It is just another Republican attempt to gain power through tricks and exploitation, rather than through leadership. We all remember previous Republican coup attempts: the Clinton impeachment, Katherine Harris’ illegal disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legitimate Florida voters, the Republican shutdown of recounts in Florida, the illegal mid-term Texas redistricting, the California gubernatorial recall, and even the Republican’s attempt to steal the Washington governors office by suing over made-up charges of election fraud.
This time, the Republicans are gaming the electoral votes in California. Johann Hari’s guest column in the Seattle P-I explains:
…the Republicans are trying to exploit the discontent with the Electoral College among Americans in a way that would rig the system in their favor. At the moment, every state apart from Maine and Nebraska hands out its Electoral College votes according to a winner-takes-all system. This means that if 51 percent of people in California vote Democrat, the Democrats get 100 percent of California’s electoral votes; if 51 percent of people in Texas vote Republican, the Republicans get 100 percent of Texas’ electoral votes.
The Republicans want to change this — but in only one Democrat-leaning state. California has gone Democratic in presidential elections since 1988, and winning the sunny state is essential if the Democrats are going to retake the White House. So the Republicans have now begun a plan to break up California’s Electoral College votes and award a huge chunk of them to their side.
They have launched a campaign called California Counts, and they are trying to secure a statewide referendum in June to implement their plan. They want California’s electoral votes to be divvied up not on a big statewide basis, but according to the much smaller congressional districts. The practical result? Instead of all the state’s 54 Electoral College votes going to the Democratic candidate, around 20 would go to the Republicans.
The effect would be to hand the Republicans an extra state the size of Ohio or Pennsylvania–but without so much as a single extra popular vote going to the Republican candidate. They would simply be gaming the system for a short-term advantage to win acquire the White House in 2008.
At Hominid Views, I’ve been conducting a series of simulation studies for the 2008 election. I’ve used state-wide head-to-head polls pitting, say, Clinton against Giuliani (as well as other match-ups) to repeatedly simulate 2008 elections. The results provide a distribution of electoral college votes that can be used to estimate the probability that each candidate would win if the election were held today.
For example, after 10,000 simulated elections using, whenever possible, polls from the last month, the distribution of Electoral College votes looks like this:
Clinton won the electoral vote 9,530 times, and Giuliani won only 417. (There were 53 ties that would almost certainly be a win for Clinton). In other words Clinton wins about 95.8% of the simulated elections and Giuliani wins 4.2%.
Here is the same simulation, but this time using the “California Counts” rules to divvy up the California electoral votes:
Now after 10,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins only 7,233 (plus 181 ties) and Giuliani wins 2,586. With no change whatsoever in the popular vote, Clinton’s chance of victory decreases to 74.1% and Giuliani is up to a probability of 25.9%.
Giuliani’s increased chance of winning is not attributable to some refinement of democracy, and it doesn’t better reflect the will of the people. Rather, it reflects a trick. Apparently, the Republicans are still not confident in their ability to win through genuine leadership, superior public policy, or popular appeal. That leaves them with little choice but political trickery.
I take it you also strongly objected when bigwig Dems tried to do the EXACT SAME THING in Colorado in 2004.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....5xrhca.asp
Right?
Correction, I shouldn’t have said the exact same thing, it wouldn’t be exactly the same because it wouldn’t be divided by Congressional district. However, it would be functionally the same thing, in the sense that it’s a two-bit attempt to change the rules of the game in one place to help your guy.
That said, I opposed the Colorado one in 2004, and I oppose the California one now.
Why didn’t Republicans propose this for Florida or Ohio?
If Republicans living in California don’t like the present electoral system, they have the option of moving to another state where the majority of voters are Republican … like Nevada or Idaho.
(pause)
(snicker)
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
Looks like Republican strategists think the states they can already count on won’t be enough this time.
“Apparently, the Republicans are still not confident in their ability to win through genuine leadership, superior public policy, or popular appeal.”
And given the fact they’ve been gaming elections for 100 years, they apparently never will be.
