This seems kind of stupid to me:

The measure would award Maryland's 10 electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. The plan would only take effect if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes decided to make the same change.

State Sen. Jamie Raskin, a law professor and sponsor of the idea, said Maryland is largely ignored by presidential candidates during campaigns, because they assume the Democratic state will vote for the Democratic candidate.

OK, I can understand the misguided desire to have the president be elected by popular vote. I disagree with it, as did the Founders, who wanted us to be a Republic, and ensure that the smaller states had a more level playing field when it came to electing a president. I can even agree that it's probably constitutional, albeit dumb, since the legislature can use any method it wants to award its state's electoral votes. But I don't understand why Senator Raskin imagines that making Maryland's electoral votes dependent on the national popular vote will make politicians pay more attention to Maryland's voters.

It seems to me that if you're going to get Maryland's (and other states') electoral votes regardless of how you do in Maryland, and only need to get a national majority, you'll put all your resources in the most cost-effective media markets in the major cities. Now it might be that this means that you'll target Baltimore-Washington, because it's a fairly dense area, but there's nothing intrinsic about this plan that would make politicians pay more attention to the state of Maryland per se. And of course, it would screw over Wyomingites, who would be essentially disenfranchised if they followed such a strategy (and perhaps even if not, since the methodology would be skewed even if they didn't sign on).

Is there someone out there who can get into a (presumably) liberal law professor's mind and explain this to me?

It cheapens a Maryland voter's vote, and allows outsiders to have a say in how the state casts its Electoral Votes.

For example, suppose that North Carolina has such a law in place in 1860. It would have meant that the state would have cast its votes for Lincoln, who did not even appear on the ballot in that state. (Yes, a contrived and extreme example, but you get the idea.) But it also means that in '004 Maryland would have cast its votes for Bush even though a large majority of the voters of that state voted for Kerry. The voters of Kansas and Utah and Florida and Ohio, places that went for Bush, not Kerry, who would have made the choice, not the voters of Maryland.

It's just another example of how the Left and the Dems, not having the guts to come right out and propose a constitutional change, instead resort to gimmicks to impose their cause of the day.

(And how do they handle the "faithless elector" problem?)

This is a ridiculous effort in Maryland. The college has its flaws but 1) it works and 2) it keeps faith with the notion of federalism that the Founders envision and which emerged after the Civil War...

I wish to anything Al Gore had actually taken the oath of office in 01, but in terms of Presidential elections we are "50 states" and should remain that way.

The irony of course is that Bush V Gore weakens that notion substantially.

Ah consistency...

Robert

Is there someone out there who can get into a liberal law professor's mind and explain this to me?

The key is to realize that when he says "Maryland voters" what he means is "liberal law professors (and other comparable people) in Maryland." In other words, our natural masters, the intellectual elite who should be determining the outcome of elections.

And, yes, if we elect the President directly, then such urban elites, with their greater capacity to be heard and influence events on the national scale, will be more important, and local or rural politics less important, in determining who gets elected. Which this fellow thinks is all to the good. No doubt he feels a lot more kinship with law professors at the University of Oregon than with Maryland fishermen and beat cops.

A more interesting question is what would happen if the states divided their electoral votes the way that Maine and Nebraska do, which is to allot two votes per state on the at-large winner of the state, and the remaining votes according to the winner of each congressional district in the state. This might improve responsiveness somewhat, and make the strengths and weaknesses of each party more apparent.

For the record, if this had been done in 2000, the outcome would have been precisely the same, right down to the final electoral vote count.

There are other problems this kind of monkeying around could cause. Remember that the crisis in 2000 was caused by an extremely improbable election scenario, where the election turned on one particular state and that one state (1) was decided by a razor-thin margin, and (2) had loads of procedural problems with its election.

So given that improbable troubles to overtake us from time to time, consider what kind of nightmare we could get in the case of Maryland's initiative.

Suppose that a certain state, X, does NOT pass such an initiative; they're awarding all their state's electors on a winner-takes-all basis in the traditional way. And let's suppose that X's popular vote comes out approximately 6,000,000 for Smith, and approximately 3,000,000 for Jones. As far as the state of X is concerned, this is a clear win for Smith, so there's no particular reason for them to be concerned about any minor irregularities in the vote count.

But let's suppose further that the nationwide popular vote is very close, and so the question of whether X's popular vote was 3,000,000 for Jones or 3,100,000 for Jones matters greatly, because it will determine how Maryland and others choose their electors.

Tough luck, Maryland, says the Attorney General of X. We aren't going to spend our state's money on recounts that our own state legislature doesn't require. If that means you have to cast your electors for Smith, why, how should that concern the people of the great state of X? Smith was favored by 2-to-1 here. Nice of you to let us determine your election, though.

Now multiply X by three or four, since there could easily be multiple states where allegations of miscounts will be far more important to other states than they are to the states where the alleged miscounts occurred. You think 2000 was bad? Just wait.

People's fear of one-person, one-vote is rather breathaking. Support for that notion and the idea that the candadate with more votes should win used to have strong bipartisan support. It will again, perhaps, as soon as we truly move on from 2000.

The idea here is not complicated at all. Maryland is agreeing to join with states that collectively represent a majority of Americans in electing the candidate who wins the most votes around the nation in all 50 states. Some 70% of Americans support this simple goal, and here is a straighforward, constitutional means to achieve it.

Doubters can hold onto their 30% end of the popular opinion stick, but it seems like a slippery place to be.

