Subject: Re: [EL] would Americans be happier if the USA broke up?
From: Rob Richie
Date: 1/15/2011, 3:53 PM
To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>

As a founding member of the Maryland cell of the National Popular Vote Liberation Front (which we affectionately call NaPoVLiFt, although I'm not supposed to tell you that), let me offer an alternative point of view to some of Curtis' understated observations about current efforts to have one-person, one-vote elections for president

Let's go in reverse order:

1) This "stealth" effort for the National Popular Vote plan for president was launched with a February 2006 news conference at the National Press Club and an appearance that week by former U.S. Senator Birch Bayh on C-SPAN's Washington Journal. This "putsch" (which the dictionary reports is "a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force") since then has evolved one-on-one discussions with state legislators in every state in the country, and innumerable committee hearings and floor debates, some of which have literally done on for eight hours. Every state has had bills introduced, more than a quarter of state legislators have sponsored the legislation or voted for it, and nearly a third of our nation's 100 state legislative chambers (counting D.C.) have passed it. One of the most recent legislative chamber wins was in New York's state senate where more than 75% of both Democrats and Republican members voted for it. And yet advocates still have a ways to go. With each new state win, the debate increases -- not quite a "stealth" effort as I might define it.

2. The 2000 recount dispute in Florida was hardly a "walk in the park." And yet it ended up with the Supreme Court, entirely unresolved down at the state level -- as indeed would be the case in a disputed election in any moderately sized state, given the short timeline for states awarding their electoral votes The current Electoral College system creates such artificial crises far more often than would be likely in a national popular vote plan for president, where the odds of a disputed election legitimately requiring a recount are far lower than a disputed state election that swings the election in our current system.

3. In the 2008 election, in the final two months of the campaign in the wake of the GOP convention, more than 98% of campaign spending and candidate time was spent in 15 states representing barely a third of Americans -- hardly respectful of the different interests and views of the remaining states and their people. Residents of states like Ohio were victims of an endless barrage of advertisements, almost wall-to-wall in ad time in some markets. Grassroots activity mattered in such states, to be sure, but it was utterly useless in most of the nation, including nearly every small state. That's in contrast to popular vote election where every act to mobilize voters counts equally in helping to decide the election.

Popular vote elections aren't a mystery, of course. We use them for every election for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and every state office. Although I might like to improve aspects of them, to be sure, you won't catch me supporting changing them to non-popular vote systems -- and trying to do so at a state level might help demonstrate the weakness of arguments against change at a national level.

Rob Richie, FairVote


On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Curtis Gans <gans@american.edu> wrote:
The liberal opposition to National Popular Vote and direct elections has nothing to do with lack of acceptance that we are one nation. It has everything to do with avoiding fully empowering the political consultants, a national media campaign with no incentives for grassroots activity, disincentives for coalition building, undermining the positive aspects of the principle of federalism -- of understanding that while we are one nation, there are local, state a regional differences and concerns that need to be addressed in campaigns and public policy; and the possibility of needed a recount of all the votes cast in the nation making the 2000 Florida recount seem a day in the park. With regard to NPV -- procedurally, it is foisting a radical restructuring of how we elect president by a stealth campaign and the equivalent of a putsch.


Curtis Gans, Director
Center for the Study of the American Electorate
Center for Democracy and Election Management
American University
3201 New Mexico Avenue NW
Suite 395
Washington, DC 20016-8026
Phones: (202) 885-6295 (o); (703) 304-1283 (c), (540) 822-5292 (h)
Fax: (202) 885-6294
e-mail: gans@american.edu; curtis.gans@gmail.com
Website: http://www.American.edu/ia/cdem/csae



From:        Richard Winger <richardwinger@yahoo.com>
To:        election-law@mailman.lls.edu
Date:        01/15/2011 02:03 PM
Subject:        [EL] would Americans be happier if the USA broke up?
Sent by:        election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu



I sometimes wonder if residents of the U.S. wouldn't be happier if the United States ceased to be one nation, and each state became its own independent country.  So much of our political issues are really regional, somewhat in disguise.  The cultural conflicts are extreme and seem related to regionalism.

Of course this is not a new or original idea.  There has been so little discourse on this list for so long, I thought I would throw it out and see what happens.

The fierce difference opinion about the electoral college seems to reflect that a very large share of Americans really don't accept that we are one nation.  It seems obvious to me that when the U.S. has a presidential election and the voters believe they are choosing the president, the person with the most votes ought to be the winner.  The root of the opposition to that idea, I think, is actually based on resistance to the idea that we are one nation.

There also seems little support for the notion that the election laws governing congressional elections ought to be uniform.  As it stands now, congressional elections are a hodge-podge of various state election law systems.

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