Republicans can’t win an honest election and they know it. No one in his right mind would vote for these guys if they understood what Republicans are about: Constructing and maintaining an elitist system for a hereditary privileged class. That’s why Republicans never campaign on issues and always resort to smears, vote suppression, and dirty tricks. They’re the thug element of American politics. Republicans are to America what Hitler’s party was to the Weimar Republican — they’re trying to overthrow our democracy and install and rightwing dictatorship in our country.
maintaining an elitist system for a hereditary privileged class.
and corporations. I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve heard a wingnut spew that they’d rather be ruled by corporations than a government answerable to the people.
Cliff asks: “I take it you also strongly objected when bigwig Dems tried to do the EXACT SAME THING in Colorado in 2004.”
I did.
Essentially, the Electoral College system can only approximate a democratic election if all states use the same rules. (Yes, Maine and Nebraska have a different system but, in practice, all of their electoral votes go to only one candidate.)
The current “norm” isn’t the best system (where “best” is defined as minimizing the chance of the Electoral College voting contrary the popular vote). But changing the system requires that all states change to a new system simultaneously1. If not, the inevitable result is a GREATER chance that the Electoral College will elect the loser of the popular vote.
1 By this I mean a system in which states allocate electoral votes according to that state’s popular vote. The “Campaign for a National Popular Vote” system would require participating states to allocate their electoral votes according to the national popular vote. That system would result in zero error between the Electoral College vote and the popular vote without the cooperation of all states.
This week NOW on PBS presents an interview with David Becker from PFTAW that’s worth hearing, including a “best of” edition of all their reports on Republican voter suppression. Becker talks about how destroying democracy went from an unfortunate trend to a simple matter of government policy.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/348/index.html
Firedoglake reported last night that the initiative was withdrawn (no linky, they “depublished” it from their site), but BradBlog reports it’s still on:
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;2378727
Trevor @ 11
The signature drive is continuing.
As much as I know it woud help the R side, I would like to see the Electors decided by CD nationwide. It woud take a constitutional amemdment.
In Washington, it would force the candidates on bothsides to pay attention to all parts of the state, not just King County with a token visit to Spokane.
You need to remember that the major purpose of the Electoral College system is to temper the tyranny of the majority. Granted, it was also useful during founding days when travel and communication were much more difficult.
The real purpose of the Electoral College was to insure that the rich and politically connected could stop a popular majority from electing a President whom the elites despised. (This system almost worked as intended in 2000, when it almost thwarted the popular will, to install a President whom elite business interests wanted. The Supreme Court had to intervene to stop the vote counting in Florida, because G.W. Bush needed every one of Florida’s electoral votes to win, and if Al Gore had beaten Bush in Florida, he would have received those electoral votes.) Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature was working to give all 25 of Florida’s votes to Bush, regardless of the outcome of the popular vote. This would have been perfectly legal, and it shows how the system is rigged to protect power and privilege against popular will.
Of course we should have direct election of Presidents, just as we now have direct election of Senators. The Republicans are a minority party, and may well be one for decades. They know this, and they will try every possible trick to remain in power, despite their policy blunders, corruption, and lawbreaking. They will not merely fight to retain the Electoral College, which (as we saw in 2000) clearly favors them. They will even attempt to alter it in ways which help them, as we see here. Really, hearing them caterwauling about fairness in California when they used similar unfairness in Florida and Ohio makes their sexual hypocrisy look trivial by comparision.
Great post. Thanks for doing this.
“California Counts” is a scheme by Republicans to steal the 2008 election. It was hatched by Republican strategists, is funded by Republicans donors, and run by Republican operatives.
“California Counts” deliberately bypasses the California legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, which is not surprising since a large majority of California’s voters are Democrats.
It also bypasses California’s voters. The plan is to hold a referendum in June, after the nominees have already been chosen, in hopes of a low turnout that will enable them to “win” the referendum by using their superior financial resources to mobilize “the base.”
