No Electoral College Critics - More Big States Were Slave States
No group writes more hysterical comments than supporters of abolishing the electoral college (see our piece in the Hill with 6,225 shares from April and the piece that brought more than 1000 comments in the first couple of hours.)
I know critics often post stream of conscience comments without researching, but many could have saved themselves from their embarrassing argument which I paraphrase as: Those who support the electoral college are siding with the 18th century small slave holding states that forced the Electoral College on the large non-slave states. Correcting their mistake before posting would have only required two quick google searches:
First, click on 270 to Win and go to the first election where each state's electors were counted (right image), then click on the image on Wiki's history of slavery (left image).
1. If those who side with 18th century small states AGAINST large states are racists, then ...
Alice in Wonderland. Comments intended to shame supporters of the electoral college by saying they are employing the arguments of the small slave states who put the Electoral College in place to stop the big free states from having their due power simply boomerang. If we except the argument that those who side with small states from the founding of the Founding are racists and those who side with the big states are pure - (as absurd as their assumption linking people who lived three centuries apart is) then we can only conclude that those who support the National Popular Vote Pact are racists who support slavery!
Why?
The largest state by far was the SLAVE state of Virginia - by the time every state's electoral votes were counted in the 1789 election Virginia had five more electoral votes than any other state at 21.
In fact, three of the five states with at least 12 electoral votes were slave states. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were free states, but North Carolina and the first slave state NEW YORK were slave states at the founding.
Of the four small states with 6 or fewer Electoral Votes two were free (New Hampshire and Rhode Island) and two were slave (Delaware and Georgia). The two emerging states included one of each, with Vermont leaving slave state New York and casting 3 electoral votes while the formation of Kentucky yielded another slave state that cast 4 electoral votes in 1792.
2. The normal name calling directed not only at the author of the piece (who always has thick skin) is extended to attack the people who live between the coast as basically too stupid and or backward to continue to select their own electors.
This would be fun name calling unless the entire goal of the National Popular vote effort to decide to give up their electors. So to follow the basic line of the argument:
a. Hey you person who lives between the coasts, you are too stupid to govern yourself and people are the most populated coasts should therefore rule you for your own good.
b. We need to accomplish this by getting your state representatives to vote to take away the unfair clout you have.
c.. Only you can fix this. I have a webpage set up to encourage you to ask your representatives to vote to give away your electors - so please act now to support us.
Of course, they do not really do that - they go to the legislators and try to convince them to give away their constituents power before the constituents notice.
The dishonest and illogical argument sometimes carries the day in politics, but the National Vote advocates who are commenting are not providing much to overcome.
Democrats on the coasts do NOT outnumber Republicans in the country.
ReplyDeleteBecause of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .
Almost all small and medium-sized states and almost all western, southern, and northeastern states are totally ignored after the conventions.
Our presidential selection system has cut out 4 of every 5 people living in America from the decision. Presidential elections shrink the sphere of public debate to only a few thousand swing voters in a few states.
The only states that have received any campaign events and any significant ad money have been where the outcome was between 45% and 51% Republican.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
"The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,"
“The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.
Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.
In the 2016 general election campaign
Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).
Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country's population).
With the National Popular Vote bill:
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 winner states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
We can limit the power and influence of a few battleground states in order to better serve our nation.