There has only been one election in over a century in which the winner of the popular vote did not also win the electoral college (2000). Changing to a popular vote would, thus, make very little difference. States like Utah or Massachusets, which are now totally ingored because the outcome is foreordained, may get a little more attention as candidates try to persuade the small percentage of the population that is amenable to their arguments.

Those who call for the abolition of the Electoral College are hostile to liberty. Not surprisingly, most advocates of abolition are statist elites. These political, economic, academic, media, and legal elites overwhelmingly favor a strong centralized federal government, and express contempt for the federalist concept of states’ rights. They believe in omnipotent federal power, with states acting as mere glorified federal counties carrying out commands from Washington.

The Electoral College threatens the imperial aims of these elites because it allows the individual states to elect the president, and in many states the majority of voters still believe in limited government and the Constitution. Washington elites abhor these values, and they hate that middle and rural America hold any political power whatsoever. Their efforts to discredit the Electoral College system are an open attack on the voting power of the pro-liberty states.

Sadly, we have forgotten that states created the federal government, not the other way around. The Electoral College system represents an attempt, however effective, to limit federal power and preserve states’ rights. It is an essential part of our federalist balance. It also represents a reminder that pure democracy, mob rule, is incompatible with liberty.

Further example of what can happen when going to a "popular vote" is the selection of Senators. Originally, they were chosen by the State Legislators..therefore answerable to them. This was to make each state equal in the Senate. Demographic representation was left to the House of Representatives where a majority of the powers granted by the Constitution rested..Budgets, War Declaration to name a couple. By making the Senate race a popular one, this representation was lost.

To John Galt: I couldn't have said it better myself

I generally have respect for Mr. Pignanelli, even when I disagree with him, but he's really got it wrong this time. John Galt nailed it.

I have only one thing to add to what Mr. Galt said. Pignanelli's argument against using 18th century logic defeats his Jefferson quote, which is 18th century logic.

Perhaps it is time to change our name to The Consolidated States of America.

With the electoral college, states that are solidly in one political camp or the other are largely ignored by the candidates.

With a popular vote, rural areas are largely ignored. So either way, you will have a problem.

Living in Utah, I know that my vote for President is largely meaningless. The state votes overwhelmingly for the Republican candidate so no matter how I vote it won't matter. I could say the same thing if I lived in Massachusetts.

On the other hand, we don't have to listen to countless political ads for President every election.

Although I am a Republican, I disagree with the arguments of Mr. Webb and agree with Pignanelli in this case. A vote in Utah for President currently means nothing, whether you are Democrat or Republican, because the state will go Republican. This also means no Democrat or Republican candidate will pay any attention to our issues here in Utah. Your vote for president in this state under the current system is as meaningful as accumulating Monopoly money during a game. Without the College, we could truly have a system where every vote matters and is counted.

An example of the absurdity of the current system is the total joke of the 2000 election where the outcome came down to a controversy on Florida ballots of a few hundred people to determine to which candidate the state's large electoral vote would all go. When the popular vote of a state is divided 50-50 (OK - perhaps 50.1 to 49.9%) it seems ridiculous to give all of the votes to one candidate. It is also not true to the spirit of Liberty that a voter in Wyoming should get 3 times the power of a voter in larger states.

another thing about Pignanellu quoting Jefferson that I forgot to include in my prior comment. Jefferson was an ardent supporter of states' rights and feared the idea of a strong federal government. He would have been among the last to call for the abolishment of the electoral college as it is one of the best protections for the rights of the states and state governments.

sorry about the typo on Mr. Pinanelli's name - untintentional.

I agree with your view wholeheartedly.

Who is John Galt? No matter, his comments were right on. The states did create the federal government and the federal government is much more out of control and much more difficult to reign in. The loss of states rights is something we don't need more of

When I cast my presidential vote I want it to count. The last several elections I have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate. Since I live in Utah my vote was unable to help that candidate. My presidential vote goes straight to the round file, and don't any of you electoral college advocates try to tell me where it goes - it goes straight to the trash!

Keep the Electoral College, but require states to elect Electors proportionally (and not by district).

Utah has five Electoral Votes.

Under a proportional system, if McCain won 60 percent of the vote and Obama won 40 percent of the vote, McCain would get three electors and Obama would get two electors.

That's a fair, proportional result rather than the distorted outcome that the winner-take-all system creates.

Under such a proportional system, presidential campaigns would have an incentive to compete for their political market share in every state. This would take away the disproportionate influence enjoyed by early primary and so-called "battleground" states.

Resolve any lack of a majority through ranked-choice voting, i.e., if no candidate gains a majority on the first round of voting, the candidate receiving the lowest number of electoral votes is defeating and the next-lowest ranked preferences are re-allocated to the remaining candidates until there is a majority winner.

See FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy for more information.

Perhaps you don't hear about these reforms from Webb and Pignanelli because decentralizing our democratic republic would undermine the two-party system that has been such a lucrative source of business to their political favor brokerages.