But electoral votes have to be certified by the House of Representatives, which is certain to be controlled by Democrats in January 2009.
Now let’s say this referendum “passes” with, say, a slight majority of a 20% voter turnout, meaning only slightly over 10% of California’s voters decided to divvy up their state’s electoral votes by congressional district. And let’s say the Republicans get a windfall of 20 electoral votes this way.
Now let’s say the GOP candidate loses the nationwide popular vote by a substantial margin and “wins” the electoral vote by less than 20.
The Democratic House should refuse to certify that election. That candidate should never take office, because he did not win the election.
And if our spineless Democratic delegation in the House of Representatives fails to see the wisdom and justice of that, we should mount a massive nationwide campaign, directed at the Democratic members of the House, including massive street protests.
And if our spineless Democratic representatives seat yet another unelected rightwing corporatists dictator in a White House office the people did not elect him to, we should call a General Strike and shut this fucking country down until the usurper is forced to abdicate.
No work. No garbage pickup. No electricity. No running water. No buses. No phones being answered anywhere in America. No grocery shelves stocked. No nothing. When I say General Strike, I mean an absolute and total work stoppage until the dictatorship is overthrown and replaced by an elected government.
How do you like them apples, you Nazi fucks?
The national popular vote site says at the 1787 Constitutional Convention some favored direct election of the president while others election by Congress.
“The Electoral College was a last-minute compromise, reached under what James Madison called the “hurrying influence produced by fatigue and impatience.” ”
So it is pretty hard to oppose the California plan by defending….the electoral college.
And winner take all rules are not consistent with reflecting the votes in a single state.
The republican party, which always seems to have the better strategy position, is explointing this and has put the democratic party on defense, again.
To merely oppose the republican plan in California is to defend…winner take all and the electoral college.
The status quo.
This is reactionary and not strategic.
Would there not be more strategy in proposing an alternative inititiave in California — perhaps the national vote plan? Or consitutional change for direct election?
Isn’t the “democratic” party for direct election? isn’t that “democracy” in which every vote has the same power?
Isn’t that equal?
Once again the democratic party is cast as defending an undefendable status quo, the democratic party fails to be for…..democracy….. while the republicans are for change and progress……
I read in today’s paper that signature collectors are giving homeless people food in exchange for their signatures on the petition drive.
@13 Not bad for you, Gibney. It’s refreshing to see that even a wingnut recognizes this thing is a piece of shit. But you are wrong about a constitutional amendment being required to change the system. There’s a way to do it without an amendment: Every state would pass a law directing its electoral votes be cast for the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide. That would effectively create a nationwide popular vote.
@14 “The real purpose of the Electoral College was to insure that the rich and politically connected could stop a popular majority from electing a President whom the elites despised.”
Not exactly. The electoral college was devised to protect slavery, pure and simple. The outnumbered southern states refused to join the union unless they were given clout equal to the northern states. For electoral college purposes, they were allowed to count slaves as part of their population (for purposes of apportioning electoral votes) to achieve this equality in both representation in Congress and the electoral college. They were scared to death of the north voting to abolish slavery, on which the southern economy depended. Getting them to be part of the U.S., instead of forming a separate country, was the main if not the only reason for the electoral college.
The electoral college clearly is an anachronism that should be done away with. It violates the one-person, one-vote principle. It gives the ignorant, barefoot, backwoods Bible thumpers unequal voting clout in Congress and in electing presidents, at the expense of the rest of us. It’s fundamentally unfair and undemocratic, has outlived its usefulness by 140 years, and it’s way past time to get rid of it.
@17 The electoral college is what we presently have. Opposing the GOP’s attempt to game this system is hardly indefensible. Their scheme would make an undemocratic system even less representative. Opposing it is more than easy to defend, it’s the only right thing to do.
If this piece of shit does get on the California ballot, liberals and Democrats all across America need to mobilize and make sure California’s Democratic Party has plenty of funding, campaign volunteers, and moral support to defeat this pig at the polls. That won’t be hard to do. All that California’s Democrats have to do is run counter-ads and run a vigorous GOTV campaign to get their voters to the polls. That will ensure it goes down in flames, because the GOP doesn’t even come close to having a popular majority in California.
