Well, they're at it again

[Right2Carry]

This is not directed individually against members who may belong to the democrat party....

...but the leadership of the democrat party, at both the state and national levels, is fundamentally evil. I mean it. They are satanic. They are out to crush America and change it forever. I hope they all catch a lingering, painful, and incurable venereal disease.

[b322da]

Removing the Electoral College will, in effect, nullify State's Rights. Elections will be decided solely by the more populous states, with the less populous rural states being all but ignored.

With the greatest of respect for all the members' opinions here, and thanks for stating them, the proposed action of the legislature of Massachusetts, which started this thread, has nothing to do with "removing the Electoral College." If this legislation passes, along with that of other states, the mythical "Electoral College," just a ceremonial makeshift gathering of the electors, can continue to function happily. The only difference would be that the various state legislatures will have changed the way the electors' votes will be cast.

Article II, Section 1 of our national Constitution includes the following:

"2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." (One might find it interesting that the last clause here suggests that parhaps we cannot trust our electors, and they might not follow the state legislature's directions. This very question has an early active place in the history of our Constitution).

Then Article II, Section 1 goes on to say that the electors shall muster after the general election and elect the President and Vice President, but conspicously absent from Article II is any mention of an Electoral College, nor is there anything requiring electors from a state to allocate their votes in proportion to the popular votes received by the candidates in that state, the latter being, I suggest, largely an invention of a couple of political parties. One could be justified in saying that our voters do not elect a President and Vice President, but, rather, each state appoints electors, in such a way as that state desires to do so, and those electors, instead, elect the President and Vice President.

It all boils down to the principle that each state, through its legislature, shall decide how the votes for President and Vice President in that particular state shall be cast by its electors.

I would again suggest that since this question is one for the states, and not the federal government, it can be said to be a matter of "states' rights," or at least it was at the time of the adoption of our Constitution. I would also stick my neck out here and suggest that there may be some who oppose such action by state legislatures to be, at the same time, strong supporters of "literally interpreting the Constitution as it was originally written."

I do not at all question your conclusion, Kythas, like the conclusion of many others, that if enough state legislatures make such a change we could see effects related to the electoral power of populous vs. unpopulous states. But, I must say again, we would still have the same Constitution, and we would still have the same mythical Electoral College.

I will close by making a prediction, that if our electoral system becomes that suggested by the Massachusetts legislation we will see a rush to amend Article II. I'm not predicting that it will be amended; only that a serious effort would be made to do so. If we should see that article amended to provide for electors appointed proportional to the popular vote of a state one could, in all fairness, say that a state's right will have been abolished.

Elmo

[Purplehood]

This is not directed individually against members who may belong to the democrat party....

...but the leadership of the democrat party, at both the state and national levels, is fundamentally evil. I mean it. They are satanic. They are out to crush America and change it forever. I hope they all catch a lingering, painful, and incurable venereal disease.

I am not a Democrat, but I am no longer a Republican.

I feel that the Democrats want to feed off the spoils of a devastated United States.

I feel that the Republicans are totally out of touch with reality and take Capitalism to its most brutal extremes at the cost to those not a part of the party oligarchy.

I despise the idea of political parties as a general rule.

[bnc]

I feel that the Republicans are totally out of touch with reality and take Capitalism to its most brutal extremes at the cost to those not a part of the party oligarchy.

How so? The republicans are more than eager to force the government upon us, it is not like they have been frugal anytime recent, but they just have a different group of favorites compared to the democrats.