Should Michigan Join the National Popular Vote For President Compact, & What Are the Implications?

So, there is a national group that has created a way in which the National Popular Vote would determine who become President.  it is supported by members of both Parties.

The way it would work is that when there are States in the compact which have over a majority of the electoral college votes then they would have the EC votes all cast for the national popular vote winner instead of whom they State popular vote elected.

To me there are two issues right off the bat.

1 - This is based on the idea that the State Government can decide, without input from the citizens, who to cast the EC votes for, which is exactly what the Republicans were arguing regarding Trump, and earlier, though few remember, about Florida & Bush.

2 - There are going to be a bunch of very pissed off voters in States where the popular vote doesn't follow the national popular vote.

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/national-popular-vote-president-builds-momentum-michigan

I think the best idea here is to muddy the waters even more than the EC does for sure. Can't see any downside to this at all. America is a stupid country so we should make things more complicated for sure.

Motown Spartan wrote:I think the best idea here is to muddy the waters even more than the EC does for sure. Can't see any downside to this at all. America is a stupid country so we should make things more complicated for sure.

You don't think that accepting a theory of what is Constitutional for the States to do regarding the EC which is exactly what the Republicans want to do in States where the popular vote was Blue but the legislatures are Red won't cause short term issues?

There is a case before tSCOTUS this term which, if ruled in the Republicans favor, would allow all the Republican Legislatures to ignore the States Constitutions and statues, which if in place in 2020 would have caused Trump to be President.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Motown Spartan wrote:I think the best idea here is to muddy the waters even more than the EC does for sure. Can't see any downside to this at all. America is a stupid country so we should make things more complicated for sure.

You don't think that accepting a theory of what is Constitutional for the States to do regarding the EC which is exactly what the Republicans want to do in States where the popular vote was Blue but the legislatures are Red won't cause short term issues?

There is a case before tSCOTUS this term which, if ruled in the Republicans favor, would allow all the Republican Legislatures to ignore the States Constitutions and statues, which if in place in 2020 would have caused Trump to be President.

I know you don't always get sarcasm, but this was sarcasm.

My opinion is that the government has a duty to make the process easier to understand, not more complicated.

I also feel the government's role is to lower the bar for participation so more people feel like they are part of the process, in regards to everything, not just elections.

Straight popular vote and bring on the final death of the republican party.

Motown Spartan wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

You don't think that accepting a theory of what is Constitutional for the States to do regarding the EC which is exactly what the Republicans want to do in States where the popular vote was Blue but the legislatures are Red won't cause short term issues?  

There is a case before tSCOTUS this term which, if ruled in the Republicans favor, would allow all the Republican Legislatures to ignore the States Constitutions and statues, which if in place in 2020 would have caused Trump to be President.

I know you don't always get sarcasm, but this was sarcasm.  

My opinion is that the government has a duty to make the process easier to understand, not more complicated.

I also feel the government's role is to lower the bar for participation so more people feel like they are part of the process, in regards to everything, not just elections.  

Straight popular vote and bring on the final death of the republican party.  

Don't always? /s

Sorry, totally missed it.

It would have been great if the 117th had passed a new voters rights and standardized the districting process for the US House to the CA / MI model.

Changing the Presidential election to a popular vote would probably change the dynamics of the election, but in what way it is hard to say. More GOTV by various parties in districts which strongly support one party would happen. I think.

Ranked voting for all elections is a change I would like to see.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Motown Spartan wrote:

I know you don't always get sarcasm, but this was sarcasm.  

My opinion is that the government has a duty to make the process easier to understand, not more complicated.

I also feel the government's role is to lower the bar for participation so more people feel like they are part of the process, in regards to everything, not just elections.  

Straight popular vote and bring on the final death of the republican party.  

Don't always? /s

Sorry, totally missed it.

It would have been great if the 117th had passed a new voters rights and standardized the districting process for the US House to the CA / MI model.

Changing the Presidential election to a popular vote would probably change the dynamics of the election, but in what way it is hard to say. More GOTV by various parties in districts which strongly support one party would happen. I think.

Ranked voting for all elections is a change I would like to see.

I'm not very smart.

what would 'ranked voting' look like?

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Don't always? /s

Sorry, totally missed it.

It would have been great if the 117th had passed a new voters rights and standardized the districting process for the US House to the CA / MI model.

Changing the Presidential election to a popular vote would probably change the dynamics of the election, but in what way it is hard to say.  More GOTV by various parties in districts which strongly support one party would happen. I think.

Ranked voting for all elections is a change I would like to see.

I'm not very smart.

what would 'ranked voting' look like?

Collectively we are always smarter than individually.