Yep, spare a few bucks for the NO campaign on that crap in California.
A) The electoral College should be abolished
B) No sitting president elected via the Electoral College (at least in these relatively closely divided partisan times) will support its abolitio
C) One state changing in this way is not reasonable…all states should or it should be mandated federally.
All that said, I think this will be defeated in California.
I support a measure to give all Latinos two votes, and all blacks three votes.
And Ann Coulter, no vote.
At 19
Well, I dispute your classification of me as wingnut. I’m a fairly conservative/libertatrian Democrat.
When was the last time every state passed a law at the same time on the same subject with identical results. I mean in the US. It may well have happened frequently in the Soviet Union and in China.
And since the Constitution currently leaves the selection of Electors up to the States, the only way to do this fair and across the board is by amendment, or (may it never happen) Convention.
“Not exactly. The electoral college was devised to protect slavery, pure and simple.”
Some of those “elites” I mentioned were slaveowners, of course. The states which would later become the Confederacy all together had a population about equal to that of New York. The slaveowning elite was terrifed of what eventually did happen, the more-populous North eradicating slavery. However, elites have always used the Electoral College system to stick it to the rest of us, and I did not wish to imply that slavery was the only justification for this patently undemocratic system.
“California Counts” is yet another cynical move to use the Electoral College system to throw an election to the minority party. If Democrats were to launch a “Florida Counts” initiative, the screaming from the Right would be heard from there to California.
Paddy Mac said absolutely nothing true below:
“The real purpose of the Electoral College was to insure that the rich and politically connected could stop a popular majority from electing a President whom the elites despised. (This system almost worked as intended in 2000, when it almost thwarted the popular will, to install a President whom elite business interests wanted. The Supreme Court had to intervene to stop the vote counting in Florida, because G.W. Bush needed every one of Florida’s electoral votes to win, and if Al Gore had beaten Bush in Florida, he would have received those electoral votes.)”
First Al Gore lost Tennessee. If he won his home state he’d be president. Why did Tennessee dump their homey?
Next Florida. Al Gore admitted he screwed up by asking for a recount of the four populous democrat counties and not the other 63 counties. That’s why the lawsuit went forth. And PM you can find what Al Gore said afterward too. But you’d have to admit the crap you wrote above is wrong.
Now let’s discuss the vote count. Three newspapers verified the vote count to Bush.
This as been verified and placed on ASSWipes (TM) many times. I and others whom think right posted these facts which when processed by your puny single celled mind will explode it!
ANY QUESTIONS?
Funny how the Electoral College reform initiative is painted by Democratic operatives in California as a big Republican conspiracy to steal the presidential election when the Democrats have proposed the same idea in several other states.
In 2004, the Democratic Party backed an initiative in Colorado to do exactly what the initiative will do in California (unfortunately Colorado voters turned it down). This year Democrats were attempting something similar in North Carolina until Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean quietly convinced the North Carolina Democrats to stop, saying he “did not want to set a precedent Republicans could use to justify their efforts in California.” Perhaps Doctor Dean sensed that Democrats might gain as many as 7 electoral votes in North Carolina but could lose as many as 22 in California.
While we are at it, one of things we need to do is re-examine how the Electoral College votes are apportioned by the census which includes illegal aliens. The question we need to ask ourselves is should illegal aliens be counted in a census to determinable how many Electoral College votes each state is allocated.
@25 When was the last time an amendment was ratified by 2/3rds of the states at the same time? The answer is, they don’t have to pass it at the same time. These laws contain a clause that says they don’t go into effect unless and until all the other states enact a similar law.
If this thing does pass, some California Democrat will challenge it in court, and the case will be tried before a handpicked Democratic judge in a handpicked Democratic county.
After it’s overturned by the trial judge, it won’t be in effect, and the appeals process will take years. At a minimum, we can tie it up in the courts for at least two election cycles.
