “Appalachafornia”) votes were for Trump. He got 4,475,297 more votes than Clinton.
With the National Popular Vote bill in effect, all votes for all candidates in California and Appalachafornia will matter equally.
In 2012, California cast 10.2% of the national popular vote.
About 62% Democratic
California has 10.2% of Electoral College votes.
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
With the National Popular Vote bill in effect, all Republican votes in California and every other state will matter.
The vote of every voter in the country (rural, suburban, urban) (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency.
[The] difference between a democracy and a republic [is] the delegation of the government, the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest.”
In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.”- Madison
Every other elected political office in the US is elected by one person, one vote popular vote.
Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election by the Electoral College of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.
Guaranteeing the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes (as the National Popular Vote bill would) would not make us a pure democracy.
Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy. It is not rule by referendum.
Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.
With the National Popular Vote bill, we would not do away with the Electoral College, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures, etc. etc. etc.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state’s electoral votes
The National Popular Vote bill is 72% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in the country. It would change state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
“I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”
Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”
In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted 338–70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President.
3 Southern segregationist Senators filibustered it.
Presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX), Bob Dole (R-KS), Gerald Ford (R-MI), Richard Nixon (R-CA), .
Past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN),
Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”
It further demonstrates that the progressive senate will vote to change the constitution knowing that it would require a constitutional amendment to do so. When do we get to the point where people have had enough of the destruction and clown show happening in Montpelier, to actually get them to vote and throw them out of office?
The National Popular Vote bill does NOT change the Constitution.
The bill simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in the first place. The bill is 72% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in the country.
The bill changes state statewide winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
States are agreeing to award their 270+ electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes, by simply again changing their state’s law.
All votes would be valued equally as 1 vote in presidential elections, no matter where voters live.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes (and all three stopped using it by 1800).
In the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 and second election in 1792, the states employed a wide variety of methods for choosing presidential electors, including
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council,
● appointment by both houses of the state legislature,
● popular election using special single-member presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using counties as presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using congressional districts,
● popular election using multi-member regional districts,
● combinations of popular election and legislative choice,
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council combined with the state legislature, and
● statewide popular election.
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The state based winner take all system was not adopted by a majority of the states until the 11th presidential election. – decades after the U.S. Constitution was written, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
This is not good for our state or any state. It is there for a reason, so just leave it alone. Why would anyone want to move to Vermont with so many people in our state house who don’t give a darn about we the people. Need to vote a few people out and soon, or Vermont will not be the state we all love.
All of Vermont’s electors have been Democrats for YEARS.
Vermont Republican votes for President have not helped their candidates in any way for YEARS.
Without statewide winner-take-all laws, under National Popular Vote, all votes would actually help the candidate each of us actually vote for.
With the National Popular Vote bill, every voter, in every state, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
All votes would matter and count equally in the national vote total.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as Florida. The National Popular Vote bill would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
The National Popular Vote bill would give a voice to the minority party voters for president in each state. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
Some of the Covid Bucks should go for civic books for the Progressivecrats. Perhaps they would then realize we don’t have a democracy but a republic.
Our state politicians who voted for this have no clue what they’re doing. They obviously do not understand without the electoral process, our vote will not make any difference at all. All the big populated cities will control our future.
How would you like big city politics in our great rural state.
Nope they know exactly what they’re doing, they started this in 2010
In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until before the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range – in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted 338–70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President.
3 Southern segregationist Senators filibustered it.
Presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX), Bob Dole (R-KS), Gerald Ford (R-MI), Richard Nixon (R-CA),
Since its origination in 2006, the National Popular Vote bill has been introduced in legislatures in all 50 states and DC.
More than 3,500 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The bill has been debated in legislative chambers in 36 states.
It has passed 41 state legislative chambers in 25 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 283 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (15), Minnesota (10), North Carolina (16), Oklahoma (7), and Virginia (13), and both houses in Nevada (6).
It has been enacted by 16 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 195 electoral votes – 72% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
In 2020, Virginia House passed.
In 2019, Colorado, Delaware, New Mexico, and Oregon enacted the National Popular Vote bill. Nevada Assembly and Senate passed. Minnesota House passed.
In 2018, Connecticut enacted the National Popular Vote bill.
In 2016, Arizona House passed, Georgia and Missouri House committees passed.
In 2015, Oklahoma Senate passed.
