The congressional district method of awarding electoral votes (currently used in Maine and Nebraska) would not help make every vote matter. In NC, for example, there are only 4 of the 13 congressional districts that would be close enough to get any attention from presidential candidates. A smaller fraction of the country’s population lives in competitive congressional districts (about 12%) than in the current battleground states (about 30%) that now get overwhelming attention , while two-thirds of the states are ignored Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.

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. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.

The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.

The bill is currently endorsed by over 1,659 state legislators (in 48 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

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 is strong in every partisan and demographic group surveyed.

see www.NationalPopularVote.com

I am sure some Economics Ph.D. has a thesis on this, but to summarize the anxiety gnawing at most people, allow me to throw some simple math, using however some very large numbers.

A billion is a thousand million: a trillion is a thousand billion.

In 1957, America had c. 170 million people. In that year, Eisenhower proposed a controversial budget of c. 75 Billion dollars, controversial because it was the largest peace-time budget in American History at that time.

Our population has not quite doubled since 1957.

Today we read that the MAObama budget is c. 4 TRILLION dollars.

Even if you adjust for inflation ($1.00 in 1957 = c. $7.00 today) to make the budget equivalent to 1957 and then adjust it to match population, we should just now be approaching the 800-900 billion level: but that was the budget level of more than 20 years ago.

This is the cause of our anxiety!

1. Term limits are a good idea in theory, but I find them to be awfully opposed to the spirit of federalism. If someone in California wants to keep sending the same idiot to Congress, what right is there for people of other states to tell them this is not allowable.

2. I can certainly agree with bringing an end to gerrymandering

3. I agree that we have a problem with the House of Representatives. It was not the Founders intent that a state would have fewer representatives than senators. But I’m not sure that simply increasing the size of the house would be the way to go. For instance, having each member of the house represent, on average, 150,000 citizens would require almost 1900 representatives. Imagine the madness of there being 2000 electoral votes every presidential election.

4. Some states do base electoral votes on districts won, but I think to require all of them to do so would violate article 2, section 2.

5. I agree yet disagree on states paying house members’ budgets. I agree becasue I don’t want to pay Nancy Pelosi’s $110,000 bar tab. Yet I disagree because doing this would leave House members from smaller, more fiscally conservative states at a disadvantage to states that flush money away, in terms of being able to hire aides and whatnot. Probably better to set limits overall and set explicit rules for what is covered under their budgets. Housing, yes. Bar tabs, no.

6. In this day and age it’s easy enough for minors to be able to vote if they’re not home for whatever reason. This would basically give some people the ability to double vote, since ballots are secret.

7. I could agree to this, insofar as it would give the people of D.C. a voice in the House and Senate, and be one less thing for the Fed to have to concern itself with.

The Founding Fathers said in the U.S. Constitution: “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.”

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 rule) 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, the people had no vote for President in most states, Only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote.

In 1789 only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all rule to award electoral votes.

There is no valid argument that the winner-take-all rule is entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all rule.

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 rule is used by 48 of the 50 states.

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 people vote for President now in all 50 states and have done so in most states for 200 years.

So, the issue raised by the National Popular Vote legislation is not about whether there will be “mob rule” in presidential elections, but whether the “mob” in a handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, get disproportionate attention from presidential candidates, while the “mobs” of the vast majority of states are ignored. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground” states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 “battleground” states.

Article I-Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution specifically permits states enter interstate compacts. In fact, there are hundreds of major compacts currently in force (and thousands of minor ones), as can be seen at
http://www.csg.org/programs/ncic/default.aspx

I tried to reply to one of his posts, and found that clicking on the button simply launched me back to the top of the page.

It similarly occurred when I clicked on any “reply to this” button. Is this a common problem? I’ve noticed it now and then.

#6. For one thing, it could lead to voter fraud, but more importantly, since there is no correlation between having children and being an informed voter, I don’t see what social benefit universal suffrage would confer.

have been ruled unconstitutional.