@26 “If Democrats were to launch a ‘Florida Counts’ initiative, the screaming from the Right would be heard from there to California.”
I think we should. What’s good for California is good for Florida, too! Even if it doesn’t pass, it’ll divert Republican funds and operatives from campaigning for their candidates. It’ll be a threat they can’t afford to ignore.
In fact, I think we should launch such a campaign in EVERY Republican-leaning state.
@27 “First Al Gore lost Tennessee. If he won his home state he’d be president. Why did Tennessee dump their homey?”
The probable answer is, “They didn’t.” Don’t you think a GOP election-stealing operation would give the opposing candidate’s home state “Special Treatment?”
Tennessee and Kentucky are very special places to the GOP, because that’s where their election-stealing computers are. In 2004, precinct results reported to the Republican Ohio secretary of state were re-routed by his computers to GOP computers in Tennessee and Kentucky, where the data were “processed” and then sent back to Ohio with the “correct answers” filled into the spaces for the vote totals.
@27 Pudd. You forgot to mention the tens of thousands of legitimate voters Jebbie, and that witch Harris threw off the voting rolls. You know, the minority, soldier types…..
Jeb Bush, and Katherine Harris should be doing time. It is against federal law to target people like they did to remove their rite to vote by their race.
Why is it that election fraud by the GOP never gets prosecuted? Caging lists? Late night vote switching (Alabama). Eight hour voting lines? (Ohio)
As far as the Republiconvicts go, everything goes. No crime to win an election is too great, when no one will ever get prosecuted. Tim Griffin is still a free man….. Mr. Caging List himself!
@29
Point granted
@28 “While we are at it, one of things we need to do is re-examine how the Electoral College votes are apportioned by the census which includes illegal aliens. The question we need to ask ourselves is should illegal aliens be counted in a census to determinable how many Electoral College votes each state is allocated.”
This would require amending the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
CURRENT EFFORTS TO AMEND 14TH AMENDMENT
House Joint Resolution 6, introduced by Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), would do this by replacing the word “persons” with the word “citizens” in the 14th Amendment. Miller argues that,
“States with large populations of illegal immigrants receive a disproportionate number of seats in the House of Representatives because noncitizens are included with citizens.”
(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....02107.html)
The most recent action taken on HJR 6 was its referral to the House subcommittee on Feb. 2, 2007.
(Source: http://www.govtrack.us/congres.....ll=hj110-6)
It’s not surprising this bill originated from a midwestern congresswoman, as it is the midwest states that are most likely to see their proportional representation in Congress diminished by an influx of illegal immigrants to western states, which stand to proportionately gain representation. For a scholarly article discussing this issue, see http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/ib.....icle2.html
SUMMARY OF HOW ELECTORAL VOTES ARE ALLOCATED TO STATES
The number of electoral votes a state has is determined by the U.S. Constitution; Art. II, Sec. 1 gives each state 1 electoral vote for each senator and representative. Thus, the number of electoral votes each state has is determined by the complicated legal requirements and methology for divvying up seats seats in Congress between the states.
The Constitution gives each state 2 U.S. Senators, but both the total number of House seats and how they are allocated among the states are determined by Congress, both the number of seats and the methods of allocating them have changed several times in the nation’s history. Currently, the total number of House seats is 435, and the total number of electoral votes is 535.
Figuring out how many House seats a state should have is not as straightforward as simply reading Art. I of the Constitution. For one thing, Art. I was changed by the 12th Amendment. But beyond that, determining each state’s population is affected by many technical details, and can get quite involved.
ALLOCATION OF CONGRESSIONAL SEATS
As noted at the beginning of this comment, the allocation of House seats is based on population figures from the census, but it’s affected by other factors, as well.
For example, a significant number of American citizens live abroad, by choice or for employment reasons (e.g., expatriates, military personnel, diplomas, and employees of companies or contractors working at overseas facilities). These voters are assigned to states based on administrative records identifying some connections to the state (e.g., the “home of record” declared in a soldier’s military recods).