In 2014 New York enacted the National Popular Vote bill
In 2013, Rhode Island enacted the National Popular Vote bill
In 2011, California and Vermont enacted the National Popular Vote bill.
In 2010, D.C. and Massachusetts enacted the National Popular Vote bill.
In 2009, Washington state enacted the National Popular Vote bill. Nevada Assembly passed.
In 2008, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey enacted the National Popular Vote bill. Michigan House passed.
In 2007, Maryland enacted the National Popular Vote bill. North Carolina Senate passed.
In 2006, Colorado’s Senate was the first state legislative house in the nation to pass National Popular Vote’s legislation for nationwide election of the President.
I’m not going to go look up all those stats to find out they are wrong like your estimate of the population…
It would be much easier to say “Yup, they have been trying to take America down for decades before I was born”.
I did NOT estimate any population.
I noted US Census figures.
Feel free to look them up.
In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until before the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
“I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”
Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”
In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted 338–70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President.
3 Southern segregationist Senators filibustered it.
Presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX), Bob Dole (R-KS), Gerald Ford (R-MI), Richard Nixon (R-CA),
There have been hundreds of unsuccessful proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College – more than any other subject of Constitutional reform.
The National Popular Vote bill simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in the first place.
States are agreeing to award their 270+ electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes, by simply again changing their state’s law.
All votes would be valued equally as 1 vote in presidential elections, no matter where voters live.
One person. One vote. The candidate with the most national popular votes will win the Electoral College.
The issue is that liberalism attracts more liberals.. They’re moving here because they see Vermont as a place that shares their progressive values so “lets move there!” Now we’re in a place where we have to fight for our state like never before. Giving our urban centers more power in our elections will be the last nail in Vermont’s coffin!
Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.
Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0
The current system completely ignores conservative presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.
Under a national popular vote, rural voters throughout the country would have their votes matter, rather than being ignored because of state boundaries.
The population of the top 5 cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) has been only 6% of the population of the United States.
Voters in the biggest cities in the US have been almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.
59,849,899 people have lived in the 100 biggest cities.
59,492,267 in rural America.
In 2004, 17.4% of votes were cast in rural counties, while only 16.5% of votes were cast within the boundaries of our nation’s 100 largest cities.
19% of the U.S. population have lived outside the nation’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
19% of the U.S. population have lived in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The rest of the U.S., in SUBurbs, have divided almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.
There is more than one way to rig elections.
One person, One vote.
The candidate with the most national popular votes will win the Electoral College.
As liberal, socialist and democrat politicians continue to persuade the voter that the conservative and Republican politician and voter are the biggest threat to Vermont, It’s time to remind all voters that for the past 3 + decades, the liberal democrat and progressive have had a stranglehold on Vermont politics and legislatures. Look where it’s gotten us….
The democrat and socialist will stop at nothing to insure their continued majority rule, here in Vermont and world wide. One need only look at the current actions of Canada’s PM, Trudeau to validate this claim.
The Vermont Legislature is well poised to solidify “post marxist-neo fascist-pseudo democracy” We either fight or get run over at this point.
“I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”
Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”
In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted 338–70 to require winning the national popular vote to become President.
3 Southern segregationist Senators filibustered it.
Presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX), Bob Dole (R-KS), Gerald Ford (R-MI), Richard Nixon (R-CA), Jimmy Carter (D-GA-1977), and Hillary Clinton (D-NY-2001).
Past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN), Senator and Vice President Al Gore (D-TN), Ralph Nader, Governor Martin O’Malley (D-MD), Jill Stein (Green), Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN), Senator and Governor Lincoln Chafee (R-I-D, -RI), Governor and former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean (D–VT), Congressmen John Anderson (R, I –ILL).
Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”
For months the Progressives and Democrats have been screaming about the destruction of our Democracy by the right………Now these same progressives and Democrats have actually moved to destroy our Democracy by shearing our Constitution with S122.
If it weren’t for hypocrisy, the left would have no standards at all.
“Shearing” the Constitution??
The bill doesn’t TOUCH the Constitution.
The National Popular Vote bill simply again changes state statutes, using the same constitutional power for how existing state winner-take-all laws came into existence in the first place. The bill is 72% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in the country.
The bill changes state statewide winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
States are agreeing to award their 270+ electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes, by simply again changing their state’s law.
National Popular Vote allows individual states to use their unqualified and absolute right to have the Electoral College accomplish a goal that more than two-thirds of Americans, throughout the country, have consistently supported since polling on this began in 1944.
