From the AP:
The National Popular Vote movement is aimed at preventing a repeat of 2000, when Democrat
Al Gore lost despite getting more votes than George W. Bush.
Backers are asking states to change their laws to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally.
A longstanding and seemingly unresolvable discourse may now may be moving away from it's fulcrum. The Popular Vote has strong support:
John Koza, a Stanford University professor who is one of the idea's principal advocates, said lawmakers in 47 states have agreed to sponsor the plan this year. It was introduced last year in Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, New York and California, where the Legislature approved the measure only to have Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger veto it.
But how can this possibly done short of amending the Constitution, a long, arduous, and incredibly difficult task:
There have been other attempts to change the Electoral College system, but all of them foundered. They were aimed at amending the Constitution, an often drawn-out process that requires approval by Congress and ratification by at least 38 states.
This plan would be accomplished instead through an agreement among the states. It would not take effect unless adopted by state legislatures representing a majority of electoral votes.
That's not say that the plan doesn't have it's critics:
In a close presidential election, recounts would be demanded "in every precinct, every hamlet in the United States," he said. "The practical problems are absolutely enormous."
And also,
Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political science professor and director of the school's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, warned the proposal would reduce the influence of small states and lead candidates to spend more time campaigning in voter-rich California, New York and Texas.
However,
However, Jacobs said dissatisfaction with the Electoral College system is growing, even in states that may benefit from the current setup.
A lot of Americans "don't like the Electoral College system. They find it to be out of step with expectations about democracy, expectations that our founding fathers did not necessarily share," he said.
For many of us here the nightmare of 2000 is as frightening and real as it was 7 years ago. It landed us with an executive who treat the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions as documents of convenience and not necessity. It thrust us into a war of choice which is still growing and worsening, and with catastrophic short and long term consequences. It created and fostered a culture of fear, force, corruption, cronyism, and incompetence. The list goes on and on. But does that mean that simply revising the electoral process is the best solution?
Personally I support the popular vote system because (and I admit my rationale is simplistic) the U.S. elects every office through the popular vote, so why should the Presidency be special? Isn't the whole point of the separation of powers, checks and balances, and people power (the roots of Democracy) that the President, as one of us, should be elected and serve just as any other public political figure in our system of government? The debate has raged since the founding of our country, and isn't likely to be drastically altered anytime too soon, yet we have witnessed and experienced the lessons of a failed electoral system all too brutally.
Where do you stand and why? If amending the Electoral College isn't the solution, than what is?