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Connecticut To Give Its Electoral College Votes To National Popular Vote Victor

Connecticut’s legislature has passed a bill that would give the state’s Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote nationally.
The state Senate voted 21-14 on Saturday to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which includes 10 states and the District of Columbia. The state House passed the measure last week, 77 to 73.

The compact requires its members to cast their Electoral College ballots for the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. The agreement goes into effect once states representing at least 270 electoral votes — the number needed for a candidate to win the presidency — signs the compact.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) has promised to sign the legislation committing his state to the interstate agreement. Once he does so, the compact will have 172 electoral votes. California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia have already signed the accord.

Malloy has described the current Electoral College voting system as “fundamentally unfair.”

“With the exception of the presidency, every elected office in the country, from city council, to United States senator, to governor, is awarded the candidate who receives the most votes,” the governor said, according to the Connecticut Mirror. “The vote of every American citizen should count equally, yet under the current system, voters from sparsely populated states are awarded significantly more power than those from states like Connecticut.”

In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million ballots, but won the electoral vote 304 to 227, thus clinching the presidency.

According to The Associated Press, Connecticut ― which cast its seven electoral votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 ― will be the first state to join the National Popular Vote agreement since Trump’s victory.

State Rep. Matthew Lesser (D) said it’s taken a decade of lobbying to convince Connecticut lawmakers to join the compact.

Trump’s victory, Lesser told AP, appears to have given the issue “some renewed momentum.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/connecticut-e...&soc_trk=ma

If Connecticut wants to give away their sovereignty, shame on them.

Stats have rights. It doesn't matter how big a state is, they are all equal. All this does is give the populated states more say in matters. If this is how it goes, a person might only need to win 5-6 states.

That isn't how the founding fathers wanted it to be. Leave it to Dems to come up with a bad idea.

Yea... and trump would have won the popular vote if it wasn't for the millions of illegal voters casting their ballots as well...

Time to End the Electoral College

By overwhelming majorities, Americans would prefer to elect the president by direct popular vote, not filtered through the antiquated mechanism of the Electoral College. They understand, on a gut level, the basic fairness of awarding the nation’s highest office on the same basis as every other elected office — to the person who gets the most votes.

But for now, the presidency is still decided by 538 electors. And on Monday, despite much talk in recent weeks about urging those electors to block Donald Trump from the White House, a majority did as expected and cast their ballots for him — a result Congress will ratify next month.

And so for the second time in 16 years, the candidate who lost the popular vote has won the presidency. Unlike 2000, it wasn’t even close. Hillary Clinton beat Mr. Trump by more than 2.8 million votes, or 2.1 percent of the electorate. That’s a wider margin than 10 winning candidates enjoyed and the biggest deficit for an incoming president since the 19th century.

Yes, Mr. Trump won under the rules, but the rules should change so that a presidential election reflects the will of Americans and promotes a more participatory democracy.

The Electoral College, which is written into the Constitution, is more than just a vestige of the founding era; it is a living symbol of America’s original sin. When slavery was the law of the land, a direct popular vote would have disadvantaged the Southern states, with their large disenfranchised populations. Counting those men and women as three-fifths of a white person, as the Constitution originally did, gave the slave states more electoral votes.

Today the college, which allocates electors based on each state’s representation in Congress, tips the scales in favor of smaller states; a Wyoming resident’s vote counts 3.6 times as much as a Californian’s. And because almost all states use a winner-take-all system, the election ends up being fought in just a dozen or so “battleground” states, leaving tens of millions of Americans on the sidelines.

There is an elegant solution: The Constitution establishes the existence of electors, but leaves it up to states to tell them how to vote. Eleven states and the District of Columbia, representing 165 electoral votes, have already passed legislation to have their electors vote for the winner of the national popular vote. The agreement, known as the National Popular Vote interstate compact, would take effect once states representing a majority of electoral votes, currently 270, signed on. This would ensure that the national popular-vote winner would become president.

Conservative opponents of a direct vote say it would give an unfair edge to large, heavily Democratic cities and states. But why should the votes of Americans in California or New York count for less than those in Idaho or Texas? A direct popular vote would treat all Americans equally, no matter where they live — including, by the way, Republicans in San Francisco and Democrats in Corpus Christi, whose votes are currently worthless. The system as it now operates does a terrible job of representing the nation’s demographic and geographic diversity. Almost 138 million Americans went to the polls this year, but Mr. Trump secured his Electoral College victory thanks to fewer than 80,000 votes across three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

This page opposed the Electoral College in 1936, and in more recent years as well. In 2004, President George W. Bush won the popular vote by more than three million, but he could have lost the Electoral College with a switch of fewer than 60,000 votes in Ohio.

