Saturday, April 6, 2019

Four Question for Those Who Oppose the Electoral College; What the Electoral College Saves Us From


R. E. Bowse  "Have you heard?  The Electoral College is bad.  Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and others support its abolition.  On March 28, Delaware became the thirteenth state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) in which members agree to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote.  The compact goes into effect only when the combined number of electoral votes of member states reaches 270, assuring their candidate victory. Legislation affixing New Mexico to the NPVIC sits on the desk of Governor Michelle Grisham (D). She's expected to sign it, giving the coalition 189 votes."
"The debate surrounding this issue is another example of proponents avoiding the salient points.  I pose the following four questions to those would undo the electoral college system, with the goal of promoting clarity and focusing on the nub of the matter."
  1. If you support the direct democracy of a popular vote system, do you also reject republicanism as our form of government? . . .
  2. If you reject the notion of disproportional representation, do you reject the institution of the U.S. Senate? . . .
  3. Parity between the states was key to ratification.  Does parity not matter anymore? . . .
  4. Is a popular vote system a cure for the disease? . . .
What the Electoral College Saves Us From"The winner of a national office should have nationwide support" . . .
. . . As with all such enthusiasms — expanding the Supreme Court, abolishing the filibuster and the Senate itself, lowering the voting age to 16, letting convicted felons and illegal aliens vote, adding D.C. and Puerto Rico as states, automatic voter registration, abolishing voter ID, etc. — the scarcely concealed argument is that changing the rules will help Democrats and progressives win more.
. . . "Picture a two-candidate election with 2016’s turnout. The Republican wins 54 percent of the vote in 48 states, losing only California, New York, and D.C. That’s a landslide victory, right? But then imagine that the Republican nominee who managed this feat was so unpopular in California, New York, and D.C. that he or she loses all three by a 75 percent–to–25 percent margin. That 451–87 landslide in the Electoral College, built on eight-point wins in 48 states, would also be a popular-vote defeat, with 50.7 percent of the vote for the Democrat to 49.3 percent for the Republican. Out of a total of about 137 million votes, that’s a popular-vote margin of victory of 1.95 million votes for a candidate who was decisively rejected in 48 of the 50 states." . . .

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