The Electoral College

[CarlSpackler]

I had a thought this morning. Since this is spelled out in the Article II of the Constitution, would it not take a constitutional amendment to change it?

Quote

Article II (Article 2 - Executive)

Section 1

1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

3: The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

...

p.s. - I wish they knew how to spell choose. 

[Golfingdad]

54 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

I had a thought this morning. Since this is spelled out in the Article II of the Constitution, would it not take a constitutional amendment to change it?

To go to a straight popular vote, probably.  But many here were just suggesting that a fairly equivalent workaround would be to just apportion the electoral votes accordingly instead of going winner-take-all in each state, and that seems to be something that each state gets to decide for themselves.

[CarlSpackler]

8 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

To go to a straight popular vote, probably.  But many here were just suggesting that a fairly equivalent workaround would be to just apportion the electoral votes accordingly instead of going winner-take-all in each state, and that seems to be something that each state gets to decide for themselves.

I'm sticking with the notion in the OP that each person's vote carries the exact same weight towards electing POTUS. 

[jamo]

1 hour ago, CarlSpackler said:

I had a thought this morning. Since this is spelled out in the Article II of the Constitution, would it not take a constitutional amendment to change it?

p.s. - I wish they knew how to spell choose. 

Article II Section I only requires that electors be selected. It doesn't say how electors are to vote. The states each have laws specifying how the electors are to vote (which is why Nebraska and Maine are able to divide their electors up by district). The proposal most people have talked about is National Popular Vote, which is specifically designed to not require a Constitutional amendment, as it would only require states to change their own laws that determine how electors are to vote. Under the NPV, the winner of the national popular vote would win the electoral college 538-0 because every elector (assuming every state passes it) would be required to vote the way of the national vote.

It should also, I think, be noted that the way we elect the president currently is different from how the framers designed it. Both Hamilton and Madison were quite adamant that the general population would elect the electors - a sort of political elite who would deliberate and then cast the deciding votes for president (read Federalist 68 if you get the chance). Instead, we cast votes state by state for the president, and each state's electors are bound to vote the will of their state's people.

[Golfingdad]

16 minutes ago, jamo said:

... and each state's electors are bound to vote the will of their state's people.

Although only 24 states have laws that would punish electors who might chuse  to vote for somebody other than they pledged or to abstain ...

Quote

Faithlessness[edit]

Main article: Faithless elector

A faithless elector is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than the person pledged or does not vote for any person. Twenty-four states have laws to punish faithless electors. In 1952, the constitutionality of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952). The Court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as removing electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a functionary of the state, not the federal government. Therefore, states have the right to govern electors. The constitutionality of state laws punishing electors for actually casting a faithless vote, rather than refusing to pledge, has never been decided by the Supreme Court. While many only punish a faithless elector after-the-fact, states like Michigan also specify that the faithless elector's vote be voided.^[50]

As electoral slates are typically chosen by the political party or the party's presidential nominee, electors usually have high loyalty to the party and its candidate: a faithless elector runs a greater risk of party censure than criminal charges.

Faithless electors have not changed the outcome of any presidential election to date. For example, in 2000 elector Barbara Lett-Simmons of Washington, D.C. chose not to vote, rather than voting for Al Gore as she had pledged to do. This was done as an act of protest against Washington, D.C.'s lack of congressional voting representation.^[51] That elector's abstention did not change who won that year's presidential election, as George W. Bush received a majority (271) of the electoral votes.

 

[colin007]

18 minutes ago, jamo said:

 each state's electors are bound to vote the will of their state's people.

 

they are?  i thought they were just "supposed" to, but that nothing was actually binding them to that promise.

[CarlSpackler]

27 minutes ago, colin007 said:

 

they are?  i thought they were just "supposed" to, but that nothing was actually binding them to that promise.

You might be thinking of GOP/DNC convention delegates. 

[toto]

On 10/25/2016 at 5:53 AM, newtogolf said:

While it's different, what's the harm is apportioning the electoral college votes based on percentages of popular vote.  Why wouldn't we want our states electoral college votes to reflect the true desire of the people?  

Although the whole-number proportional approach might initially seem to offer the possibility of making every voter in every state relevant in presidential elections, it would not do this in practice. It certainly would be rare to mathematically accurately reflect the "true desire of the people" 

 in each state. In states with 3 electoral votes, 

one electoral vote would correspond to a 33.33%-share of the popular vote. 

The whole number proportional system sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives.

