On Wed, 03 May 2006 15:10:41 -0400 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 02:29 PM 5/3/2006, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>
>> Presently, with a couple small state exceptions, each state awards all its
>> votes to the candidate doing best in that state.
>
>
> Yes.
>
>> Above you propose one state volunteering to award its votes based on a
>> formula that could cause the winner to change from the candidate that that
>> state's voters voted for to a different candidate.
>
>
> Yes.
>
>> I would not expect any state to volunteer to obey such a formula.
>
>
> Such an action could be favored by a majority of voters in the state.
> Not in all states. I would not expect states where this was not true to
> adopt the reform easily.
HOW do you get a majority of voters in a state to volunteer to let anyone
other than whoever they voted for become winner???
>
> Note that there is a current reform movement that would do exactly this,
> it's been getting quite a bit of press, and it has Republican and
> Democratic politicians behind it. This is a similar proposal, but it
> basically bypasses the electoral college as a true part of the process;
> if successful, the college would become a rubber stamp for the popular
> vote. Almost always.
To change the law for the whole nation is a possibility - assuming a
sensible proposal can be agreed to.
Also leads to MASS RECOUNTING anytime you get near a tie.
>
> This other proposal has a state decide to select its electors as pledged
> to vote according to the national popular vote.
>
> The problem with a single state reforming to select electors
> proportionally to the vote is that this could have the effect of
> awarding the election to a candidate who was *not* the popular vote
> winner. This has been the big obstacle.
>
> Both my proposed reform and the currently active reform movement
> (essentially a compact between states, to become effective when enough
> states have joined such that a majority of electors will be so
> generated) involve using the pledged elector system -- clearly
> constitutional -- to eliminate the widely acknowledged inequity in the
> existing system.
>
> So what if some states resist? *All it takes is enough states to create
> an electoral college majority.*
>
> And the reform under way, in some senses, is better than what I
> proposed: it is fine-grained, since it produces an election result
> without depending on state electoral college assignments.
>
> What remains, however, is what happens if the electors actually have to
> vote; for example, the winner dies before the election. Who would they
> vote for? Or the popular vote is unclear. How would the electors
> determine the vote.
>
> A good initiative would consider all these things. My preference is to
> keep the deliberative College as it was designed. Among other things,
> the College could create Condorcet results, properly constituted. But
> that's also possible in this popular reform, for how the winner of the
> popular vote is determined might not be the simpleplurality winner. What
> if overvoting were allowed and the winner were the plurality winner
> under those circumstances? But I'm not sure it would be tactically worth
> complicating things at this point. The point is that what has
> traditionally been considered politically impossible, reforming the
> College, actually could be relatively easy. "Relatively" is used advisedly.
You write "initiative" as an available tool. Where is this true?
>
> It is not at all clear which party, if any, would be favored by this
> change. Many of the sponsors are Republicans.... but I don't think this
> means that they think it would favor their party.
>
>> What I see below is mechanics of such volunteering, but nothing convincing
>> as to what would get a state to agree to do it.
>
>
> As an initiative, a majority of voters could implement it. This would be
> easier if a majority of voters were affiliated with other than the
> plurality party, which situation does exist in some states. And because,
> as constituted, the reforms do not injure the popular vote winner, many
> supporters of the majority party might approve of it as well. It's not
> really against their party, it is only against candidates winning who
> did not win the popular vote.
>
> It's actually pretty clear, Dave. Please tell me why, if you think it is
> the case, a state, under the conditions I mentioned, would *not* want to
> implement this?
>
> Remember the conditions under which it would make a difference: A
> candidate wins in the state, but loses in the popular vote. A candidate
> might be winning in the state with less than a majority of the popular
> vote, easily. And quite possibly a majority of voters would prefer the
> alternate winner, who only lost in that state because of vote-splitting.
>
> There is no reason to suppose that this would injure a particular party,
> and it would be done long in advance of an actual election.
>
>
>> There is a difference:
>> A candidate campaigns promising actions if elected - trouble enough,
>> but there can be hope.
>> An elector campaigns claiming to know how to select a satisfactory
>> candidate - making it even more difficult for the voter to sort out
>> getting the best candidate via picking an elector.
>
>
> An elector need not make campaign promises at all. The idea elector is
> simply someone who is widely considered trustworthy. Dave's thinking
> here is based on the idea that the voter is trying to determine,
> directly, the ultimate outcome. But that is actually an impossible goal.
> Determining a member of the set of people who then determine the winner
> is a more realizable goal.
How, other than campaigning, does a voter sort out which elector
candidates qualify as "trustworthy"?
>
> I actually think that candidates would make good electors. What if
> candidates could directly receive a state's electoral votes, as
> electors? (This would mean that non-state residents would have to be
> eligible, and it would mean that a single person might be exercising
> more than one state's votes, but it would solve this alleged "sorting
> out" problem. Vote for the candidate you prefer, your vote will not be
> wasted!
>
>
>
>> Another detail [in the original conception] is that it WAS NOT
>> POSSIBLE for candidates to have the
>> contact with the voters that is now expected.
>
>
> What a joke! How much contact does, say, GW Bush have with me? This
> "contact" is an illusion, a one-way presentation of a carefully crafted
> image....
Whatever you call it, Bush has a lot more possibilities than Thomas
Jefferson could possibly manage.
>
> If you actually use the College, the College could meet with the
> candidates, face-to-face. It could interview them. I think one of the
> basic defects in our democracy is the lack of deliberative process in
> elections...
This use of the college is what would have been possible per the
Constitution - even candidates meeting with electors in multiple places.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
If you want peace, work for justice.
----
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