Such assignments can be, and have been, challenged in courts; for example, after the 2000 census, Utah sued (and lost) on a claim that it lost a House seat to North Carolina because the census counted the latter state’s overseas military personnel but didn’t count 10,000 Mormon missionaries proselytizing in foreign countries as Utah residents (for details, see http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census00/Utah.html).
The current method of allocating House seats is called the “Equal Proportions Method” (also known as the “Huntington-Hill Method”). The first step is straightforward: The Constitution guarantees each state at least 1 House seat, so the first 50 seats are allocated to each of the 50 states. After that, the methodology gets complicated, using a mathematical formula to determine states’ “priority” in getting the next seat up for grabs. The primary objective of the formula is to guarantee that no transfer of a seat from one state to another “will reduce the percentage difference in per capita representation.” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.....ortionment)
No methodology can produce perfectly proportional representation, and this one does not. Given the large number of aliens in the U.S., however, a question has arisen whether the alien population skews proportional representation in favor of states with large immigrant populations. As noted above, these states are in the West and Southwest, and gain House seats at the expense of states in the Midwest and on the eastern seaboard.
Now let’s examine this issue in more detail.
Although aliens (legal or otherwise) can’t vote and therefore don’t directly affect election outcomes, they arguably might indirectly affect a few electoral votes through the influence of their numbers on House seat allocations.
This argument relies on the fact aliens are included in the definition of “population” and “persons” for purposes of allocating House seats. However, it’s not a given they have any affect on the electoral voting. For this to happen, (1) the alien population has to be large enough to have shifted a House seat from one state to another, and (2) the state gaining the seat has to have voted differently than the state losing the seat.
A synoposis of one analysis I saw asserts that Kerry got 2 additional electoral votes in 2004 because of nonvoting population demographics. (Source: http://www.fairus.org/site/Pag.....entersd70b) Even if this calculation is accurate (which is not necessarily so), these 2 votes did not change the outcome.
In fact, we can say with certainty that no presidential election has ever had a different outcome because of aliens being included in the census. The influx of illegal aliens is a relatively recent phenomenon, and the only modern election close enough for a handful of electoral votes to change the outcome was 2000. Whatever happened, Bush obviously was not disadvantaged by it. Any argument that Gore lost the election because of alien demographics probably would founder on detailed analysis, because such analysis probably would produce results similar or identical to those of 2004. In other words, if anyone got a couple of extra electoral votes because of alien demographics, it probably was Gore.
So this problem turns out to be only theoretical, and has never had any practical effect on the outcome of presidential elections. Further, it’s unlikely it ever will. If we’re going to go to the trouble of amending the Constitution, instead of screwing around with changing the definition of “persons,” we should change the method of electing the president to popular vote, in order to make America a true democracy. It’s time we did; this isn’t 1776 anymore, and slavery, which the electoral college system was designed to preserve, has been gone for over 140 years.
ONE MAN, ONE VOTE
The “Equal Proportions Method,” which has been used since 1930, predates the “one man, one vote” rule of Baker v. Carr (1962), so it obviously was not adopted to implement the judicial rule. It did, however, represent an effort by Congress to House districts that were approximately proportional to population. In fact, that was always Congress’ aim, but it had wrestled with how to do that from the earliest days of the republic. (For discussion, see http://www.thirty-thousand.org.....onment.htm.)
Baker v. Carr is based on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, and involved large population disparities among the districts for seats in a state legislature. This was a common practice up to then, and invariably favored rural voters at the expense of urban voters. (For text of this decision, see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/.....;invol=186.) The practical effect of Baker v. Carr is to require districts be drawn to have approximately equal populations. This ruling was extended to congressional districts by Wesberry v. Sanders (1964). (For text, see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/.....38;invol=1.)
The effect of this judicial rule on electoral votes is indirect and complex. Because the Constitution gives each state 2 U.S. Senators regardless of population, and each state has an electoral vote for each senator, the Electoral College system can’t conform to the “one man, one vote” principle. It is inherently unproportional.
