A Republican lawmaker in blue Washington State wants to divide the Electoral College votes there by congressional district. The Spokane Statesman-Review reports this exchange with Republican State Representative Matt Shea:
Committee Chairman Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, asked Shea who would have been president right now if all the states had such a system in 2012.
"I don't know," Shea replied. "I'd have to do the math."
"It would not be Barack Obama," Hunt said.
In addition to winning the Electoral College, Barack Obama won the popular vote by nearly 5 million.
Shea says that voters in conservative eastern Washington feel disenfranchised, since the liberal coast outweighs them in the popular vote. Under his plan, Mitt Romney would have picked up two votes in that state. Washington has also signed on for the National Popular Vote scheme, which would give the state's electors to whichever candidate gets the most votes nationwide, if enough other states have signed on. Shea's bill takes Washington out of that plan. The bill appears to have little chance of advancing. (H/t @KSwa50)
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I wonder if Mr. Shea can tell us why enfranchising his constituents should be done at the cost of disenfranchising the majority of voters.
Silly boy Them there's real 'merickuns in his neck of the woods, and by god Jebus wants a Republican presnit
Then Shea should pray/tell Jebus to get out the vote.
We do believe there is something wrong with the lines of communication . I mean with all that prayin' aow did Obama win?
The Republicans dialed the wrong number?
You notice how the places where Republicans live - like the desert of eastern Washington - are place nobody else would be dumb enough to live in?
Support for a national popular vote remained steady, at 77% overall, after the National Popular Vote Bill was signed by Washington Governor Chris Gregoire.
A survey of Washington voters conducted on May 5–6, 2009 showed 77% overall support for the idea that the President of the United States should be the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. This 77% support level is the same overall percentage registered on the identical question in a December 2–3, 2008 poll in Washington. Percentages by subgroups were similar in both polls.
By political affiliation, support for a national popular vote in the May 2009 poll was 88% among Democrats, 65% among Republicans, and 73% among others.
By gender, support in the May 2009 poll was 85% among women and 67% among men.
By age, support in the May 2009 poll was 73% among 18-29 year olds, 76% among 30-45 year olds, 76% among 46-65 year olds, and 78% for those older than 65.
An additional question was asked in the May 2009 poll in which respondents were asked to make a three-way choice among three alternative methods for awarding the state’s electoral votes, with the following results:
NationalPopularVote
Sorry TC in LA, your description of Eastern Washington is absolutely false. Only a very small section would be considered desert; most is full of lush wheat fields, orchards, vinyards, forests, rivers, mountains, wonderfully verdant land. Those who live in Eastern Washington are no different than those from the agricultural regions of your beloved California, the Midwest, the South, or Eastern areas of this nation. While I often decry the number of Republicans who do live in this whole state, to describe them and it as dumb/dumb places to live, is generally untrue (certain legislators aside) and hyperbole, even for you. It's one of those civility things that you are free to think, but really shouldn't "speak".
The assumption that Romney would have won if this plan were in place is suspect. Maybe the assumption is right, but the Obama campaign would probably have handled their campaign differently and the house would now be Democratic. We don't know because America didn't run that experiment.
I suspect that this is more a Pinky and the Brain plan for world domination than a real working plan.
The Moral Majority has suddenly realized that they are the minority.
And They Are Going To Fix This!
But there are blue dots in this red half of the state!
This might not be such a bad idea if a non-partisan commission drew district lines based on demographic and geographic coherence. Didn't California just do that? Of course, with gerrymandering, it's all corrupt.
California did indeed do that, and the result was the biggest loss of congressional seats by Republicans in any state, the loss of Republican seats in State Senate and Assembly such that Democrats now have the 2/3 majority necessary to get the fiscal problems of the state fixed without having to pay attention to Republican baloney. Essentially, the Republican party has been declared irrelevant in California, outside of the stupid parts of the state.
Awwww, those poor frickin' babies. How do the non-Republicans in PA, FL, AL, GA, LA, AZ, ND, etc...feel, folks who aren't cheating to fix things in their favor?
Expect to see more of this in last minute legislation during 2016.
How about we just do away with the electoral college completely and let he who wins the most votes win the presidency? Why is no-one kicking around that idea? I know it's a novel concept, the guy who has more total overall votes winning, but I think we could make it work. So every person in - say - a red dot in Ohio would have the same voting weight as a person in a blue dot in Alabama. Everyone counts, everyone wins!
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has 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 (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states with 243 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions (including Washington) with 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
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The name of the Spokane paper is the Spokesman-Review, not the Statesman-Review.
What was it Joyce Kaufman said - "If ballots don't work bullocks will" - maybe that wasn't it exactly...