Nelson: Abolish Electoral College

Choosing the president of the United States by the popular vote, rather than by the Electoral College, is chief among the election reform proposals that U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is scheduled to outline tomorrow morning in Tallahassee.

In a speech scheduled for 9:30 a.m. before the Florida Senate, Nelson, the state's top elected Democrat, also will call for expanding early voting, Internet voting and voting by mail. He'll also tout his idea to hold regional, rotating presidential primaries so that every state gets a turn in choosing the presidential nominees. He and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., filed a bill to do that last year, but it hasn't moved.

Nelson's office says he plans to file a Senate resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, by which the president is elected based on delegates won in each state. In its place, his plan would elect the president based on the popular vote nationwide. (Which would have resulted in Al Gore being elected in 2000).

"The blessings of liberty cannot wait," Nelson says in remarks prepared for delivery tomorrow. "The time for reform is now."

Comments

Not sure it will get much support, its worked for a long time

So a Senator from the party of Superdelegates wants to abolish the Electoral College...rrriiigghhht

[UF Student]

I'm not really sure how we can expand voting by mail, anybody can already do it. I guess early voting can be expanded in places that have shown higher use of it. But internet voting is and will always be a bad idea. Rotating regional primaries is a great idea!

i raised this guy almost 100k last time. what an idiot. please retire. you are an embarassment.

a constitutional amendment? are you a complete fool?

Yes he is.

God, he's an idiot!

Will Nelson or the Times offer any arguments or discussion of why the Electoral College was created and what it is supposed to accomplish? No, that would require calm analysis. Hey, anyone want some free cheese? Baaaa, Baaaaa.

Wow, Bill you just became my favorite senator for this.

Down the the electoral college!

[Sam Tilden]

I think the electoral college is not very fair. We should have a simple majority select the President. In that way, large Urban areas like New York and Chicago will select the next President, instead of rural backwaters like Iowa and Idaho.

Next he'll ban alcohol at the electoral college.

Here-here! The electoral college was invented to stand between the voters and their choice for president. It has never functioned as intended.

The 44 men in Philadelphia thought it was a good idea, but nobody else at the time of the founding did and wouldn't have tolerated it if the electors had overturned the popular vote back then.

The electoral college tucks the federal senates mal-apportionment into the presidential race. A citizen of Montana has 69 times the representation in the federal senate as does a Californian and 50 times that of a Floridian. That anti-democratic counting is tucked right into the Electoral College.

Over the 219 years of the republic's history, we've learned we can trust democracy and that failure of trust in democracy always leads to bad results.

We should act like we believe in ourselves and the American values we supposedly send our kids overseas to fight and die for.

Bill Nelson is the rare elected official who actually thinks about how the process runs. To the rest, and to us, any thought stops at who gets the power not at how it is vested.

In the long run, how we pick our leaders is a heck of alot more important than whom they might be at any particular time.

Let's fix it!

And it's really irrelevant that Al Gore 'would have won' in 2000. He didn't. Get over it. The electoral college is what is in place then and right now. Unless you have a time machine that nobody knows about, stop bringing up 8 years ago.

Mr. Nelson ought to be concerned right now with the rules of the DNC and how screwed up they are with respect to picking their nominee. Idiot.

If anyone else ran national elections the way we do, we'd be raising holy hell. Can you imagine if some Third world country had an election for president and the candidate who won the popular vote lost the election. We'd be filing protests and asking for a UN investigation. It's time to institute real democracy and abolish this nonsense. It's 2008, not 1789.

um 9:00 - you moron - the brits don't even directly elect their prime minister - he's/she's chosen by the members of parliament - so don't even try and say we have the most screwed up system

get over 2000 you loser

direct democracy is mob rule and not the way for a nation of 300 million to govern itself - representatitve government has proven to be the best system

A simple product of a simple mind...

9:00

It seems that the general mob in 1789 may have been emen smarter than the general mob in 2008.

Do we really want them to make the final decision on who should lead us?

Even the Democratic Party doesn't let that happen within their own nomination process.

[Oh look! More Clinton lies!]

Hillary Clinton, November 22, 2000:

"We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago. I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it's time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president."

