I will not vote for ANY politician who won’t fight to remove the so-called electoral college. I want democratic elections. I want a guarantee my vote counts.
I will not vote for ANY politician who won’t fight to remove the so-called electoral college. I want democratic elections. I want a guarantee my vote counts.
Amending the constitution is the only way to change that.
…oh yeah, let’s ‘send them a message’ – and where have we heard that before?
In any case half of the nation’s eligible voters never exercise that fundamental right. Worth noting perhaps the sheer size of that group – approximately 92 million eligible voters – makes it a potential wild card in the 2020 presidential election. See https://the100million.org/
“Whose votes count the least in the Electoral College?” https://theconversation.com/whose-votes-count-the-least-in-the-electoral-college-74280
“Never forget that our presidential electoral system is an abomination” (Washington Post) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/02/never-forget-that-our-presidential-electoral-system-is-an-abomination/
“…Trump’s only chance for victory — and it’s a good one — is to once again assemble the right combination of state wins to get him 270 electoral votes. Which would mean that in half the presidential elections of the last 20 years, the vote loser wound up winning the White House.
How likely is it? Take a look at this analysis from FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver:”
Nate Silver @NateSilver538 10:11 AM · Sep 2, 2020:
Chance of a Biden Electoral college win if he wins the popular vote by X points:
0-1 points: just 6%!
1-2 points: 22%
2-3 points: 46%
3-4 points: 74%
4-5 points: 89%
5-6 points: 98%
6-7 points: 99%
[10:13 AM · Sep 2, 2020] You’ll sometimes see people say stuff like “Biden MUST with the popular vote by 3 points or he’s toast”. Not true; at 2-3 points, the Electoral College is a tossup, not necessarily a Trump win.
OTOH [on the other hand] , the Electoral College is not really *safe* for Biden unless he wins by 5+.
Nate Silver (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver
“Imagine waking up the morning after the election this November with an unclear result of who will be next president. Suppose that Donald Trump fails to capture the popular vote by a wider margin than in 2016 and loses some states he carried that year. With a slim majority in states like Florida and Pennsylvania, he could still garner 270 electoral votes.
But would Democrats accept such an outcome? There is a chance that legislatures in blue states could effectively overturn the election result through a means available in the Constitution. This nuclear option has never been tried before, but it could tear the country down.” https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/516207-will-democrats-use-the-nuclear-option-to-blow-up-the-election
A landmark decision from the Supreme Court has found that states can force the electors to vote in a certain manner. Further, Article Two of the Constitution allows for wide discretion with the states to appoint the electors, and efforts such as the National Popular Vote Compact also chip away at the idea that states will definitely send electors who reflect local popular wishes.
Thus state lawmakers could exert control over electors, undermining the will of the voters and impacting the result on a national level.
(click above Supreme Court document to scroll and use zoom to enlarge print)
“Democrats must bow to the Electoral College” https://theweek.com/articles/937435/democrats-must-bow-electoral-college
The center for cultural life for years in the New England town where I spent many of my formative years was the Shakespearean Theater. Although the favorite cultural affectation of younger student actors was to modify the traffic signs in announcing “YIELD” by the addition of the word, “VARLET”.
“CNN anchor Don Lemon suggested on Monday that radical change is necessary in order for the “majority” to have a bigger say in government.
During his nightly handoff with primetime colleague Chris Cuomo, Lemon floated a solution for the masses who are disenfranchised by both parties.
“We’re going to have to blow up the entire system,” Lemon said.
“I don’t know about that,” Cuomo reacted, who argued that Americans just have to vote.
“You know what we’re going to have to do?… You’re going to have to get rid of the electoral college,” Lemon continued. “Because the minority in this country get to decide who our judges are and who our president is. Is that fair?” (Fox News) https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnns-don-lemon-suggests-to-blow-up-the-entire-system-get-rid-of-electoral-college-stack-the-courts
There is “a challenge to democratic legitimacy that inheres in the very structure of the Constitution: the possibility that a candidate will lose the popular vote but nevertheless obtain a majority in the Electoral College. Social scientists have estimated that under current conditions, there is a one-in-three chance that a popular-vote loser will nonetheless win the electoral vote. And for demographic reasons, that chance skews more heavily in favor of Republicans than Democrats.” Pamela Karlan, Our Most Vulnerable Election (The New York Review of Books October 8, 2020 Issue) https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/10/08/our-most-vulnerable-election/
Gallup: 61 percent support abolishing the Electoral College (The Hill) https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/517926-gallup-61-percent-support-abolishing-the-electoral-college
“The Election That Could Break America : If the vote is close, Donald Trump could easily throw the election into chaos and subvert the result. Who will stop him?” (The Atlantic Nov, 2020 issue) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/ “…The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him. If Trump sheds all restraint, and if his Republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in Congress. He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that uncertainty to hold on to power.
Trump’s state and national legal teams are already laying the groundwork for postelection maneuvers that would circumvent the results of the vote count in battleground states. Ambiguities in the Constitution and logic bombs in the Electoral Count Act make it possible to extend the dispute all the way to Inauguration Day, which would bring the nation to a precipice. The Twentieth Amendment is crystal clear that the president’s term in office “shall end” at noon on January 20, but two men could show up to be sworn in. One of them would arrive with all the tools and power of the presidency already in hand.”
See also “The Deadline That Could Hand Trump the Election” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-biden-electoral-count-act-1887/615994/ and “Five Common Misconceptions About the Electoral College” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/five-common-misconceptions-about-electoral-college/602596/
(9/23/20): President Donald Trump refused Wednesday to commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses the 2020 election to Democratic nominee Joe Biden. (CNBC) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/23/trump-wont-commit-to-peaceful-transfer-of-power-if-he-loses-the-election.html