 

It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;

 

It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant), and

It would not make every vote equal.

 

It would not guarantee the Presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country.

                                       

A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.

[Golfingdad]

33 minutes ago, colin007 said:

they are?  i thought they were just "supposed" to, but that nothing was actually binding them to that promise.

Colin, I think I answered your question right before you asked it.   Look up!!! 

6 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

You might be thinking of GOP/DNC convention delegates. 

 

[jamo]

38 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Although only 24 states have laws that would punish electors who might chuse  to vote for somebody other than they pledged or to abstain ...

 

I read that Wikipedia page too.

I think the others are just strongly encouraged. There have been a few over the years that have gone against what they were supposed to do. (See the "Faithless Elector" Wikipedia page. )

[ghalfaire]

1 hour ago, Golfingdad said:

To go to a straight popular vote, probably.  But many here were just suggesting that a fairly equivalent workaround would be to just apportion the electoral votes accordingly instead of going winner-take-all in each state, and that seems to be something that each state gets to decide for themselves.

It would still take a Constitutional Amendment to force the states to assign electors in proportion to the popular vote.  Two states already do it this way. 

Losing the Presidency while winning the popular vote has only happened four times in our history.  In my life time there has only been one instance I can think of where the Electoral College vote was in opposition to the national popular vote.  That was 2000 Bush V Gore and Gore won the popular vote, arguably, by a razor thin margin.

Not advocating here but we are not a democracy in the United States.   The system of Government is a Constitutional Republic where representatives are democratically elected.  The initial intent of the founders was to limit the Federal Government powers and to ensure all government powers not enumerated in the Constitution were reserved to the individual states.  So I have to believe that the Electoral College is so that the individual states elect the President and not the people directly and that was probably the intent of the founders.  Whether that is good or not I'll defer to another thread if someone starts one.

[Golfingdad]

22 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

It would still take a Constitutional Amendment to force the states to assign electors in proportion to the popular vote.  Two states already do it this way. 

To force them, yeah, I could see that it would take an amendment.  However, since two already do it their own way, and given the support for the NPV bill I've learned about here, its pretty clear that the states could already change if they wanted to without an amendment.  

[ghalfaire]

1 hour ago, Golfingdad said:

To force them, yeah, I could see that it would take an amendment.  However, since two already do it their own way, and given the support for the NPV bill I've learned about here, its pretty clear that the states could already change if they wanted to without an amendment.  

I haven't seen any polls on this (NPV bill) or even a lot of national discussion.

[iacas]

11 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

I haven't seen any polls on this (NPV bill) or even a lot of national discussion.

11 states have enacted it into law… including California.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com

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The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions possessing 165 electoral votes—61% of the 270 electoral votes necessary to activate it, including four small jurisdictions (RI, VT, HI, DC), three medium- size states (MD, MA, WA), and four big states (NJ, IL, NY, CA). The bill has passed a total of 33 legislative chambers in 22 states—most recently by a bipartisan 40–16 vote in the Arizona House, a 28–18 vote in the Oklahoma Senate, a 57–4 vote in New York Senate, and a 37–21 vote in Oregon House.

So I think that's what he means by "support."

[ghalfaire]

5 hours ago, iacas said:

11 states have enacted it into law… including California.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com

So I think that's what he means by "support."

I would say that is support.  But the term "bill" and "jurisdiction" confused me I guess.  Whoever authors a "bill" usually intends for it to become law.  But in this case such a law would be unconstitutional.  But all of the states could adopt such a method if they choose.  I did know some of our population would, or at least think they would, like to see the President directly elected by direct popular vote.  There are pros and cons to the argument.  From our history I'd say little would change. 

[jamo]

4 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

I would say that is support.  But the term "bill" and "jurisdiction" confused me I guess.  Whoever authors a "bill" usually intends for it to become law.  But in this case such a law would be unconstitutional.  But all of the states could adopt such a method if they choose.  I did know some of our population would, or at least think they would, like to see the President directly elected by direct popular vote.  There are pros and cons to the argument.  From our history I'd say little would change. 

Why would it be unconstitutional?

[colin007]

9 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Colin, I think I answered your question right before you asked it.   Look up!!! 

 

Good call! Bad timing on my part, thanks! 

[ghalfaire]

11 hours ago, jamo said:

Why would it be unconstitutional?

Because it is in the Constitution left to the states as to how their electoral college representatives are apportioned.  so having a federal law that requires they be proportioned consistent with the popular vote in the state would be a violation of the states right.