[EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary would be the winner

Fri Nov 11 10:24:55 PST 2016

Bush won the popular vote over Kerry in 2004. Are you not counting that for
some reason?

On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Tyler Culberson <tylerculberson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The difference between Presidential and Parliamentary systems is that much
> more power is concentrated within the executive branch of a Presidential
> system, making it diametrically distinct from Parliamentary systems. Though
> there may be some outliers where small parliamentary constituencies have
> disproportionate representation, one could not argue the US bicameral
> system that completely ignores variation in constituent populations in
> assigning representation in the upper house (Senate) is somehow a more
> democratically representative system.
>
> Though one cannot say definitively what the effect of implementing a
> popular presidential vote may be, there are partisan and demographic/census
> trends that suggest a major Democratic advantage:
>
> 1) Democrats concentrating in urban areas will allow for more efficient
> GOTV efforts whereas Republicans are more difficult to reach, spread out in
> more rural areas.
>
> 2) The US is a continuously urbanizing nation. Generally, an increasingly
> urban population leads to growing liberalization (2010 census marked first
> time more Americans living in urban vs rural areas). It is likely that
> there will be a natural trend in Democratic Party identification so long as
> partisan ideologies maintain their trajectory.
>
> 3) Republicans have been unable to win the popular vote in a Presidential
> election since 1988. Though I acknowledge campaigns may differ in elections
> for the national popular vote vs the electoral college, recent history
> suggests Republicans would have a major disadvantage with the dissolution
> of the Electoral College. With Trump's victory, that is now 3 consecutive
> Republican Presidential victories that have failed to consolidate an
> electorate...let that steep and sink in.
>
> On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 12:33 PM, Sean Parnell <
> sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org> wrote:
>
>> One line from the piece jumped out at me:
>>
>>
>>
>> “But if the candidate who got fewer votes wins the White House for the
>> second time in five elections, it could put a new spotlight on the peculiar
>> way that America picks its presidents — *one not shared by any other
>> democracy*.”
>>
>>
>>
>> This is technically true, but I’m not sure it’s quite as powerful an
>> argument as suggested. In the U.K., for example, the Prime Minister
>> (roughly comparable to our President) isn’t elected directly by the
>> citizens of that nation, instead it’s effectively chosen by members of the
>> largest party in parliament. A parliament filled with members who do not,
>> it is worth noting, have constituency sizes that are equal (or thereabouts)
>> – Isle of Wight has 118,00 or so people vs. 22,000 for Na h-Eileanan an Iar
>> (see: http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections
>> /electoralregistration/bulletins/electoralstatisticsforuk/2014-05-01).
>> And of course we don’t have a Queen in the U.S. (OK, maybe Queen Bey) to
>> ask an MP to become PM and form a government.
>>
>>
>>
>> The point is, there are plenty of forms of democratic governance in which
>> the public at large does not directly select the chief executive/head of
>> state. So while it may indeed be “peculiar” to use the electoral college,
>> it’s not at all peculiar to not have direct election of chief
>> executive/head of state.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sean Parnell
>>
>> Vice President for Public Policy, The Philanthropy Roundtable
>>
>> 1120 20th Street NW, Suite 550 South
>>
>> Washington, DC  20036
>>
>> (202) 600-7883 (direct)
>>
>> (571) 289-1374 (mobile)
>>
>> sparnell at philanthropyroundtable.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *
>> zacharyr46 at gmail.com
>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 10, 2016 8:58 AM
>> *To:* Lorraine Minnite <lminnite at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary
>> would be the winner
>>
>>
>>
>> Totally agree with Prof. Minnite. Here's my piece on this for those
>> interested:
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/electoral-collage-
>> lesson-more-voters-chose-hillary-clinton-trump-will-n681701
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>
>> On Nov 10, 2016, at 7:52 AM, Lorraine Minnite <lminnite at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Brad is right that there are different values expressed in the original
>> constitutional design of our electoral system and the means by which a
>> president is chosen.  But those values always were and continue to be
>> contested.  We are all know the many ways in which our system is not
>> robustly democratic; for example, the more democratic direct representation
>> of the House of Representatives stands in contrast to the original indirect
>> election of Senators, and less democratic representation in the Senate of
>> the states.  The Electoral College falls into the 'less democratic' of our
>> political institutions.
>>
>> I'd like to go back to the assertion that, "Even in 2000 and 2016, the
>> results will be close enough that one can't really know what would happen
>> in a system in which each candidate would have very different incentives on
>> how and where to campaign."   I think this too easily brushes aside the
>> critique of the Electoral College from the standpoint of a robust
>> democratic ideal.  Brad suggests campaigning would have been different if
>> the national popular vote plan had been in place in 2016, and that this