It also makes fraud easier and more likely. Need those 100,000 votes for Jones? Well, there are precincts in Philadelphia and Chicago and Milwaukee and King County where they can be found, given enough time and effort. Currently those places can only change a few electoral votes, and in most cases, they'd just be padding the winner's lead. But now imagine what they'll do when they can select the President. At least in 2000, the recount mess was firewalled into Florida and never escaped. Enact this, and we'll see wholesale cheating everywhere, because if a party doesn't it is sure to lose. (For another example of what to expect, see the Upper Left Washington's '004 governor election.)

Another problem I alluded to earlier is that the state doesn't vote, a person called an Elector does. When we cast a vote, we aren't doing it for the President, but someone "pledged" to vote for that person. I'd be interested in hearing if it's even possible for a state to force a person to vote a particular way. I'd bet that as a constitutional officer, once appointed, as directed by Article 2, Section 1, the Elector is as free as a Representative or a Senator to vote how ever they choose. To ensure that the Electors behave themselves, the parties put up slates of diehard party regulars. (Remember the attempt by some Lefties to find some Bush electors to switch to Algore? In the end, they couldn't even hold their own DC electors.) All the faithless electors have been when it didn't matter (Bentsen, Reagan, Hospers, etc.) It'll be interesting to see a state enact this law, then try to force a slate of Electors to vote for the other guy. Or tell everyone that some bureaucrats will be functioning as electors and casting their vote independent of how the state actually votes. And what happens if a small group of those bureaucrats conspire to takes it upon themselves to change the election?

Which means any state that does this would have to scrap the whole "vote for the elector, not the president" bit, and put in place some sort of mechanism which choses its electors on a date after the 1st Tuesday in November.

The way I've heard it described, there isn't one election for President, but 51 separate ones, each different in size and nature. Each candidate has to decide which combination of races he can win, and campaign based on that plan. If a state like Maryland wants to have a larger say, then the best way to get it is to stop voting straight party-line Dem, but instead be close enough to be winnable by either.

one-person, one-vote

If you want a popular vote, then amend the Constitution. If there really are 70% of the people for it, then getting the necessary states should be easy, and you wouldn't have to come up with this Rube Goldberg contraption which pretends the College doesn't exist while using its mechanisms.

this simple goal, and here is a straighforward, constitutional means to achieve it.

Straightforward? Considering the way the courts will intervene at the slightest pretext, and considering the unexplored terrain here, anyone who makes this sort of statement is only fooling themselves. As for "constitutional", the procedures for making changes are spelled out in Article 5, and have been successfully used several dozen times to enact just some changes just as sweeping as this. What are you so afraid of that you aren't even trying to use them?

But I don't understand why Senator Raskin imagines that making Maryland's electoral votes dependent on the national popular vote will make politicians pay more attention to Maryland's voters.

He probably doesn't imnagine anything like that at all. He's simply saying those words so that the public (angry this week because that doggone Imus controversy knocked the Anna Nicole Smith paternity results out of the headlines) will buy into it.

He's simply proposing something that he thinks will help his party win the next election.

It is said that generals always prepare to fight the last war, but no one seems to realize that likewise politicians always prepare to fight the last election.

Todd is apparently not thinking the concept all the way through. If one person, one vote is such a great idea (a true democracy, if you will), then why not fully implement such a concept.

Congress could draft bills, the People would then vote on the bills with a simple majority determining outcome. The President would simply be the executor for carrying out the People's wishes. We can call ourselves the Democratic People's Republic of the US and be happy that we are a true Democracy rather than a Representative form of government.

Fortunately, men a little more clever than Todd figured out the many follies of this approach and came up with a better form of government.

Support for that notion and the idea that the candadate with more votes should win used to have strong bipartisan support.

And for all elections for which the Constitution does not prescribe a different mechanism, the notion still does have strong bipartisan support.

Come to think of it, the idea that the Constitution should be obeyed, used to have strong bipartisan support. Then the Dems took over Congress and now they're trying to get around the provision that says only states can have voting representation in the House. Hmmm...

"politicians always prepare to fight the last election"

In this case, it may be the *last but one* election - because the 2004 election points the opposite way from the 2000 election.

Had some 70,000 voters flipped in Ohio in 2004,
Bush would have lost the election - while winning the popular vote with a whopping 3 percent margin (Gore had a mere half-percent margin in 2000).

In view of these two elections, it seems impossible to predict which party would benefit from the proposed electoral reform.

The strategy of both parties would certainly change. Would sparsely populated areas
be ignored? Maybe. On the other hand, the uncontested states - the consistently red or blue states - would then be contested.

People's fear of one-person, one-vote is rather breathaking.

So it is, going right back to the Founders. Here's that faintheart James Madison on the dangers of simple direct democracy, also known as mob rule:

[I]t may be concluded that a pure democracy...can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction....[T]here is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy...

Todd: One person, One vote is exactly how things work now. It's just that that mass of votes doesn't pick the President directly.

Rather than projecting "fear" onto people who like Federalism and the existing time-tested system we have, perhaps you should tell us why it's better to let LA, NYC, Dallas, Chicago, and Miami choose the President, while essentially telling a dozen States that they're of no value whatsoever?

(Someone just as snarky as me would ask, why are you so afraid of Federalism?)

I personally favor a variation of popular voting where the vote is weighted by electoral votes per state per capita. Small states would have a higher weight than large states, of course.