Look at his face. He's 70.

By the way, my excellent conservatives, can you be against affirmative action and still support the electoral college? Just wondering........

Of course: One violates the Constitution; the other doesn't.

The electoral college protect individual state rights. Eliminating it would entail the Federal government encroaching on individual state rights. It's not going to happen.

Alternatively, a state can by legislation decided to cast their votes according to the national popular vote winner, instead of the state's winner. This would have to be implemented on a state by state basis.

But why would a state want to do that?

It wouldn't infringe on states' rights. The states only have the right because the Constitution grants it to them. A vote by the states to change the Constitution would be a vote to give up that right or modify it in some way. Giving up willingly with a vote is not the same as being infringed upon.

States can decide to allocate in a variety of ways and it's up to state legislatures to make the call. Opponents of splitting EC votes believe it waters down a state's influence, meaning the candidates won't bother to campaign there. If the country were to switch to "majority of the nationwide popular vote wins", then candidates would only need to campaign in urban centers. Or at least that's how the argument goes.

Congress won't have any motivation to tackle EC reform. Changing the Constitution is hard, and for good reason. The system has "worked" most of the time in that there are just a handful of times the popular vote and EC tally didn't match.

Not only that, but in the most recent two examples (Bush-Gore and Trump-Clinton) the party that benefited from the current system was the Republicans. As they have control of Congress, the White House, and more than half the state legislatures, the idea of ditching the EC isn't going anywhere any time soon.

This article gives a bit more history about how we wound up with the EC in the first place, and mentions a way the states could "change" the EC without changing the Constitution.

It would infringe without a constitutional change, which is highly unlikely. And even if it were, it would be on encroachment on their rights. A more pertinent question to ask is why a state would choose to do that.

It seems the centralisation of legislation is also causing a lot of problems. A law that makes perfect sense in an urban city can be totally inappropriate for a small town somewhere. This also causes resentment of the federal government. This contributes to the division of the country. I think that philosophy needs to be called into question. Personally, I'd like communities to have some skin in determining what they need, and states' theirs. I'm not sure that centralised approach is truly popular with rural communities.

Good question, and searching for the answer helped me learn something new today.

Apparently in Maine the tradition goes back to when the state was founded. The EC allocation was changed in 1828 and then the congressional district split reinstated in 1968. Source.

I can't find anything that explains why Nebraska switched its method, just that it did.

It seems that prior to the 20th century, a few states had experimented with varying allocation methods. Source.

Why would a state choose this option today? I'm still chewing on that one.

Actually, that's 100% bass-ackwards. The federal government has only those rights which the constitution gives to it; some rights are recognized therein as belonging to the states, and the rest of the rights are explicitly recognized as belonging to the populace.

But it's a very dangerous way to think if you start saying that the constitution grants rights to parties other than the federal government, because what is granted can then be taken away.

Perhaps a state may feel well represented enough with its issues. They are confident enough. But if you imagine every state turned their electoral vote to the popular winner, then all campaigns will merely focus on the most densely populated areas. Forget campaigning in Idaho, or forget anything they may need altogether. But as it is right now, candidates are compelled to talk to EVERYBODY in ALL states.

I like the democratisation of issues in that regards.

Voting by pure popular vote is a sure way of ignoring issues less represented areas have. A recipe for decimating them and their problems.

Okay, perhaps a states would like the Presidential candidates to get their stinking campaign events out of their state?

Fair enough, that was one of my worst phrasing attempts ever.

Phos said, "Eliminating [the Electoral College] would entail the Federal government encroaching on individual state rights."

What I was trying to say is that

A) It would require a constitutional amendment to get rid of the EC. The federal government can't do this on its own. It can get the ball rolling with 2/3 of each house of Congress voting in favor of the proposal. BUT...

B) In order to ratify any proposed amendment, 3/4 of the states have to approve it.

As such, it's not really accurate (imo) to say the federal government is "infringing upon states' rights" simply because of how the process works. The states have to vote for or against any proposed amendment, so how are they being infringed upon?

Better phrasing? Somehow it still sounds not quite right but hopefully you get what I mean.

That's the idea anyway, but the reality is most of the states are considered predictable. None of the candidates bother with Idaho (for example) because everyone knows the state has a long history of voting Republican. Other states are supposedly reliably for the Democrats. What's left are the purple states that are not consistently red or blue.

Don't get me wrong - I agree with you that a nationwide popular vote method would mean the heartland is neglected and candidate focus would go mostly to big population centers.

I think a lot of people like the idea of being able to meet the future president, but they don't like the incessant TV ads and robo-phone calls for this candidate or against that one. Or the traffic jams that come with having a candidate host a rally in your area. My friends in CO were equal parts happy to have Trump visit yet loathed the inconvenience.

Given the events of last week, I sincerely doubt that many potential 2020 candidates are thinking in those terms anymore.

I agree, and I almost said as much. But my last post was getting rather wordy and my phrasing has been crap today so I left it out.

Are you craving the whistlestop method of old? In light of the blanket coverage in recent years, a candidate saying his piece from the back of a train would be a breath of fresh air.

It's still a contortion of what the US is. Corbets pointed out the flow of rights. There is nothing wrong with the US system in itself, there is something wrong with some of its people. The system doesn't need to change, some people need to change and follow the law.

These kinds of ideas of contorting and manipulating the US system is likely the reason in itself Hillary lost.

Hopefully we can put the Clinton's out to pasture now.
They already enjoying life by walking the dog in the woods.Hopefully they good citizen's and pick up the doggy poo.

Leave Trumpet to "DRAIN THE SWAMP" LOL

I've never liked her, I'd much prefer Colin Powell.

Tom

Doesn't/wouldn't matter, as has just been established it's just worthless campaign talk anyway.

no

no, she already has a lot of baggage.