So When Exactly will we get around to Abolishing the Electoral College?

[tomhagen]

Unless we want to lose another Election

[Gothmog]

1. Abolishing the electoral college is a good idea

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. It will take a Constitutional amendment.

So "we" won't be doing it. Amendment proposals may be adopted and sent to the states for ratification by either a two-thirds vote of members present in both the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States Congress; or a two-thirds vote of a national convention called by Congress at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds of the states. (This method has never been used.)

[still_one]

5. It baffles me that these "eliminate the electoral college" threads that pop up periodically, tend to

ignore the process that would be involved to do that.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Lots of people don't know much about how our government works.

Even on DU.

[still_one]

12. I guess so. You explained the process beautifully

[WinstonSmith4740]

19. Actually, no it won't.

Mvymvy summed it up in a later post in this thread. We're actually over 60% there. It's in states legislatures now. I live in Nevada, and we've already signed off on the process. Basically, the states pledge their votes to whoever wins the popular vote nationally.

And let's hope they DON'T call for a Constitutional Convention...those bastards could re-write the entire Constitution.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. The problem is that so far the states that have signed on

or are close to doing so are almost all blue states. The red states have no incentive to do it.

[rpannier]

22. Nice post

I was gonna say 'Never'
Wyoming, Delaware, the Dakotas, Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont, NH and many others won't stand for it

[democratisphere]

3. The Electoral College will be eliminated when hell freezes over.

[Mr.Bill]

14. Right after the federal government

legalizes marijuana.

Not in my lifetime.

Not in my children's lifetime.

Not in my grandchildren's lifetime.

[Salviati]

4. When the latinx vote turns Texas blue.

[Va Lefty]

9. No Texas won't be winner take all anymore

they will go to one electoral vote/congressional district

[Salviati]

13. Yeah, that's probably more likely

With heavily gerrymandered districts, of course.

[Deb]

6. When one State becomes more important than another

[randr]

7. As soon as we decide to end the grading curve that allows the "slow" kids to pass.

[BarbD]

10. We couldn't even ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

So, how could we hope to pass this constitutional amendment? We need to work around it.

[sandensea]

11. Not in our lifetimes, unfortunately.

It's too useful to the GOP and their Benedict Arnold backers.

[J_William_Ryan]

15. The peril of unintended consequences.

Amend the Constitution to eliminate the EC and Republicans will start winning the popular vote when the Democrat would have won if the EC were still in place.

[BigmanPigman]

16. Al Gore mentioned this on Bill Maher last week and it doesn't take an amendment.

I forget how he said it could be done but Robert Reich explained how to do it many months ago too. It CAN be done, however it WON'T be done since we don't have control of anything anymore.

[mvymvy]

17. The National Popular Vote Bill

The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
Candidates, as in other elections, would allocate their time, money, polling, organizing, and ad buys roughly in proportion to the population

Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting, crude, and divisive and red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes, that don’t represent any minority party voters within each state.
No more handful of 'battleground' states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

In 2017, the bill has passed the New Mexico Senate and Oregon House.
The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 35 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 261 electoral votes.
The bill has been enacted by 11 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the way to guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country

NationalPopularVote

[BigmanPigman]

18. So does that mean 15 more states need to enact it?

How does this get done by 2020? Do you know which states still need to pass it and what their current status is?

[mvymvy]

20. Needs States with 105 more electoral votes

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

The bill in 2017 has passed in the New Mexico Senate and Oregon House.
It was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 35 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Maryland (11), California (55), Massachusetts (10), New York (29), Vermont (3), Rhode Island (4), and Washington (13). These 11 jurisdictions have 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

[BigmanPigman]

23. Thanks!