Many Republicans have endorsed doing away with the Electoral College, including Mr. Trump himself, in 2012. Maybe that’s why he keeps claiming falsely that he won the popular vote, or why more than half of Republicans now seem to believe he did. For most reasonable people, it’s hard to understand why the loser of the popular vote should wind up running the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/time-to-end-the-electoral-college.html

Regardless of which electoral process is the "fairest" (I personally think the Electoral College), Connecticut is a state of losers.

Whenever someone tells me "Yep, I was born, raised and have always lived here."

I think "I'm sure."

So basically these States are proposing to render your vote worthless.

The Electoral College DOES in fact represent the nation's demographic and geographic diversity as it was designed to do. A straight popular vote destroys that.

The purpose for the Electoral College is the same as why we have a bi-cameral legislature. The Senate gives each State equal representation so that the smaller States can't get steam rolled, and the House gives representation based on population to reflect the "will" of the majority.

People think thr political process is in the crapper now, if we went straight popular vote, it would get worse. The candidates would no longer have to sell their campaign to a larger cross section of people and instead all they'd have to do is whip up the mob.

I'm just not a fan of mob rule.

If this comes to fruition it's going to deal a serious blow to the GOP. They will have to run candidates that the other 60% find trustworthy and likable! Good luck GOPers.

I can think of two recent presidencies that this would have changed just off the top of my head. Would have made an incredible difference this last time. Even though I didn't like HRC, I wouldn't have to watch my wallet with her in the room like I do during the GRAND HEIST going on now.

The founding intention of the states having a fair amount of autonomy has been dwindling away for quite a while now.. Just look at the Flint Michigan water problem, I see posts on Facebook on a weekly basis demanding that Trump do something about it.. never anything about why Michigan should fix their own problem. The mentality, especially from the left, in every crisis is that the federal government's powers should be expanded to fix all problems.. almost nothing is left to the states any more..

Just look at the 10 states that have signed this already..

California
Maryland
Illinois
Massachusettes
Hawaii
New Jersey
New York
Rhode Island
Vermont
Washington
DC

Pretty much all blue states who fully understand that they can win federal elections by dominating the metropolitan and urban votes.. so they are gerrymandering the whole country while blaming republicans for gerrymandering individual districts.

I knew this one would hit a nerve...

Well the contract only kicks in once a President has already secured the election. And the electoral college has only voted against the popular vote 3 times in our history, I really see this as no big deal.

But to get to your first point, maybe it's because the people believe the local and state government are too incompetent to do anything? I heard that the state gave Nestle a great deal on a water supply the other month. So that might be why they're clamoring for fed oversight? In the same type of way that Trump wants to send the feds to Chicago?

But they have this unbridled trust in the federal government? Those people are morons.


What does that have to do with anything? If the state made a deal you don't like take it up with the state.... having the feds come in and run rough shod over the state every time a state does something you don't like is part of the problem, not the solution.


I don't like Trump, what's your point?

Is your position that because its only happened 3 times, having the Compact is no big deal, or is it that because its only happened 3 times, the problem is not a big deal and the Compact not necessary?

The agreement goes into effect once states representing at least 270 electoral votes — the number needed for a candidate to win the presidency — signs the compact.

Because that. I also don't think it's likely to happen again. I can't imagine more people will flock to liberal states. It's a good time to move to a red state, if you're a recent grad. They're usually much cheaper to live in and have decent employment opportunities.

Got it now, thanks!

If people don't like the electoral college, they should encourage people who share their views to fan out into other parts of the country.

It will never go away without a massive House majority and the 2/3's statehouse stranglehold, which I doubt is happening in our lifetimes (though the Democrats are currently doing their best to hand just that to the Republicans).

I do see a big deal. Let's say Connecticut votes a majority to elect candidate A, but candidate B wins the popular vote. Why do the voters of Connecticut even have a need to vote?

As I said earlier, if you can lock up elections simply by winning 6-7 big states and the metro areas, this country will fall apart.

So much for taking an oath to defend our Constitution.

I stand corrected. After a little research, there is nothing in the Constitution to refute this.

That's how the electoral college works currently, though.

Any EC voter is free to vote however they wish and aren't bound by anything.

