2024-10-24

Feli on US Elections (SUSPECNA)

Great video! The Electoral College is a problem, but fixing it poses a couple of problems: it would require amending the Constitution, it's unclear which system could replace it (mainly agreeing on it), how the "popular vote" is counted, i.e., each State's election board totals the results from each county, but they don't necessarily publish these results (I think) and it's unclear which authority (Congress, the Supreme Court?) could collect and adjudicate these results, or how they would be officially certified and delivered by the several States in some hypothetical "national vote counting," and so on. America is a republic, and the only real electoral decision that requires all of the States to get together and decide on one thing is the Presidential election. One problem is the "at large electors" i.e., those that match up with the "Senators" from the given State. In small States, which have only one seat in the House of Representatives, they still get two "at large" votes, for three times as many total votes.

One thing is that the State elections are based on laws which differ from State to State. Hence the "winner take all" thing. Also, most States have a "first past the post" vote counting system, as opposed to a "ranked choice voting" system (which we are voting on starting in Idaho, by the way, and I think they already have in Maine and other places). One possibility of interest to me, in the spirit of changing as little as possible, one bit at a time, to get the most impact at each step, is to put out a "uniform law" (a law that is passed by each State, which gets around the need for a Federal-level law) that would standardize voting laws, getting rid of things like "winner take all" and adding things like ranked choice voting, perhaps allow small states to "donate" their at large votes to other states (voted by their legislature? For whatever reason...?), and report an actual certified (by the governor, State supreme court, et al -- just like the Electoral College Certificates) Statewide vote count to the joint session of Congress (and to the Supreme Court and to the National Archives and wherever, like the EC certificates). You could then talk about, if the joint session received a set of EC certificates from the several States, ALONG WITH official certified popular vote counts, and in the case (rare but disturbing, especially when one party successfully "games" the electoral college in swing States and such) where the EC did not reflect the popular vote, the joint session has, I believe, the power to decide the President based on that (or anything else), i.e., override the EC result. I THINK the joint session on January 6 has the power to do that (as long as no violent and heavily-armed mobs don't break into the Capitol Buidling and stop them...but when has that ever happened?) I came up with the acronym of SUSPECNA (I'll have to look up what it meant) for this new uniform law. How does that sound for a start? If anybody wants to help me draft it and promote it, I welcome you! Simplified Uniform State Popular Electoral College Normalization Act



SUSPECNA on A Medium 
SUSPECNA Notes
Ranked Choice Voting and MORE Ranked Choice Voting 
Idaho Prop 1 stuff...

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