Senate approves National Popular Vote initiative

Peter Mills should know better. This is a terrible deal for Maine.

jonb--you have no idea what you are talking about.

Maine has fewer voters than Dallas - why would they come here at all.\

Maine has been a battle ground state in the past - with millions spent by both parties here on the ground/ Our 4 electoral delegates play an important role.

Each candidate in 2004 and 2000 sent dozens of surrogates here and dumped lots of money. We will get a few TV commercials now and lose out on everything else.

This makes no sense for Maine.

It may seem like the apportionment of the EC gives Maine (and other small states) a greater voice, but the reality is that we are taken for granted. The EC votes in small states as an agregate mean a lot, but they are not viewed that way by any of the campaigns.

In what seems like a gentlemen's agreement, the small states are divided between candidates, and so actually have no value.

Now, in a popular election, where the person with the most votes wins, then a vote in Maine is the exact equal to that of one in Dallas, let's say, and both are worth fighting for equally. Losing 20,000 votes per each small state quickly adds up, whereas currently one need only finish one vote ahead to win Maine's EC votes (and yes I do know that each of Maine's Districts can go differently).

The EC needs to be eliminated, and it can be done without changing the Constitution.

Personally I feel that this should be sent to the people of Maine for a vote. Such a dramatic change to our electoral system like this ought to be sent out to the people for their view of the issue. I can only hope the legislation provides for that, or that Baldacci will take the option to do that when he signs the bill.

This doesn't help Maine at all. With the National Popular Vote - or what I call the NFL city political campaign - no candidate is going to venture out of the top 45+ media markets in the United States. They don't have too. If this system was in place, we wouldn't have seen Obama or Clinton make the trip to Maine for the caucus. Rural voters would be more dis-enfrancished than ever.

If there is to be a fair popular vote that puts every voter into play in every state try this:
-do away with the electoral college (put in place by a bunch of rich white land owning men)
-the winner of the popular vote in each US House district gets 1 tally or count.
-There are 435 House Districts plus DC. Add Puerto Rico to keep the total an odd number. (437 Total House Districts)
-Winner of the most House Districts -or 219 in a two way race- is the President.

Because the constitution sets the amount of citizens per representative in a House District, with this system, every vote in every state is in play. Rural and Urban. The National Popular Vote tries to graft a popular vote system with the electoral college math.

People keep saying we need to be united and be proud of our democracy so how could a popular vote system, where each individual has an equal voice, be any more appropriate?

States are already represented equally in the Senate where such division has its advantages within the organization of things. However the presidency represents us as a nation, a nation founded on the principle that we are all equal.

If we want to be united as a nation we need to stop letting states and electoral systems create a subclass that flies in the face of what we are trying to represent. How can we try to tell others the wonders of democracy when our president got 500,000 less votes then the runner up? You worry about Maine being ignored but what about those people?

Be proud of your state, but be even more proud of the nation it is in. I know many Mainers that would never ever want to give up rural life to live in NYC. We all have a choice and every choice has an outcome. In the end it comes down to those that believe in equality or those that put state pride in the way of the better good.

~ Matt

So instead of 11 states deciding the winner, we should have about 40 Congressional districts deciding the winner?

That's worse.

Most Congressional districts are solidly R or solidly D.

to leave it up to the tiny number of swing seats is what you are proposing.

And that's good for our country how?

Have any of the people who are for this ever read the US Constitution? To change this would actually require a Constitutional amendment.
So, it won't hold up in court first of all.

This would put Maine, a very small state at the mercy of larger states and even large cities.
Not only that, but it would basically become a mob rule situation.
People who are all for this are either not too swift, want to see the US turned into a socialist state and/or are very short sighted.
What if in years down the road, the majority has been watching too much liberal, main stream media and have been convinced that Stalin was a hero? Who do you suppose the next POTUS would be? A Stalin like politician of course.
What if the majority of people decided that they didn't want a Senate or Congress? Or what if the majority decided they wanted to change our form of govt. completely so that we end up like Italy and have a complete overhaul of the way things are done every two or three years?
What if the majority decides Hugo Chavez should be our minister of oil?
Come on people! Use your heads for more than a hat rack.