States enacting National Popular Vote replace their state or district winner-take-all laws to guarantee every vote, everywhere, in every election matters to the candidates, is equal and counts, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists, who vote as rubberstamps for presidential candidates. In the current presidential election system, 48 states award all of their electors to the winners of their state. This is not what the Founding Fathers intended.
The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution, and enacting the National Popular Vote bill would not need an amendment. State-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by 48 states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral vote
National Popular Vote is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors. Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes (and all three stopped using it by 1800).
In the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 and second election in 1792, the states employed a wide variety of methods for choosing presidential electors, including
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council,
● appointment by both houses of the state legislature,
● popular election using special single-member presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using counties as presidential-elector districts,
● popular election using congressional districts,
● popular election using multi-member regional districts,
● combinations of popular election and legislative choice,
● appointment of the state’s presidential electors by the Governor and his Council combined with the state legislature, and
● statewide popular election.
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The state based winner take all system was not adopted by a majority of the states until the 11th presidential election. – decades after the U.S. Constitution was written, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
Maine (in 1969) and Nebraska (in 1992) chose not to have winner-take-all laws– a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.
All of this is completely irrelevant until there’s some semblance of election integrity.
Voter fraud is not as easy as Fox News says.
Cases of Republican voter fraud are being proven and successfully prosecuted,
There is no actual proof of widespread fraud.
There are conspiracy theories that hurt our system of government.
Far too little vote fraud to tip election
An Associated Press review, over a year since the November 2020 election, of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by Trump has found fewer than 475. Biden won more than 7 MILLION more national popular votes than Trump.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said “It was not rigged. It was not stolen. Donald Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election. It’s really clear,”
The Freedom to Vote act includes voter ID requirements.
I was waiting for you to post this…
There’s massive fraud in every state, all you need to do is look.
The largest fraud is in the media of which you’re quoting from.
LOL. You absolute clown.
Read the evidence cited in the Arizona legislature’s bill to decertify the 2020 November election. Whether or not it’s prudent to ‘decertify’ the vote, or simply revise the voting process that allowed these voting irregularities and discrepancies to occur, is open for debate. But that there is no evidence of sufficient voter fraud in Arizona to swing the election is pure nonsense.
Here in Vermont, for example, Mark Zuckerberg’s non-profit organizations dropped a cool $5 Million into our town clerk voting processes to affect the November 2020 election. In my town of Westminster alone, the Town Clerk received $5000.
Condos is going to have one more stand at facilitating these irregularities in Vermont in this November’s midterms. After that, it’s up to Vermonters to elect a more upstanding Sec. of State.
Arizona Republican state legislators were pressed on a plan to disrupt the 2020 election certification and potentially change the vote count. Several Trump advisers, including campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis and legal adviser Bernie Kerik, were included in the discussion.
One state lawmaker included on the emails, Mark Finchem, is now running for secretary of state in Arizona. If Finchem wins, he would oversee Arizona’s elections.
In at least Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, Republicans forged and submitted the same templates of certificates of ascertainment declaring Trump the recipient of Republican electors from the state, including some who were NOT the party’s candidates for presidential elector.
The Arizona fraudit reported finding more votes for Biden, and included a multitude of unsubstantiated claims, and no proof of fraud.
The Republican-led Maricopa County released a report that is a near point-by-point rebuttal of the faulty analysis, inaccurate claims and misleading conclusions that they say appear in an Arizona Senate audit of the 2020 election.
16 Arizona Republican legislators have introduced bill to let legislature overturn election results.
A group of Arizona Republican legislators led by a staunch backer of former President Trump has proposed breaking the state’s largest county into four smaller counties after a partisan GOP-ordered audit confirmed President Biden carried Maricopa County and the state’s electoral votes in 2020.
With both the current system and the National Popular Vote bill, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a “final determination” prior to the common nationwide date for the meeting of the Electoral College. The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their “final determination” six days before the Electoral College meets.
Federal law (the “safe harbor” provision in section 5 of title 3 of the United States Code) specifies that a state’s “final determination” of its presidential election returns is “conclusive”(if done in a timely manner and in accordance with laws that existed prior to Election Day).
Hey, I got ten years worth of ex girlfriends’ mail in ballots delivered right to my door.
Sending them in to stop Akchual Orange Hitler was a no brainer. 🤣
It would illegal if passed.