Specifically, 100 of the 535 electoral votes (18.7% of the total) are not based on population. This means that in any presidential election closer than 100 electoral votes, the outcome was not determined by population factors such as the distribution of alien residents among the states. This far offsets the potential effect that alien population distribution might have on 1 or 2 electoral votes. One can plausibly argue that any election close enough to potentially be affected by counting aliens in the census population was actually decided by the disproportionality built into the Electoral College, not by the effect of aliens on the allocation of House seats.
Thus, if we’re going to consider aliens a threat to the fairness of our presidential elections, the inherent unfairness of the Electoral College should be considered a greater threat; and if we’re going to go to the trouble of amending the Constitution, those efforts would be better directed at eliminating the unproportional representation inherent to the Electoral College system by providing for direct popular election of the president, or alternatively by reforming the Electoral College to make it proportionally representative.
CONCLUSION
It’s ironic that our righty friends, who bleat so loudly against counting aliens in the census, are staunch supporters of the Electoral College system, which is vastly more undemocratic. (For typical rightwinger discussion of the issue, see http://www.helium.com/tm/30271.....-candidate.)
One could, with justice, call this hypocritical.
It’s also ironic and hypocritical that Republicans who are more than willing to gerrymander congressional districts to increase their representation in Congress are bitching about the effect that counting aliens in the census has on who gets congressional seats (and electoral votes).
Pelletizer (TM) @37, do
Illegal aliens get to vote? NO Well in CA – 50 Well you can hope for it like the democrat candidate in the election to take Cunningham’s seat told the Mexican illegal to go vote and get his friends to also. Look it up on Google. Hint, her first name began with “Fran”. This was posted on ASSWipes (TM) by Puddy 3 times.
Are illegal aliens here ILLEGALLY? YES – No further commentary needed
So why should the state population numbers be jacked up by counting illegals unless:
1) Make a useless political statement on poverty people numbers
2) Make a useless political statement on uninsured people numbers
3) Make a useless political statement on who will farm the vegetables
4) Make a useless political statement on illegal crime statistics in the inner cities which are SANCTUARY CITIES
Facts: Did you know in 48 states and WA, DC purge felons from the voter lists? If you don’t like the law change it.
If Harris threw legit voters from the rolls that’s wrong.
But Facts when I posted the August 2004 NY Daily News survey that had over 45,000 voters in 2000 double voted YOU IGNORED THOSE FACTS. MAYBE THEY DIDN’T SUPPORT YOUR POSITION?
“About 46,000 people, most of them Democrats, are illegally registered to vote in New York City and in Florida. The finding is even more stunning given the pivotal role Florida played in the 2000 presidential election, when a margin there of 537 votes tipped a victory to George W. Bush.”
And the Daily News investigation didn’t include other New England or Mid-Atlantic states or even the suburbs of New York.
Sixty-eight percent of those registered to vote in both states are Democrats. Sixteen percent did not list a party, and only 12 percent are Republicans.
The paper also determined that 400 to 1,000 New Yorkers had voted twice in at least one election, which by my reckoning is a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.”
http://www.slate.com/id/2108807/ – More “right wing eh YLB – The Clueless One (TM) ?
Did they go to prison or pay the fine?
Think about it over 25,000 – 30,000 more votes for Al Gore in 2000 and that’s just New York City only.
@39 Gee Puddy. Where do you get your “facts” huh?
Since it is so easy to know if someone voted twice, and it is a felony, how many people were convicted of voting twice nationwide? With all the piss and vinegar the Republican Crime Machine has spit out about illegal voters, the number is still ZERO. Z-E-R-O. I trust what I hear on Fox Lies more than what I read on Slate.
The people purged from Florida’s rolls were not felons. Many of them had the same name as a felon in another state etc. The voters Harris threw from the rolls were minorities, and many of them were vets. Read the article.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040517/palast
The purge of legitimate voters continues. Palast said that there has been a purge of up to 4 million legitimate voters nationwide for the 2008 election. I believe him, knowing that the GOP is desperate.