In ranked voting the voter ranks all the candidates by most preferred to least preferred and if no candidate gets over 50% then the one with the fewest votes is dropped and on the ballots where that was the number one choice all the remaining choices are increased one rank.  This goes on until someone has over 50% of the number one rank votes

Alaska & (I think) Maine use it state wide and some cities are using it.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote:
I'm not very smart.

what would 'ranked voting' look like?

Collectively we are always smarter than individually.

In ranked voting the voter ranks all the candidates by most preferred to least preferred and if no candidate gets over 50% then the one with the fewest votes is dropped and on the ballots where that was the number one choice all the remaining choices are increased one rank.  This goes on until someone has over 50% of the number one rank votes

Alaska & (I think) Maine use it state wide and some cities are using it.

I gotcha, thanks.

I had heard of it and was loosely familiar with it, but didn't know the details on how it works.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Collectively we are always smarter than individually.

In ranked voting the voter ranks all the candidates by most preferred to least preferred and if no candidate gets over 50% then the one with the fewest votes is dropped and on the ballots where that was the number one choice all the remaining choices are increased one rank.  This goes on until someone has over 50% of the number one rank votes

Alaska & (I think) Maine use it state wide and some cities are using it.

I gotcha, thanks.

I had heard of it and was loosely familiar with it, but didn't know the details on how it works.

It was the reason that Alaska elected a Blue (pro-fish) US Representative in a Special Election when their old one died. The two Reds running split the vote and enough voters made the Blue their second choice.

https://michiganadvance.com/2023/05/10/michigan-could-join-states-in-the-national-popular-vote-compact-so-what-would-that-mean/

The debate in the legislature continues...

Republicans oppose this and Democratics tend to support this for obvious reasons.

Beyond that, however, is the basic question.

Should the person with the most votes by The People be the President of The United States?

I would rather a system by which the number of EC votes (and therefore the number of representatives) is determined by the state with the lowest population.  Then that number of people would be the number of people per representative district.  That would even out representation more equally and preserve the intentions of the founders that small states don't get pooped on because the small states still get 3 votes.  Right now California, new York, Texas, etc are way way under represented vs montana,  Wyoming, etc.  The people per EC vote in the high pop states are just so much higher clearly showing that something is off here.  So much so it allows for minority rule way way too often.

My opinion is we should preserve the intentions of the founders and keep the EC but tweak it as something is obviously wrong.  Pointless to discuss this though, never going to happen since enough of our politicians don't care about fairness in the least.  This popular vote compact is literally the only way to tweak the EC and even this seems far fetches at the moment since it requires some red states to potentially give up power from the legislature

Trapper Gus wrote:https://michiganadvance.com/2023/05/10/michigan-could-join-states-in-the-national-popular-vote-compact-so-what-would-that-mean/

The debate in the legislature continues...

Republicans oppose this and Democratics tend to support this for obvious reasons.

Beyond that, however, is the basic question.

Should the person with the most votes by The People be the President of The United States?

yes.

sεяεηιτλ wrote:I would rather a system by which the number of EC votes (and therefore the number of representatives) is determined by the state with the lowest population.  Then that number of people would be the number of people per representative district.  That would even out representation more equally and preserve the intentions of the founders that small states don't get pooped on because the small states still get 3 votes.  Right now California, new York, Texas, etc are way way under represented vs montana,  Wyoming, etc.  The people per EC vote in the high pop states are just so much higher clearly showing that something is off here.  So much so it allows for minority rule way way too often.

My opinion is we should preserve the intentions of the founders and keep the EC but tweak it as something is obviously wrong.  Pointless to discuss this though, never going to happen since enough of our politicians don't care about fairness in the least.  This popular vote compact is literally the only way to tweak the EC and even this seems far fetches at the moment.

The ability to actually count votes was much sketcher in 1788, which was part of the reason for the EC.  Now the technology is really good for vote recording and counting, so that 1788 issue no longer exists. The EC was also supposed to ensure a demagogue wouldn't be elected, which Trump showed doesn't work.

I also disagree with those who enshrine the ideas of a bunch of politicians who were creating a document that other politicians at the time would support, and who allowed the leader of the committee who wrote the final document to be a politician who opposed it, and who therefor put as much ambiguity and legal timebombs in its language as possible.

Trapper Gus wrote:

sεяεηιτλ wrote:I would rather a system by which the number of EC votes (and therefore the number of representatives) is determined by the state with the lowest population.  Then that number of people would be the number of people per representative district.  That would even out representation more equally and preserve the intentions of the founders that small states don't get pooped on because the small states still get 3 votes.  Right now California, new York, Texas, etc are way way under represented vs montana,  Wyoming, etc.  The people per EC vote in the high pop states are just so much higher clearly showing that something is off here.  So much so it allows for minority rule way way too often.