There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the Electoral College and the presidency.
It is perfectly within a state’s authority to decide that national popularity is the overriding substantive criterion by which a president should be chosen.
This is completely thoughtless! In a small state with only a fraction of the population of a major city, why would any candidate bother to campaign here, or even send out mailings asking for our viewpoints on campaign iij issues. We’re already fairly irrelevant, but this would seal the fate. No candidate would care what Vermonters want.
Look at how presidential candidates actually campaign today inside “battleground” states. Inside a battleground state, every vote is equal today and the winner (of all of the state’s electoral votes) is the candidate receiving the most popular votes. Every battleground state has big cities and rural areas. Thus, if there was any tendency toward de-emphasizing rural areas or over-emphasizing cities, it would be evident today inside the battleground states.
Ohio alone received almost 30% (73 of 253) of the entire nation’s campaign events in 2012.
● The 4 biggest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in Ohio have 54% of the state’s population. They are Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Toledo. Had 52% of Ohio’s campaign events.
● The 7 medium-sized MSAs have 24% of the state’s population. They are Akron, Canton, Dayton, Lima, Mansfield, Springfield, and Youngstown. Had 23% of Ohio’s campaign events.
● The 53 remaining counties (that is, the rural counties lying outside the state’s 11 MSAs) have 22% of the state’s population. Had 25% of Ohio’s campaign events.
The 4 “battleground” states of Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa accounted for over two-thirds of all campaign events in 2012
In all 4 battleground states, presidential candidates—advised by the nation’s most astute political strategists—hewed very closely to population in allocating campaign events. Candidates campaigned everywhere—big cities, medium-sized cities, and rural areas. There is no evidence that they ignored rural areas or favored big cities in an election in which every vote is equal and the winner is the candidate receiving the most popular votes.
Not only is there no evidence that presidential candidates ignored rural areas or concentrated on big cities, it would have been preposterous for them to do so. There is nothing special about a city vote compared to a rural vote in an election in which every vote is equal. When every vote is equal, every vote is equally important toward winning.
Vermont is TOTALLY irrelevant in presidential elections.
Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .
Over the last 4 elections, 22 states received 0 events; 9 states received 1 event, and 95% of the 1,164 events were in just 14 states.
Only voters in the few states where support for the two parties is almost equally divided can be important.
The smallest states and the most rural states, have barely hosted a major general campaign event for a presidential candidate during the last 20 years.
Almost all small and medium-sized states and almost all western, southern, and northeastern states are totally ignored after the conventions.
Our presidential selection system can shrink the sphere of public debate to only a few thousand swing voters in a few states.
The only states that have received any campaign events and any significant ad money have been where the outcome was between 45% and 51% Republican.
In 2000, the Bush campaign, spent more money in the battleground state of Florida to win by 537 popular votes, than it did in 42 other states combined,
This can lead to a corrupt and toxic body politic.
When candidates with the most national popular votes are guaranteed to win the Electoral College, candidates will be forced to build campaigns that appeal to every voter in all parts of all states.
Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
“The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,”
“The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.
Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.
12 states had 96% of the general-election campaign events (204 of 212) by the major-party presidential and vice-presidential candidates during the 2020 presidential campaign (Aug 28 to Nov 3).
All of the 212 events were in just 17 states. 33 states and DC did not have any general-election campaign events at all.
Pennsylvania got 47 general-election campaign events — the most of any state and 22% of the total. Florida got 31 events — 15% of the total. Together, Pennsylvania and Florida got 3/8 of the entire presidential campaign attention.
In the 2016 general election campaign
Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).
Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country’s population).
In 2016, Karl Rove advised Trump – “Look, you’re welcome to try and win [a state you can’t win], but every day you spend trying to win a state you can’t win is a day that a presidential candidate forfeits winning in a state like, in your case, Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin or Iowa.”
“You’ve got to—we had to focus on 270 and that meant that every day that we spent outside those states was a day that was wasted, unless we had either fundraising necessities or a national message that we needed to…” “Every day is vital, and we put all of our time and all of our energy and all of our resources into our battleground-state effort.”
In the 2012 general election campaign
38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.
More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states.
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
In the 2008 campaign, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA).
In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.
Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
Issues of importance to 38+ non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
On April 22, 2011, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed the signed the National Popular Vote bill into law.
Wow, Proof positive that if you can’t dazzle um with brilliance, baffle um with B.S.