House considers two ways to alter presidential election

Kentucky could change how it participates in the presidential election with two bills that passed out of a House committee Tuesday.

Under one proposal, Kentucky would join several other states to agree to elect the U.S. president by the popular vote instead of the electoral college system. House Bill 400, sponsored by Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo, D-Lexington, would sign Kentucky onto an interstate compact. But the agreement only would kick in when enough states that would bring a total of 270 electoral college votes -- the amount necessary for a presidential candidate to win -- join that compact.

The other proposal, pushed by a group of Lloyd High School students and sponsored by Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Erlanger, would divvy up six of Kentucky's eight electoral college votes by congressional districts. Whichever presidential candidate garnered the most votes in each of the six districts would receive that elector's vote.

The other two electors would be awarded to the candidate that received the most popular votes in Kentucky. That measure, H.B. 423, could take effect this fall.

Both measures were approved by 7-2 votes in the House Elections, Constitutional Amendments and Intergovernmental Affairs committee. The two were presented in the committee last week but not voted upon because not enough panel members showed up.

- Ryan Alessi

Comments

[Jake Ryan]

The Congressional District Method of selecting our presidential electors is no better than the irresponsible National Popular Vote. Some Republicans think this is a fair method of representing all in the state (giving the liberals in Louisville nothing to complain about). Republicans move this none sense forward in hopes that states such as California and New York will adopt the same standards, but reality is they will not. California's legislature is not going to pass a measure that would given roughly 1/3 of their electoral votes to a Republican.

The National Popular Vote gives all of the state's electoral votes to the national winning candidate, regardless of whether the candidate wins the state or not. Maryland has passed such a measure, and it has the potential of taking away their voice in the voting process. A candidate only has to win 11 states to win the Presidency. It is pathetic that a candidate could get a hair more than 1/5 of the states and still win, all they have to do is run a sectional campaign. The District method is not much better in the long run. The NPV removes the founder's purpose of the Electoral College by electing the President through a popular vote. This is just an end around the Constitution. People pushing the NPV are bitter Gore did not win, but it must be remembered, that Bush won the popular vote in 2004, beating Kerry. TLhe electoral college system has worked over 90% of the time, name another government program that effecient? Leave it Alone. People would be crying against the NPV and back to the electoral college if the role had been reversed in 2000, and Bush won by popularity. Read the Federalist Papers.

Koenig is doing this so Kentucky seems to be a larger player in the National Elections, he could not be farther from reality. There will not be additional campaigning in Kentucky. Republicans expect to win this states, especially in the face of Clinton-Obama. If this measure passes, the Democrats are going to save their money, take the one vote from the 3rd District, and work hard in Ohio or Pennsylvania. Picking up 20 votes in Ohio is way more important than 1 in Kentucky.

Educate yourself and look at the long term models before thinking of passing something this ridiculous.

[Todd]

Wouldn't either of these attempts be struck down by the US Supreme Court, since the Electoral College is in the US Constitution?

[Lars2]

A national popular vote is the right way to elect the President. It is very simple; the candidate who receives the most votes should win the election.

What many people fail to understand is that under a national popular vote "winning" or "losing" any given state is meaningless. What matters is how many individual votes a candidate receives. Under this system, a vote in California is no more or less valuable or sought after than a vote in Kentucky. Every vote is equal. As such, candidate will pursue each vote the same. No one and no vote will be taken for granted or written off. For example, Democrats and Republicans will compete for votes in Kentucky. Whereas Kentucky currently garners no attention, candidate visits, advertising, etc., under a national popular vote the parties will fight over every vote. It is the votes that matter, not the state results.

A national popular vote will do away with so called swing states and safe states. No-one campaigns in Kentucky not because it is small, but because it is a safe Republican state on the presidential level. New York is a safe Democratic state. Texas is safe Republican and so forth. Two-thirds of the country live in safe states and hence are ignored during the fall campaign. Independent research has documented that presidential campaigns spend about 99% of their resources in just 16 states.

Jake correctly points out that Bush did win the popular vote in 2004. He won by more than 3.5 million. However, if a mere 60,000 votes had shifted from Bush to Kerry in just the state of Ohio; Kerry would be President today despite overwhelmingly losing the popular vote. Furthermore, the Electoral College has not worked 90% of the time. In one out of every six closely contested presidential elections (i.e. throw-out landslide elections), the candidate receiving fewer popular votes was elected.

The bigger issues are that the current system essentially disenfranchises more than two-thirds of voters because they live in safe states. It also provides no assurance that the candidate with the most votes will win. A national popular vote remedies both these problems.

[Lars2]

Neither of these proposals is unconstitutional. The US Constitution provides that states can award their electoral votes however they choose. Maine and Nebraska currently use the congressional district system. The national popular vote proposal is an interstate compact (a legally enforceable agreement among states) that doesn't go into effect until the combined electoral votes of the ratifying states constitute a majority of the Electoral College. That way the national popular vote plan ensures that the candidate with the most votes in all 50 states receives a majority of the electoral votes and is elected.