That is a wonderful article in Slate. If it is true where are the arrests? With all the pressure Rove (Mr. Treason) put on the Prosecutors to indict illegal voters, not a one was arrested? Seems kinda fishy to me….. Especially when prosecutors were being fired for not finding a single person to prosecute.
The purge continues.
http://www.harpers.org/archive.....c-90001186
The G.O.P. is an organized criminal enterprise, and every person calling themselves a Republiconvict belongs behind bars for aiding and abetting.
There may be a few people that vote twice, and I am sure in a country of 300,000,000 it happens. There is a difference between what one person does, and ORGANIZED CRIME. Of course you wouldn’t be able to see it though right?
Read on:
http://archive.salon.com/polit.....index.html
Stealing a person’s right to vote is as bad as treason as far as I am concerned…..
So Facts: I posted this from the liberal Daily News and Slate and you reject it outright because they didn’t arrest anyone? You are a CLOSED minded liberal. Maybe they decided to not worry about it.
And, if Gore won Tennessee being a home boy, why did they reject him? Maybe for his liberal politics? http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=102312
If these spoiled ballots came from places of large black populations then why didn’t the leaders in these enclaves recount the ballots like they did in 2004 here in WA state?
Facts your article describes Gadsden County. Interestingly enough it’s a Democratic led county. Why did they have issues? I see the county manager is a brother. The voting problems in this county are Jeb Bush’s issue?
Wow that’s a stretch!
So Puddy, I take it you didn’t read “Armed Madhouse right?
Until there are convictions of people purposefully voting twice, I will stand by my belief that very few people attempt to vote twice. The Republiconvicts would gladly slit a billion babies throats to prove one person voted twice.
Hannity said they found WMD’s in Iraq too. Just because someone in the media lies about something, it doesn’t make it so.
Since we know how easily electronic voting machines are hacked, I wouldn’t blame someone for voting two or three times.
As far as spoiled ballots, I am talking about provisional ballots that were not counted by the tens of thousands, cast by people that had their right to vote stripped from them illegally.
Tens of thousands of legitimate voters had their right to vote stolen from them in Florida before the 2000 election. This is not a “liberal” position. It is a fact.
Again I ask Facts, if the county is managed by your side, how come they were rejected? Sorry anyone with a mind would ask this question up front FIRST!
I read the first link. How would I know about Gadsden county in the panhandle?
Since the votes had no effect on the election maybe they
didn’t pursue.
Did you know the Orlando Sentinel also found that 68,000 Florida voters are also registered in Georgia or North Carolina (the only two states it checked), 1,650 of whom voted twice in 2000 or 2002. Now that’s interesting too.
Now this was interesting
http://omega.twoday.net/20040823/
“Edwin Peterson, 66, a registered Democrat in Palm Coast, Fla., and St. Albans, Queens, attributed his dual vote in the 2000 election to his distrust of the party running the Sunshine State.”
Yessireee Facts. I need to pad the vote down there.
Isn’t the Veni Vidi Vici for democrats – “Vote Early, Vote Often”?
Was that Al Capone or Richard Daley who penned that phrase?
PFreako – Facts presented the facts and you go on about Gore? What a mindless idiot you are!!
So where’s the convictions about massive voter fraud organized by Dems Stupes? Where’s the ACVR Stupes? Its gone Stupes like any semblance of a brain in your empty skull.
You are such a mindless brainwashed wingnut!!
if the county is managed by your side, how come they were rejected?
Because they were purged by the SecState’s office. Katherine Harris Crazy’s office.
From the Nation editorial by Palast:
First, the purges. In the months leading up to the November 2000 presidential election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local election supervisors to purge 57,700 voters from the registries, supposedly ex-cons not allowed to vote in Florida. At least 90.2 percent of those on this “scrub” list, targeted to lose their civil rights, are innocent
Prove any statement of fact here is a lie Stupes. You can’t because you’re a mindless right wing moron.