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Electoral college, Electoral College reform, Neil Freeman's maps, The Map Scroll, US Electoral reform
Neil Freeman 2003 from The Map Scroll
Now that the battle lines are drawn and we know who are the protagonists in the upcoming election, pundits will doubtless turn their attention to other, obscurer elements in the insanity that is the American Electoral Process, elements such as, oh say, the Electoral College who actually elect the President.
I, too, will doubtless write, at (much) greater length, regarding the inadequacies of this the most iniquitous of all oligarchical support mechanisms, but suffice it to say that the College has been the target for innumerable attempts at reform over the years. None, though, are as unreservedly and utterly bonkers as Neil Freeman’s map of 2003. Here Neil sought to maintain the number of states and their representation, but to redraw the maps so that the states each now represent the same number of people. He even gives them suitable names. Wonderfully mad.
Copyright David Macadam 2012
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The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the primaries.
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
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I shall look forward to your further words on this confusing (to another native Brit) topic.
10 out of 10 to the originator of that map for creativity though – I rather like it!
Another factor in the US electoral circus that makes no sense to me is that each state is able to regulate who appears on the presidential ballot sheet. Each state can define their own requirements as to requirement for “making it onto the ballot”. Here in Oklahoma there is possibly the most strict set of guidelines, which means we seldom if ever have choice of more than Republican or Democrat from which to choose.
Greens, any variation of socialist, any People’s Party, Justice Party or other new entity has no chance at all of appearing on our sheet.
See Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_access
Yes indeed! Well mentioned and I would refer others to the wikipedia ref. you quote. The problems of the Electoral College, and as you also mention the difficulties of making it to the papers themselves, are well known, but no one seems to remember them except at election time when it is too late to change them. Those who do complain out of season are made out to be nerds or cranks who dont deserve to be listened to. Naturally as these restrictons favour the big two there is little appetite in Washington for significant reform.
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