My opinion is we should preserve the intentions of the founders and keep the EC but tweak it as something is obviously wrong.  Pointless to discuss this though, never going to happen since enough of our politicians don't care about fairness in the least.  This popular vote compact is literally the only way to tweak the EC and even this seems far fetches at the moment.

The ability to actually count votes was much sketcher in 1788, which was part of the reason for the EC.  Now the technology is really good for vote recording and counting, so that 1788 issue no longer exists. The EC was also supposed to ensure a demagogue wouldn't be elected, which Trump showed doesn't work.

I also disagree with those who enshrine the ideas of a bunch of politicians who were creating a document that other politicians at the time would support, and who allowed the leader of the committee who wrote the final document to be a politician who opposed it, and who therefor put as much ambiguity and legal timebombs in its language as possible.

I don't know, i know it mostly disadvantages me and my views but the idea of giving small states their equal share of power plus a little something extra is not too terrible. I don't want to live in a country that poops on minority populations just because the majority don't see it as necessary. But that's the difference between me and others, I guess.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:https://michiganadvance.com/2023/05/10/michigan-could-join-states-in-the-national-popular-vote-compact-so-what-would-that-mean/

The debate in the legislature continues...

Republicans oppose this and Democratics tend to support this for obvious reasons.

Beyond that, however, is the basic question.

Should the person with the most votes by The People be the President of The United States?

yes.

Yes. Just like every other office in this country. Why is there an exception here? Why is it possible to get the most votes and lose? That's just fucking stupid. This compact is just the most expedient (still not expedient) way to get around the nearly impossible process of abolishing the electoral college.

And of course the R's are against it. They might never win the presidency again without this loophole.

Heat Miser wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote:
yes.

Yes. Just like every other office in this country. Why is there an exception here? Why is it possible to get the most votes and lose? That's just fucking stupid. This compact is just the most expedient (still not expedient) way to get around the nearly impossible process of abolishing the electoral college.

And of course the R's are against it. They might never win the presidency again without this loophole.

I'll never understand why people make things so complicated.

(actually, I do - the powers that be: politicians, mainstream media, corporations, etc., benefit from the chaos so they establish the narrative to engineer the chaos and Americans are too stupid to recognize that).

it's either "yes" or "no".

so, I'll go with "yes" - whoever gets the most vote wins.

Small states already get too much of a concession in the senate, they shouldn’t be allowed the electoral college to further wield undue influence.

For instance, Wyomings total number of votes only accounted for 0.175% of the total votes in the country, while their electoral college share was 0.558% of the total electoral votes. In Michigan, the total number of votes made up 3.50% of the national total but our electoral votes only made up 2.974% of the total electoral votes.

This effectively means that roc has more “say” in who becomes President than I do, which does not make any sense at all.

There should also just be fewer small states. You can’t convince me that we couldn’t survive with Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota all merging to form one large state with still few people in it than average

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:Small states already get too much of a concession in the senate, they shouldn’t be allowed the electoral college to further wield undue influence.

For instance, Wyomings total number of votes only accounted for 0.175% of the total votes in the country, while their electoral college share was 0.558% of the total electoral votes. In Michigan, the total number of votes made up 3.50% of the national total but our electoral votes only made up 2.974% of the total electoral votes.

This effectively means that roc has more “say” in who becomes President than I do, which does not make any sense at all.

There should also just be fewer small states. You can’t convince me that we couldn’t survive with Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota all merging to form one large state with still few people in it than average

Thom Hartman said in one of his columns that some of the states were formed while the Republicans had majorities during and after the War of Rebellion so that Republicians had a majority in the Senate.

In the Senate, other than added states for DC & Puerto Rico, splitting up high population states is something that would help balance Senators per person.

I support the idea that the lowest population state gets one representative and the other districts are based on the state's population.

Popular vote for President / Veep, too.

are against it. They might never win the presidency again without this loophole.

They would.  All the republicans actually have to do to get on solid competitive footing again is move the platform left just enough to capture enough votes to counter demographic shifts.  That's it.  

Politics is fluid, nothing the democrats do will put the republicans away permanently.  If somehow dems took texas, it would get taken right back in fairly quick order as the GOP would easily shift their stances just enough to recapture voters.

So far the GOP's answer to shifting demographics is to find new voters and those new voters are all the crazies, racists, etc.  But there's only so much of them.  Once that clearly stops working they will shift leftward.  they will have to, there's no other option.  And then the parties will be back in a yearly back and forth battle each with about half of the voters voting for them, less the 3rd party folks.

