National Popular Vote. What's the downside?

[Red_Wiggler]

The explanations for retaining the Electoral College stopped making sense decades ago. It has long outlived its usefulness.

[Zebra]

The downside would be that everyone in the country would be subject to all the political ads instead of just the swing states.

[Hari_Seldon]

And wait, just wait, for the day that no candidate has a majority. The congressional delegations of 2/3 of the states will have to agree on a candidate. Since the senate need only a simple majority from among the top 2, they will presumably elect a vice-president who, lacking a president, will become president (at least acting president). Face it, the current system is fucked.

[Der_Trihs]

@Omar_Little

This would be one more step toward elimination individual State’s rights.

Since in practice that amounts to the protection of ignorant, bigoted laws and behavior that’s a net benefit. “State’s Rights” are routinely ignored when a state is trying something good.

@Crafter_Man

Then we may as well do away with the U.S. Senate.

Fine by me.

[drewtwo99]

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a very clever way of working within the framework and the constitution to award electoral votes in a way that guarantees that the winner of the popular vote always becomes president. It does not subvert the electoral college OR the constitution in any way.

That being said, the main flaw with it is that states will be awarding their electoral votes based on the results of 49 elections of the other states that they had no control over. So, it kind of stinks from that perspective.

I feel like the absolute best thing to do would be to just amend the constitution so that the federal government is in charge of all federal elections (senators, representatives, and president), and they can work alongside state governments to implement national voting standards.

Because in reality, it’s a sad state of affairs that we really don’t just have one election for president… in fact, we don’t even really have 50… we have tens of thousands of elections all being run by different counties, with different standards, partisan elected officials running them, different methods of casting votes… and it’s just very scary honestly.

[Projammer]

@Hari_Seldon

And wait, just wait, for the day that no candidate has a majority. The congressional delegations of 2/3 of the states will have to agree on a candidate. Since the senate need only a simple majority from among the top 2, they will presumably elect a vice-president who, lacking a president, will become president (at least acting president). Face it, the current system is fucked.

There is no requirement that a candidate have more than a 50% majority, just more than any other individual candidate.

So if somehow there were three strong candidates scoring 20%, 30%, and 40% of the popular vote with the remaining 10% spread among several independents, the 40% candidate will receive the EC votes of the compact states giving him or her the majority needed to win the POTUS race.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Blaster_Master

It forces other issues that might otherwise be ignored to be considered. If we had a national popular vote, generally the only issues that will need to be addressed are the issues that most affect the prime demographics, issues related to taxes, entitlements, foreign relations, all of that. We could very well have elections that ignore significant demographics and other major issues. For instance, Virginia is a swing state, and some of the major issues here are defense spending, transportation, and energy. Besides just benefitting Virginians by getting issues we care about addressed, it helps all of the country by getting a broader picture of the candidate and those issues affect a lot of other areas too. Without being forced to focus on those issues, I could very well see the presidential elections focused almost entirely on taxes, health care, and job creation.

Or consider ethanol, an issue that’s just a BAD IDEA from every perspective except from the perspective of propping up a swing state’s economy. With a popular vote, we wouldn’t have politicians bowing down before the ethanol issue. But the electoral college allows stupid minor issues like this to become important.

You seem to suggest that having candidates focus on the issues that are important to people across the country is a bad thing. Nate Silver mentioned yesterday (I think) how little attention issues like urban renewal get in national elections, because the states with the largest cities tend not to be swing states. In other words, because an issue is one of importance to so many people, it doesn’t get addressed.

That doesn’t fit my idea of “nifty.”

Electoral College will also generally increase the value of one’s vote. There was a good thread about this, I think 2 years ago, but I’m too lazy to look it up. Basically, in a national election, I’m one vote in 360M votes. Whereas, in my state, I’m in a smaller pool, so I have a greater chance of affecting the Electoral Votes for my state and, thus, a greater chance of having some impact on the total election. Of course, in practice one might argue that this isn’t true in some states that are pretty solidly Republican or Democratic, but that’s not really any different than how it would be in a national election.

No, it’s totally different. In a popular vote, my vote will count for something like a 150 millionth of the total. In the current system, my vote count for something like nothing: my state is going to Romney, so what I think doesn’t matter. And I’m in a possible (barely) swing state: someone in New York or California or Texas gets zero love. Why try to seek the votes of people when you know for certain how their states’ votes will go?

I understand the initial justification for the Electoral College, just like I understand the initial justification for the 3/5 compromise. Neither one has any place in our modern society.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have it’s issues. It certainly does confuse a lot of people. There’s always the issue of unfaithful electors. I’m just not sure that the issues it has outweigh the benefits, including the issues of states’ rights, to make the costs of switching worthwhile.
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