The Oregon House voted today to end the electoral college system in favor of the popular vote in electing a U.S. president.
House Bill 2588, which passed 39-19, now moves to the Senate.
Four states have endorsed legislation to ban the current system, which awards all the electoral college votes in a state to one candidate. The states pushing for direct election are Hawaii (4 votes), Illinois (21), Maryland (10) and New Jersey (15). Oregon has 7 votes.
Supporters say they need this because right now, presidential candidates spend too much time in toss-up, vote-rich states.
Imagine a tight race where every single ballot across the country would be challenged as they are in Minnesota. It would be a national nightmare.
In addition, candidates would no longer spend time in swing states but urban centers, thus limiting the influence of rural voters.
No, the Electoral College works just fine. Quit fixing what's not broken.
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1 comment:
The electoral college gives a voice to people in rural states, which tend to lean conservative. Without the EC, states like Kansas would not even get one campaign visit. It would shift the electorate left.
One might say the EC overweights the rural voter. Problem is the urban voter is still more expensive to reach with campaign dollars, so candidates still tend to make their appeal to the urban centers. So the rural voter is still underweighted, but by a little less as a result of the EC.
It would be probably OK with the rural voter to be underweighted, if the federal law was applied in an equally underweighted fashion. But the rural population has had to live with a federal government that increasingly makes them a net payer to urban centers that are net receivers of their funds. The elimination of the EC would be yot one more reason for the government to shit on America's heartland.
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