The problem is courting the lunatics and voter suppression has been effective enough to counter the demographic shifts so far, but they are starting to run up against walls in both areas. There's simply not many more a holes to court and voter suppression will only go so far within the confines of the constitution.

sεяεηιτλ wrote:

are against it. They might never win the presidency again without this loophole.

They would.  All the republicans actually have to do to get on solid competitive footing again is move the platform left just enough to capture enough votes to counter demographic shifts.  That's it.  

Politics is fluid, nothing the democrats do will put the republicans away permanently.  If somehow dems took texas, it would get taken right back in fairly quick order as the GOP would easily shift their stances just enough to recapture voters.

So far the GOP's answer to shifting demographics is to find new voters and those new voters are all the crazies, racists, etc.  But there's only so much of them.  Once that clearly stops working they will shift leftward.  they will have to, there's no other option.  And then the parties will be back in a yearly back and forth battle each with about half of the voters voting for them, less the 3rd party folks.

The problem is courting the lunatics and voter suppression has been effective enough to counter the demographic shifts so far, but they are starting to run up against walls in both areas.  There's simply not many more a holes to court and voter suppression will only go so far within the confines of the constitution.

and with gerrymandering, voter suppression and the courts, the GOP has no incentive to broaden their appeal via political platform. They know that victory is within the margins.

if something insane happened.. like "the person with the most votes wins", as you mentioned, they would be forced to rethink their positions, to be more open to change, to actually listen to and value the voice of average Americans and traditional American values. Right now, they have no reason to even consider that, so they just double-down on the hate, the paranoia, the racism, the misogyny and the bigotry.

To me there are the people who vote for Republicans and there are the handful of very wealthy people who tell the Republicans what to do.

As long as they can keep winning elections by rabblerousing, voter suppression & gerrymandering they will not change. Trump, oddly enough, knows a bunch of their goals are not political winners, which is why he lies about what he will do about Social Security & abortion.

Double post on mobile

Trapper Gus wrote:To me there are the people who vote for Republicans and there are the handful of very wealthy people who tell the Republicans what to do.

As long as they can keep winning elections by rabblerousing, voter suppression & gerrymandering they will not change. Trump, oddly enough, knows a bunch of their goals are not political winners, which is why he lies about what he will do about Social Security & abortion.

Agreed, but also I don't think that rabble rousing and voter suppression is a valid long term strategy that will keep winning, that is in our current system. It could, of course, keep winning if they got their way and stopped pretending they believe in this country, its ideals and the constitution (admittedly a distinct possibility these days). I hope they make the right decision and decide to be american again. I hope they hit a wall in being unable to pick up more voters and just start losing everything. Then and only then we will see things start to shift and work as they were meant to. Everything since Obama was elected was a backlash doing everything humanly possible to avoid having to shift the party stance leftward as the "average" feelings of the voting populace slowly shifted left.

sεяεηιτλ wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:To me there are the people who vote for Republicans and there are the handful of very wealthy people who tell the Republicans what to do.

As long as they can keep winning elections by rabblerousing, voter suppression & gerrymandering they will not change. Trump, oddly enough, knows a bunch of their goals are not political winners, which is why he lies about what he will do about Social Security & abortion.

Agreed, but also I don't think that rabble rousing and voter suppression is a valid long term strategy that will keep winning, that is in our current system. It could, of course, keep winning if they got their way and stopped pretending they believe in this country, its ideals and the constitution (admittedly a distinct possibility these days). I hope they make the right decision and decide to be american again. I hope they hit a wall in being unable to pick up more voters and just start losing everything. Then and only then we will see things start to shift and work as they were meant to. Everything since Obama was elected was a backlash doing everything humanly possible to avoid having to shift the party stance leftward as the "average" feelings of the voting populace slowly shifted left.

The gerrymandering has been highly successful, they have had a huge advantage in the House & in the states which don't have fair districts in the state legislatures because of it, which is providing them with the power to "shape the battlefield" in many places. As an example, if the state judge in New York hadn't overruled the districts there the Democratic Party probably would still be in the majority in the US House, but one Conservative Judge was all it took.

Voter suppression won the 2000 Presidential election, along with a corrupt Supreme Court, and is hamstringing the Democratic voters in most of the Republican controlled states, that isn't going to change.

Rabblerousing is a time-honored method of getting votes, and one of the weaknesses of a democratic system. Today is is racist attacks, tomorrow it will be something else, it will never disappear.

Minnesota just joined!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/24/2170215/-Minnesota-joins-alliance-to-elect-president-by-popular-vote-adding-new-momentum-to-campaign

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1666114197313269760