Hello Fellow Mainers --

I think that people underestimate the intricate genius that our Founding Fathers put into the framework for electing a President. The Electoral College system's primary strength is in balancing power in this country. The premise is in fact that the so called popular vote should NOT be the sole deciding factor of the election. If that were so, then all the power in our country would be isolated on both seaboards. The west and east coasts would make the decision, and the mid-west and other rural parts of the country would have little voice.

The Electoral College was designed to offset this possibility of the big seaboard cities hijacking the elections by giving the mid-west regions (the folks who grow our food and feed us) more of a balanced voice.

The fact that in the occasional extremely close race a winner gets in without winning the popular vote proves the system works as our Founding Fathers intended, not that it is broken. I believe that such a carefully thought out balance of electoral power, that has given us over 200 years of peaceful regime changes - should not be hastily abandoned.

SINCERELY -- Christopher M. Doyon

Chairman - China Democratic Committee

Delegate - Maine Democratic Convention

Candidate For Maine Legislature
Representative - District 55

---------------------
Doyon '08 Campaign

www.DoyonForLegislature.info

The Founding Fathers argued over this issue as much, if not more, than we are doing here on the comment board. To presume that this was an easy decision or that it was unanimous is categorically incorrect.

On the contrary, the Electoral College balanced the interests of those who wanted the direct election of the president (e.g. national popular vote) with those who wanted Congress to choose the next president. Remember, that in those times state legislatures decided their US Senators meaning the outcome was heavily weighted toward who was in power at the state level already.

In addition to this debate, there were practical issues of concern. First, we had no reliable Postal Service, the majority of the country was either illiterate or could read myriad languages, and the "mass communication" of the day was the printing press. Now, I grew up with the crank phone, but... this is even more archaic.

Given these parameters, it is reasonable to understand why our Founding Fathers decided to settle on the Electoral College whereby voters elect someone whose job it was to research the candidates and make an educated decision about who should be president.

Oh, how times have changed. Today, we have the USPS which floods our mailboxes with countless flyers. We have email that gets flooded with countless pleas for votes, money and signatures for petitions. We have not simply a public education system that provides education from K-12, but a large number of people have college degrees as well.

And finally, we have television, radio and the internet providing you with 24-hours worth of information that you can have broadcast into your home or that you can seek out at your leisure. This has provided ample opportunity for people to make their own decisions about who should be president.

Thomas Jefferson himself spoke quite eloquently about the need for government to be flexible to the new and developing needs of its people. He never envisioned government and laws as a concrete fixture from which all future generations should be bound. Quite the contrary. In fact, this was so much a part of what he believed in that he is quoted at his monument on the need to improve upon the work that they did.

To that end, slaves were freed, women were given the right to vote and US Senators are now directly elected by the people. In an era where people can educate themselves on who to elect, and in an era when people actually consider themselves as actively voting FOR a president (not an elector), it is time to improve upon the democracy that was laid before us in an effort to strengthen it for future generations.

It is for that reason that I support the direct election of the president, and I support the Natioanl Popular Vote Plan as a means for states to excercise their rights to make it so.

K, yes, I know. look at the first sentence.
"in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct"

it is up to each state to determine how they assign their electors to the EC.

this bill changes the way Maine assigns their electors.

that's all.

that's why this is constitutional.

this does not get rid of the Electoral College, it merely changes how people are chosen to represent the states there.

I was (not) surprised to hear of this for the first time yesterday. I mean with all the news about our legislators passing (proposing)such important bills as banning novelty lighters, raise cigarette tax, seat belt laws, light bulbs, energy drinks,no smoking in cars I can see why such an important piece of legislation would be lost in the shuffle and never make the news.
If it is so great why not let the people decide why give the impression of it being done in the dark of the night? It must be bad or at least it doesn't help the children