That's why all those hopeless dummies were begging for EC voters not to cast for Trump in 2016.

While I agree in sentiment, convincing a college educated liberal to move to a GOP hellhole such as Kansas, over sunny California, just isn’t going to happen.
I too see it as an issue. Most of my college buddies got their degrees from Ohio State then got out of Ohio, partly because of the politics of the state.
Oregon has a huge transplant population. Lots of Ohioans. (I rarely meet anyone actually from Oregon.) Most of the people moved here for job opportunities or because they liked the liberal politics. In turn Oregon becomes more liberal while states like Ohio lose their young liberal college kids post college graduation. In turn those states become more heavily conservative based as the youth leaves.
Personally it’d take a lot more than cheap cost of living and a job to get me to move to the likes of Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc.

That's why local and state politics are incredibly important.

The Democrats biggest problem is that under Obama they kept their focus solely on national politics while ignoring local and state races, to the point where these places were begging the DNC for money that was basically just being funneled to the campaigns of the bigger chess pieces.

I agree 100%, overall, though. There are some pocket examples of states or areas that aren't considered booming or viable that began to build something up with a concerted effort.

I mean, Minneapolis/St. Paul isn't exactly a place everyone's dying to move to, but it's got a vibrant community and has been seeing growth because they've made it an attractive option.

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-i...ties/422600314/

But then, of course, you get these dolts like a Pence or a Brownback in the governor's seat and their tax-cut, trickle down economics and anti-LGBT legislations make it hard for anyone to even want to try and build any sort of attractive place to live.

"A direct popular vote would treat all Americans equally, no matter where they live — including, by the way, Republicans in San Francisco and Democrats in Corpus Christi, whose votes are currently worthless."

Each state would only cast their EC votes to the popular vote winner of the nation... it is not the popular vote of each state...

Good deal. The majority vote should rule.

Exactly... and as daytnabacker pointed out, this can be done within the current framework of the constitution...

10000% +

Fight fire with fire.

Or it could be the voices of the majority finally being heard. The electoral college has shoved a horrible president down America's throat for the last time. I'm 100% behind this move.

Trump's going to get the most comments because he's the man at the top. Regardless of the procedural discussion (which I agree, Michigan should be able to apportion $55 million to fix flints water), the simple fact remains that if no one complains, no one will feel compelled to change anything.

If Trump should be at the forefront of this discussion it's only because he spoke a great deal about infrastructure and Flint Michigan would actually be a big political win for him if he made that one of the touchstones of an infrastructure deal. Unfortunately it's becoming more and more apparent that talks on infra were yet another bill of goods left unpaid to get votes.

He wants to instead use $55million on a military parade for himself.
Fixing Flint would cost about $48million from what I’ve read.

when not hamstrung by rampant partisan gerrymandering.

Google: Operation REDMAP 2010

Most of the people I know would not move to a hellhole like Oregon or California. In fact many Libs are moving to places like Nevada, Arizona because they taxes themselves out of sunny California. Trouble is they take their stupid politics with them.

Then stop claiming to be better than everybody else...

Then there is no point in the EC..

It's a legal method to circumvent the EC. Exactly how red states do it with abortion rights.

Trump gets ripped apart for calling Haiti a..... you call your fellow Americans in Kansas a hellhole..

You win the "I want to be like Trump" award for the day... congratulations.

But, but, but.. whatabout abortion... what about sanctuary cities? what about gun rights?

That's the thing. Both sides continue to dissect laws in order to find ways to circumvent them. People only get outraged when it happens to an issue they care about. Any other time they have no problem with it and even support it.

It's not a new problem and it happens more and more all the time.

I'm with you Pit, I get it.. I really do.

Reading is one thing. Comprehension another. Read more carefully. I called it a “GOP hellhole”. The GOP government of the state financially brought the state to its knees. Massive corporate tax cuts lead to cuts in medical services and education for the citizens. Meanwhile it did little for job creation or low wages. Once again, only this time on a state level, proving trickle down economics is a heap of trash.
Kansas is a fine place. My old college roommate is from there and lives there now. Great guy. The BBQ is top notch...
Sadly it’s run by GOP morons that bankrupted it for their wealthy friends.
Watch this...
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/558143/kansas-tax-cuts/

Kansas is pretty much what you get when you put "if we cut taxes and regulation, the economy will boom!" into action.

An absolute mess.

Should we look to NY, California or Illinois for examples of how great dem led states have been bastions of fiscal responsibility .... ..