Let's throw out the Electoral College

I’m pretty excited about the possibility of this because we don’t need the Electoral College. Both houses of the New York legislature voted to join a multi-state compact to ensure the person who received the most votes in the presidential election would become President of the United States. As we all know the Electoral College enables a person who loses the popular vote to win because of Electoral votes. This has happened four times in the history of the US. Ian Millhiser wrote about it for ThinkProgress.

The bill is waiting for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature, which would add New York to an agreement to award the state’s electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote of the nation as a while regardless of who wins the popular vote in New York. This compact does not take effect until a bloc of states totally 270 electoral votes (the total needed to win the Electoral College) agrees to sign on. The compact will end the risk that the losing candidate will become president.

If the bill is signed it will bring the compact’s total to 160. The idea behind this is candidates have no incentive to campaign in some states, while other swing states (Ohio) get all the attention. Of course, most of the states that have signed on to this compact have been blue state instead of red states. Oklahoma is the first state that leans Republican to come to the compact.

I think we should throw out the Electoral College because it is condescending and as far as I’m concerned continues to keep the powerful in power. That said, I wonder about the implications for funding, specifically whether people with a lot of private funding (their own funds for example) will have better luck campaign in every state, which would now be necessary. Then again, the only people who ever win elections are from the upper class so this probably won’t matter anyway.

In Ohio no Electoral College changes for now

Henry J. Gomez, for the Plain Dealer, had the story. Jon Husted, who is still Ohio’s Secretary of State by the way, is back peddling on his comments about Ohio awards electoral votes. He claims these statements were misinterpreted. Ohio Republicans seem to be backing away from the GOP's “WE NEEDS TO FIX THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE OR THE DEMOCRATS WILL KEEP WINNING” effort.

Spokespeople for Gov. John Kasich, State Senate President Keith Faber, and House Speaker William G. Batchelder claim they are not pursing plans at award electoral votes proportionally by congressional district. Batchelder’s communication’s director went further to say he “is not supportive of such a move.” Husted claims he is also not in favor of such a move, and via a phone interview, “Nobody in Ohio is advocating this.”

Ohio like all but two states, awards all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote. The idea is that President Obama won the popular vote in Ohio by a large margin, but because of gerrymandering Republicans control most of the congressional districts. So Romney could have won a majority of the state’s 18 electoral votes, maybe up to 12. The gerrymandering was done by the Republicans to give themselves an advantage.

Most proponents of proportional allocations of electoral votes focus on the swing states with large electoral counts, that happen to have been won by President Obama twice, and have Republican leadership (totes a coincidence guys).

Ken Blackwell, Ohio’s former secretary of state, is one of the GOP activists pushing for electoral changes. Blackwell is very concerned about the small states who don’t have a lot of electoral votes. Because they are ignored you guys.

Dems see all this as a ploy the GOP is trying to steal elections because the gerrymandering isn’t working as well as they thought. But Dems are also seeing the dollar signs.

State Sen. Nina Turner, who I love, wrote an email blast on Monday asking for donations to the Ohio Democratic Party’s Election Watch Fund, “You know how they gerrymandered the congressional maps in Ohio and across the country? It allowed them to seize the majority in the US House, even though Democrats won the popular vote. Now, they want to do the same thing to the presidency by trying the Electoral College votes to their rigged congressional maps.”

This is all coming to public discourse because Virginia’s legislature has introduced legislation to award electoral votes by congressional district, but even Gov. Bob McDonnell (the Gov. who still requires unnecessary, unfunded medical procedures before abortions, but did away with the state sanctioned rape provision) came out against it. So it will probably fail.

So what are the remarks Husted is backing away from? Husted made remarks last November at Impact Ohio, a post-election conference sponsored by the state democratic and Republican parties. Husted allegedly suggested proportional allocation would end the hyperpartisan scrutiny over Ohio elections. He said according to the audio recording, “It would not be a winner-take-all state, and you would not have another elections controversy about Ohio because we wouldn’t matter as much anymore.”

Democrats smelted blood, and Husted claimed to be speaking hypothetically. Someone fire him this year; it isn't like he values elections anyway. Seriously, he is more detrimental to the Republicans in Ohio than anyone else.  Blackwell hasn’t yet lobbied Ohio leaders to change their allocation of electoral votes. Republicans are expected to include election issues this year, including redistricting.

I’m in favor of Electoral College reform, but I think it should be the popular vote. One vote for every person, everyone’s vote counts. The inclusion of all ballots and severe action against those would prevent individuals from voting (I’m looking at you Husted). I would also argue against the residency requirement because it disenfranchises the homeless. You should just demonstrate you are resident of the state you are voting in and that is all, no street address required.