>> might have produced a different outcome, I guess with Donald Trump winning
>> a plurality of the votes.  I don't find the critique credible.  For
>> example, I find it hard to believe that either candidate would simply have
>> concentrated their efforts in the states where they knew they had strong
>> support in order to boost their numbers (i.e., Clinton spending all of her
>> time in California, New York, and New Jersey, or Trump spending all of his
>> time in Mississippi or Oklahoma).
>>
>> Moreover, the impact on campaign strategy misses the larger point that we
>> now again, only 16 years into in the 21st century will have twice installed
>> presidents who lost the popular vote.  I find that shocking and very
>> disconcerning.
>>
>> On 11/9/16, 11:21 AM, Smith, Brad wrote:
>>
>> This is horrendously wrong.
>>
>>
>>
>> Actually, there was a tremendous amount of voter suppression in 1876. The
>> troops simply couldn't be everywhere, and were badly undermanned. The
>> situation was so bad that President Grant asked Congress to authorize
>> martial law in the South, in order to protect black voters from the Klan
>> and other violence. Congress refused to pass the measure (it had passed a
>> similar measure in 1871). The Red Shirts and the White League were other
>> major Democratic paramilitary groups. In South Carolina, Ben Tillman,
>> primary sponsor of the Tillman Act, was a member of the Sweetwater Club,
>> which assaulted blacks attempting to vote with regularity.
>>
>>
>>
>> The election of 1876 was quite probably worse for violence against black
>> voters than the election of 1888, because by 1888 southern whites could
>> largely claim "mission accomplished" when it came to vote suppression.
>>
>>
>>
>> *Bradley A. Smith*
>>
>> *Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault*
>>
>> *   Professor of Law*
>>
>> *Capital University Law School*
>>
>> *303 E. Broad St.*
>>
>> *Columbus, OH 43215*
>>
>> *614.236.6317 <614.236.6317>*
>>
>> *http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
>> <http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx>*
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Richard Winger [richardwinger at yahoo.com]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 09, 2016 11:05 AM
>> *To:* Smith, Brad; Election Law Listserv
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary
>> would be the winner
>>
>> There was no suppression of black votes in 1876, because the federal
>> troops were still occupying the south.  That is why Mississippi's
>> legislature sent two black US Senators to Washington, in the 1870's.
>>
>>
>>
>> Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* "Smith, Brad" <BSmith at law.capital.edu> <BSmith at law.capital.edu>
>> *To:* Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com> <richardwinger at yahoo.com>;
>> Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu> <law-election at uci.edu>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 9, 2016 5:27 AM
>> *Subject:* RE: [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary
>> would be the winner
>>
>>
>>
>> Richard,
>>
>>
>>
>> There is pretty little reason to include 1824, when not every state even
>> counted popular vote and the campaign was entirely different. In 1876 and
>> 1888 the Republicans would have won the popular vote except for massive
>> suppression of black votes and Republican votes more generally by the
>> Democrats in the deep south. In each of those elections, the electoral
>> college actually helped to make sure that the candidate actually favored by
>> a majority of the populace actually won the election, by isolating the
>> Democratic vote suppression and fraud.
>>
>> Even in 2000 and 2016, the results will be close enough that one can't
>> really know what would happen in a system in which each candidate would
>> have very different incentives on how and where to campaign.
>>
>>
>>
>> All of this points up that our electoral structure reflects values other
>> than raw popular vote totals. At the same time, the popular vote usually
>> carries the electoral college, and the system is designed to assure that no
>> one without substantial and widespread popular support can be elected.
>>
>>
>>
>> *Bradley A. Smith*
>>
>> *Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault*
>>
>> *   Professor of Law*
>>
>> *Capital University Law School*
>>
>> *303 E. Broad St.*
>>
>> *Columbus, OH 43215*
>>
>> *614.236.6317 <614.236.6317>*
>>
>> *http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
>> <http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx>*
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Richard
>> Winger [richardwinger at yahoo.com]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 09, 2016 8:17 AM
>> *To:* Election Law Listserv
>> *Subject:* [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary would
>> be the winner
>>
>> With the greatest number of uncounted votes in California, Oregon, and
>> Washington, by far, states that are very strong for Clinton, it is clear to
>> me that she will have approximately 1,000,000 more popular votes than
>> Donald Trump.
>>
>>
>>
>> The Democratic Party has been the victim of the electoral college five
>> times now:  1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016
>>
>>
>>
>> Democrats should have been concentrating on passing the national popular
>> vote plan instead of focusing on campaign finance reform.  Clinton's side
>> spent far more money than Trump's side.  We should get over the idea that
>> voters always vote for the candidate with the most spending.
>>
>>
>>
>> Another reform Democrats should have been working for is instant runoff
>> voting.  Yet just a few weeks ago Jerry Brown vetoed the California bill to
>> expand instant runoff voting.
>>
>>
>>
>> Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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