Which can only be done through the amendment process, unless they all spontaneously decide to go with one of the other means of assigning EC votes available to them. Like Maine and Nebraska have.

I know that the current design is that it is the states, not the populace that votes. I think it’s time that it was changed to whatever degree is possible.

What most people who want to change the system overall (as compared to just changing one or two of the bigger states to favor their party) desire is to shift the presidential electoral system partially or wholly to a direct-popular-election model. Which means a very fundamental change in our two-century-plus system of federal government, one that would diminish the power of both the state legislatures and that of all but the few largest states. Namely a change from a federal republic to a direct democracy.

Which is why it won’t happen. It would disadvantage more states than it would advantage, and the power to make the changes is entirely in the hands of the state legislatures. Which was the purpose of setting it up that way in the first place, to keep the few and the large from imposing their will on the many and the small. Kinda like the Bill of Rights, that.

That reasoning still applies, even if the particulars have changed over the last couple of hundred years. To protect the “little guys” in the community of states, and to impede the tendency of direct democracies to stampede about with the passions of the moment. Like, say, France after the 1789 revolution.

Just because the current system is messy doesn’t mean that the alternatives might not be worse.

Legalese is used as often ot obfuscate a principle as to clarify it.

This shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but one of principle.

That some states got away with doing this just shows hoe the letter of the law can be used to twist the meaning of the law. It woudl be a bad mistake, IMo, to have a mish-masy of rules among the states allowing variously defined electorate votes determine the final tally.,

If there is to be a change, it should be a uniform change for all states. Then, at leat, we would know want ‘elecotorate vote’ means.

Unless a mind reader is doing the analysis, there is no way to distinguish betwee real and ‘faux outrage,
and judgments like that seem rather ‘faux’ in themselves. There may just be folks who feel real outrage at both political moves.
The disgutst with minipulation by refistricting, for example, is beginning to get a lot of criticism from
Citizen groups independent of political parties.

In this case, it’s legimiate to ask is it’s oksy
for out-of-state entities to be on the steering
committe of in-state initiatives?

What if a private zillionaire from Floriada bankrolls a campaign to change state law in Oregon? Shouldn’t that be a factor for consideration?

Neither can be implemented on a national level save by Constitutional amendment, which isn’t going to happen. Any state legislature that wishes could implement either on their own. (Indeed, both Maine and Nebraska have already done so, awarding the Senate EC votes to the state winner, and the House EC votes to the district winners.)

The thing people like to ignore is that we don’t really vote for President. States vote for President, by constitutional design. What we vote on is who to tell the state EC delegation to vote for. The Founder’s reasons for that layered construction remain valid–namely, to help keep the more populous states from riding roughshod over the less populous ones.

But how to select those state delegates to the EC remains the exclusive right of the state legislature, per Article II, § 1 of the Constitution. The only way to change that from the national level is to change the Constitution. Otherwise it’s state by state or not at all.

Just like the previous California Democrat’s proposal to award all of the state’s electoral votes to the national popular vote leader regardless of the Claifornia winner, or the Colorado Democrat’s attempt with Amendment 36 to award their votes based on the proportional results of the state, this proposal was a non-starter at the polls.

I’d love to see Joe’s headline style translated over to the Hsu affair. “Hillary/Obama Fundraiser Behind $70 million Pyramid Scam!” Have fun with it.

This “revelation” probably didn’t surprise anyone. I don’t think anyone awake really ever though the proposal was really a disinterested move. If the democrats did it in Texas they would be accurately accused of wanting it only for their own gain.

Parties wanting the best for their party and not necessarily the best for the country….yeah BIG surprise.

kind of like “support the troops”, right? – let’s try and rig the rules of an election and call it democracy!! brilliant logic!

Since the Repubican Party in California is irrelevant to the political process and will never be the majority party again, the effect of the initiative in California is also irrelevant. Of course, this means that neither party will spend a single dollar during the 2008 election in California because it is an automatic win for the Democratic Party.

Much like out-of-state developers finance ‘public’ proposition drives in a state where they currently neither live nor operate, out-of-state politiacal operatives back pollcy initiatives.

It’s hard to tell what states rights or state laws mean anyomore.