Abolishing the Electoral college would be a TALL task. As a voter frustrated that my vote is worthless in Utah, I understand the desire for a popular vote, but it would take a long difficult process for change.

In the meantime, we can limit the damaging problems by instilling instant runoff elections. This way, people like those in Florida in 2000 who wanted to vote for Nader could vote for Nader and still prevent Bush from winning all of the electoral votes of their state.

Those pesky Constitutional amendments have hamstrung the states. Imagine where we'd be without the 12th, 13th and 14th amendments.

And I sure don't want to turn any more significant issues over to our state legislature.

The electoral college allows presidential candidates to ignore states with less electoral college votes and to ignore those that they don't consider competitive.

It's the electoral college system that has been used to create an elitist Presidency and it's time that we no longer tolerate elitists like John Galt infringing on our rights just because he and his family are parasites instead we should continue fighting for our liberty.

As one of Utah's 5 Republican electors in 2000 and as the alternate elector in 2004 and now for 2008, it was and is a great honor and education. I have read and had many conversations with people about the process. In 2000 I had about a hundred calls, letters and emails asking me to change my vote to Al Gore. That would not happen even if I didn't have a choice. Utah law will not allow you to vote for anyone but the winner. That is not true in all states, we have had what is called faithless electors who have switched candidates at the last moment, but not often. I believe our founding fathers had it right. The college protects the election process from candidates only campaigning in a few large states. As in 2000 Bush only won by one Elector's vote. You needed 271 and he got 271. 18th Century or 21st Century thinking, the process still works well.

@Our rights: you're the "parasites" guy who accuses capitalists of being parasites, aren't you? I'd like to hear you come up with a productive solution rather than just haranguing against what you consider elistists. What is your version of justice and fairness?

We live in a Republic where we chose representatives. That includes electing a representative to vote for us for the President of the United States. We vote for a 'voter'.

That is why, in most states, it's "winner takes all". The people in those states have voted to be represented in the electoral college by those electors who will vote for the candidate that the majority of the people in that state wanted to be elected.

The system is fair unless we're willing to let the voters in New York and California do our thinking and our voting for us.

Let's strip the Federal Government of some of its self-assumed powers. They should provide a national defense and handle international diplomatic relations. Period. Put them to work on their primary tasks, and suddenly it is less crucial that they represent the "views of Utah" or "the views of (insert state here)." They're primary goal is to represent the security and safety of the nation as a whole.

There have been 4 “wrong winner” elections out of the nation’s 55 presidential elections. This is a failure rate of 1 in 14 (7%). If I want to fly to Chicago and the plane takes me to Indianapolis 1 time out of 14, I wouldn't be very happy.

Also, half of American presidential elections are landslides (i.e., greater than 10% margin). Any system will produce the correct winner in a landslide. Thus, among the non-landslide elections, the failure rate is actually 1 in 7.

We are currently in an era of close presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and apparently 2008). We should therefore not be surprised to already have had one “wrong winner” election in this recent string of close elections.

Moreover, a shift of a handful of votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in five of the last 12 presidential elections.

The people vote for President now in all 50 states and have done so in most states for 200 years.

So, the issue raised by the National Popular Vote legislation is whether the "mob" in a handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, get disproportionate attention from presidential candidates, while the people of the vast majority of states are ignored. In 2004 candidates spent over two thirds of their visits and two-thirds of their money in just 6 states and 99% of their money in just 16 states, while ignoring the rest of the country.

The current system does not provide some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.

National Popular Vote has nothing to do with whether the country has a "republican" form of government or is a "democracy."

A "republican" form of government means that the voters do not make laws themselves but, instead, delegate the job to periodically elected officials (Congressmen, Senators, and the President). The United States has a "republican" form of government regardless of whether popular votes for presidential electors are tallied at the state-level (as is currently the case in 48 states) or at district-level (as is currently the case in Maine and Nebraska) or at 50-state-level (as under the National Popular Vote bill).

If a "republican" form of government means that the presidential electors exercise independent judgment (like the College of Cardinals that elects the Pope), we have had a "democratic" method of electing presidential electors since 1796 (the first contested presidential election). Ever since 1796, presidential candidates have been nominated by a central authority (originally congressional caucuses, and now party conventions) and electors are reliable rubberstamps for the voters of the district or state that elected them.

Let's look at this from another viewpoint. We live in the United States, meaning that we are a federation of states that unite together for some things and stay independent for some things. During my lifetime, the trend has been to a reduction of State's Rights and a great increase in Federal Rights.

However, electing a President takes us back to State's Rights vs Federal Rights. Most States have, in effect, an in-state Presidential election. Whoever is selected has won the majority of the votes in that State becomes that State's selection for President of the United States. In other words, we vote as a resident of a State and we vote for the candidate that our State wants to become the President of all the States.

We do not mingle our vote with the votes of the residents of others States.

