I get it, they would vote based on the national popular vote, not the popular vote within the member block.

You probably wouldn't need a majority of states for that to work, just a cross section.

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So, change the constitution.

Why would the constitution prevent some kind of work-around?

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The Constitution doesn't prevent it, it's just not gonna happen, at least not in our current political climate with one party.

Our nation is effectively one party because there is a 98% incumbency rate in Congress. This means that out of 535 seats, only 10 are competative every 2 years. Most of those are probably in Iowa, and the rest are probably due to death or retirement.

So the other 525 incumbents never have to worry about facing a hard campaign. Look at Conn. with Liberman. Most Democrats hate him because he is pretty much a Republican, yet it is doubtful that they will ever get rid of him. Its like that old saying says "Better to go with the devil you know than the one you don't". So they'd rather have a Democrat in there who might one day vote Democrat rather than a full Republican. Apparently they don't want to risk getting a new Democrat candidate to replace Liberman in the primaries either.

But back to the topic of national popular vote, there was a program yesterday on the Diane Rheem (sp?) show on NPR. Each state can decide for itself how its electoral votes are apportioned. I liked the Colorado initiative attempting to split them based on the percentage of votes. For example, if a Democrat got 49% and a Republican got 51%, the Republican would get 5/9 electoral votes from Colorado, and the Democrat the remaining 4. But it was shot down due to partisan politics when the Republicans, for some reason, thought it would hurt their party's chances at the White House. I don't know why they thought that, its not like Bush had a real challenger. But oh well.

I wonder, if instead of a national popular vote (or in addition to it) if we could also have a "None of the Above" option on our ballots. I wonder if between that choice and the incumbent, what people would choose more often. My hypothesis is they would choose "None of the Above", forcing the parties to pick new candidates. I suppose we could already do that if we had enough people who put "None of the Above" on our ballots as a "write-in" candidate. Of course, I think the current rules require that such a ballot be invalidated.

Maybe we could come up with something creative like "Vote John/Jane Doe for Congress/President - Because the only real choice is None of the Above". Just an idea. 

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link

note it here

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The California Legislature passed a bill that would give California's 55 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the candidate who captured the state — but for now, the measure stands a slim chance of becoming reality.

That's because it could go into effect only if states with a combined total of 270 electoral votes — the number now required to win the presidency — agree to the same process.

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Is this a limitation imposed by the Californian legislators? You don't really need half the EC votes. All you need is a bit of diversity. Say, one dem state (California) and one rep state (Texas), and maybe a few others in case the scene shifts somehow. It would be almost impossible for a party to win without winning the NPV and without the support of a few core states that usually vote in favour of it.

Also, what if it was close enough to need a recount. How would that work?

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The vote in the California legislature was mostly along party lines -- Dems for, Repub against.

Is that just because the republicans benefitted the last time it changed the election outcome, or are they generally against the idea?

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It appears as if our flawed electoral system(s) has/have already begun to show its inherent errors and discrepancies with Clinton and Obama primary vote results in Nevada. Here's an excerpt from an article on the "win-win"??:

"

Delegate Dispute

Obama, 46, didn't give a concession speech. His campaign claimed a victory in the state, saying that while Obama received fewer total votes, he won one more delegate than Clinton because of the way delegates are apportioned in rural areas.

``Barack Obama did well throughout the state,'' Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a conference call with reporters. Plouffe said Obama received 13 delegates for the party's national convention and Clinton got 12.

Clinton's campaign disputed that, citing a delegate selection process that won't be completed until April.

``Well, nobody really knows,'' Clinton told reporters in Las Vegas, when asked about the delegate count. ``This is about delegates but it's also about what people are voting for and who they think the best president will be.''

The Democratic candidate needs 2,025 delegates to win the nomination. Clinton, who placed third in the Iowa caucuses and won the New Hampshire primary, has 210 delegates so far, according to a tally by CNN that includes so-called super delegates, party officials and office holders who are not bound by state voting results. Obama has 123 and Edwards has 52."

Copy/pasted from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080120/pl_bloomberg/a5qn_h6lzhg_1

Another interesting article on this: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/033

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