State Rep. Pete Lund continues to get hammered for his ham-handed attempt to alter Michigan’s winner-take-all system in presidential elections.
The Shelby Township Republican’s loser-gets-a-share approach toward Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes was soundly criticized by election experts at a House hearing on Monday. Academia may not phase Lund but fellow conservatives at The Detroit News are also piling on.
Dan Calabrese, a frequent blogger for the News, had this to say:
“Michigan Republicans need to do better (in presidential elections), and to stop thinking like losers. Changing a process permanently because of the way you’re performing at a given point in time almost always comes back to bite you later when the dynamics have changed and that rule change you forced way back when doesn’t help you as much as you thought it was going to.
“Not to mention the fact that politicians should not be changing the rules just to help their side win, and that’s exactly what this is.”
James David Dickson, Op-Ed page editor at the News, wrote a blog post that essentially said Lund should serve as the poster child for stupid ideas if the Legislature approves the lame-duck lawmaker’s plan to distribute Electoral College votes based on the margin of victory:
“All this would do is relegate Michigan further into backwater status. If winner-takes-all isn’t intriguing enough to get candidates to come to Michigan, splitting electoral votes up for anything less than a supermajority won’t entice them, either.
“… Lund needs to realize that President Barack Obama is not on the ballot in 2016. The Republicans who think they allowed a great injustice to be done to their people in allowing Obama to be elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012 … should focus more on (trying) to get a win in 2016. Rigging the game speaks to a lack of confidence in one’s team. In terms of raw numbers, it speaks to either a lack of character (if a Democrat wins) or intelligence (if a Republican wins).
“Whether this reform is passed by a Legislature on its way out — whether this lands on Gov. Rick Snyder’s famed ‘agenda’ or not — will tell the real story here. If Pete Lund drives Michigan’s faint relevance in presidential elections off a cliff, his name and face should be plastered everywhere, with a simple question: ‘This was the man you followed off a cliff?'”
Speaking of rigging the vote, I wonder what Dan Calabrese had to say about Republican gerrymandering?
Instead, a survey of Michigan voters showed 73% overall support for a national popular vote for President, that would make Michigan more important in presidential elections, and would force the candidates wanting to win to be concerned about Michigan.
Support was 73% among independents, 78% among Democrats, and 68% among. Republicans.
By age, support was 77% among 18-29 year olds, 67% among 30-45 year olds, 74%. among 46-65 year olds, and 75% for those older than 65.
By gender, support was 86% among women and 59% among men.
As recently as December 11, 2008, The Michigan House of Representatives passed the National Popular Vote bill by a 65-36 margin.
NationalPopularVote
Instead, The National Popular Vote bill would make every vote, everywhere, politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states, like Michigan, that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
National Popular Vote would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes, and thus the presidency, to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by replacing state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founders. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founders in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, 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 every state surveyed recently. In virtually every of the 39 states surveyed, overall support has been in the 70-80% range or higher. – in recent or past closely divided battleground states, in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Obvious partisan machinations, like those proposed now in Michigan's lame duck session, should add support for the National Popular Vote movement. If the party in control in each state is tempted every 2, 4, or 10 years (post-census) to consider rewriting election laws with an eye to the likely politically beneficial effects for their party in the next presidential election, then the National Popular Vote system, in which all voters across the country are guaranteed to be politically relevant and treated equally, is needed now more than ever.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
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There’s a petition against the attempt now in Michigan to rig the Electoral College
To Make Sure Every Vote Counts
http://site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=GOPElectionRigging&autologin=true