As Utahns, each Utah resident's vote is equal to the vote of any other Utahn in the selection of the person that Utah wants to become President of the United States. When the vote is tallied, whoever wins the purality of votes in Utah has also won all of the electoral college votes from Utah.

Nevertheless, Mike, when I vote for a non-Republican for president the casting of that vote is to some degree a farce because I know it can't accomplish what I intend. Given the farcical nature of this process I may quit voting for president entirely (and encourage others similarly situated to do the same), and then you can have the 100% vote for the Republican candidate so dear to Republican hearts.

Lew, I understand your frustration, but the concept of voting directly for anything in America is foreign to our style of Government. On the local level, we normally have some type of city council, where we elect a councilman to vote for us on all city matters. On the state level, we vote for a state representative and a state senator to vote for us on all matters that concern us about the way the State is governed. On the Federal level, we vote for a Representative and a Senator to stand as our proxy. At no time can we vote directly for or against any legislation pending before Congress.

In the same manner, we vote for an elector to vote for us in the electoral college to serve as our proxy to vote for President.

The concept of "winner takes all" is part of the process as we vote for each proxy representative. We do not send two Representatives to Washington from each district with the instructions that each will cast a party vote in proportion to the votes each party received at the local level. Instead, it's "winner takes all".

The electoral college works the same way.

actually helps government stability through a two-party system. Plurality elections open the door for somebody like a Adolp Hitler to be elected with a plurality of votes but substantially less than a majority. When elected Chancellor of Germany Hitler received just over 30% of the popular vote but won because there were several candidates. And hopefully, we can see why that was bad.

The Electoral College not only protects the sovereignty of states (which our Founding Fathers intended) it also requires the winning candidate to get a majority of Electoral Votes or else the election is thrown to the House of Representatives where the people's voice is heard through their elected representatives.

Surely it could be argued that we could have majority popular votes but to often secure these (in other countries) coalitions governments are often created and sorry our government (though imperfect)is much superior to any coalition type of government.

I am not against third parties, in fact a member of one, but the electoral college, though with some flaws which could be fixed (proportional electoral vote assignment by state/congressional district as one idea) brings a stabilizing force to our government and protects against electing lunatics such as Hitler.

I disagree with both gentlemen. The REAL reason to keep an electoral college system is to get conclusiveness in presidential elections. The stakes of power are so high that a national popular vote system would make Florida 2000 look like a wonderful experience. Losing candidates would be digging up extra votes in all of the counties where they had overwhelming margins. Half of the states would have recountsd and lawsuits. It would be a national nightmare.

There is a third option that moves the Electoral College closer to a popular vote, but reduces the possibility of litigated elections. That would involve assigning the presidential vote that derives from each House seat to the congressional district. The plurality winner in that district would get the electoral vote of that district. The two senatorial votes would go to the popular vote winner in the state as a whole. The winner of a district would not change the vote of that district by mining for more votes in the district already won, and could not win the entire state (as in Florida 2000) by adding more votes in one county. This change can be made by statute in each state.

Hitler and his Nazi Party would have come to power in Germany earlier under the distorting effect of the winner-take-all electoral system.

The proportional representation system delayed the Nazi Party's rise to power in Germany.

Many forget that Hitler came to power democratically.

And Germany still uses a multi-party, proportional representation election system today.

Raymond,

I read your post with great interest. Your solution would work if the individual States in the United States don't matter. In other words, if we are no longer a federation of individual States that are unified for only certain things (common defense, etc.) and separate for most things, then the popular vote, using whatever method is deemed fair, would be acceptable.

My position is that Utah is sovereign in every point of Government that has not expressly been relinquished to the Federal Government. I would like Utah to remain sovereign. That allows each citizen of the United States to choose to live in a State that most closely matches his personal ideas. Granted, most States hold similar views on most things, but some do not. Nevada believes in Gambling and legalized prostitution. Some other States also allow gambling. If the Federal Government took total control of gambling and prostitution, then all States would have to accept whatever the Federal Government decided.

By keeping the same electoral system as we now have, States have more power than they would have otherwise. To me, that is necessary and good.

Perhaps the Hitler thing wasn't the best analogy but with plurality elections, this opens the door for something like that to happen, like a state electing a pro wrestler for its Governor (not CA, some other state). And I would take our government's over Germany's any day. Having multiple parties why great to bring forth ideas creates even more gridlock for implementing them. I can only imagine what it would take to break a filibuster with three or more parties. Then again we might as well throw out the Constitution at that point with the baby and bathwater.

I think the idea to proportionally divide electors by congressional district (winner of the district gets that electoral vote) with the overall state winner getting two electoral votes has some merit. Then one of the weaknesses of the Electoral College could be addressed, the "winner takes all" system which completely erases those who vote for non-winning candidates. I'm not sure it would make elections any more decisive but with smaller units like Congressional districts, the winner-takes all problem is less extreme. Anyway, in Utah the Republican would likely still get all five Electoral votes but in Florida theirs would be divided.