Hillary Clinton Campaign, March 24, 2008:

“Presidential elections are decided on electoral votes,” a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Howard Wolfson, said in an e-mail message.

PA Governor Ed Rendell, March 9, 2008:

"Hillary Clinton has won states with about 260 electoral votes. Barack Obama has won states with about 190. And we decide the presidency not by a popular vote, we decide it by the electoral vote"

[9:00]

9:54: You are absolutely right. We can't let the lunatics run the asylum.

reforms??!!

why vote on TUESDAY?

reform number ONE:

how about saturday AND sunday voting, 7 a.m. saturday until 7 p.m. sunday...THIRTY-SIX HOURS!!...with a total blackout of coverage by the news outlets, save to say "GO VOTE!"

reform number TWO:

keep jebba, katie hair-do, karli and every other lyingthievingrepiglican away from voters' rolls in every state!

reform number THREE:

paper ballots and paper trails!

reform number FOUR:

longer and more accessible early-voting hours and locations

reform number FIVE:

same as reform number TWO!!

[urbane development]

1028-- There is no reason to have more locations for early-voting... early-voting is a joke, a complete waste of taxpayers money and an invitation for funny business. Watch the daily intake at some early voting locations in Broward county, open from early morning to well-past working hours-- some will have two, maybe 4 votes ALL day.

And no, we do not need a giant window of voting time... quite frankly that's just more time to round up the union busses for the intimidation squads and offer free ciggies to any Tom, Dick, and Harry to get to the polls. AND in 36 hours, I could get plenty of people to open up utility accounts in one county and then another (the statements are enough for residency verification in some states).

AND before you slam me for the letter (possibly) next to my name-- "lying thieving" electioneering has no party monopoly.

Go be a poll watcher, then monitor an election or two in another country before cooking up proposals affecting one of our most powerful rights.

[BGS]

We respectfully ask you to reject Orlando resident Bill Nelson's attempt to make consitutional changes. Sincerely, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush.

We respectfully disagree with the aforementioned individuals. Sincerely, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Samual Tilden, Grover Cleveland and Albert Gore, Jr.

[BGS]

Pure democracy is mob rule. Pure democracy at varying times in our nation's past would have given us the disenfranchisement of women, the enslavement of minorities, inequitable labor codes and a whole host of bad laws and candidates (Aaron Burr ring a bell?) Republics, such as the one we inhabit, provide for at least some degree of introspection (however imperfect) before 'popular' measures are enacted. I would no sooner trust a pure democracy without laws than I would a tyrant without morals. Senator Nelson is proposing this for one reason only. Democrats currently predominate in urban areas. His hope, I suspect, is that a small enclave of voters in metro New York, Los Angeles and Chicago would effectively determine the outcome of future presidential elections with their high density. Like any other demagogue, he dresses this up in the rhetoric of liberty. The truth of the matter is he is a rank partisan (albeit, a historically ineffective one.)

This is the most significant thing Nelson has proposed in his lackluster career. It is also the most dangerous. It should be opposed by every Floridian who cares about the state and the country.

well, thank you, 11.57, for demonstrating how totally ignorant and uninformed you are!!

you go, girl!!!!

"some" early voting locations are NOT ALL locations...ever think of that?

longer poll hours, how outrageous that folks actually have TIME to get to the polls and not miss work, meetings and the like!? preposterous!!

but, do, please have another drink of the lyingthievingrepiglican kool-aid that beats the VOTER FRAUD drum for the super ignorant!!

voter fraud is negligible, but dont expect your lyingthievingrepiglican enablers to ever tell you that.

they have far too much fun racebaitng you and seeing you get all worked up over a NON-ISSUE!!

ignorant tool!!!!

[Urbane Development, clearly versed in elections]

Ad hominem attacks and the coarse lesson in logic notwithstanding, polls open at 7AM, and close at 7PM on Election Day. That is ample time to vote. If the concern rests with accessibility, vote absentee if too busy to make it to the polls.

Any inadvertent flaw in the logic construct doesn't change the fact that there are 16 locations to early vote in the county in question (Broward), 7 days a week, for 2 full weeks, from October 20 until Nov 2. -- Again, that's plenty of time.

No one is suggesting poll taxes or literacy tests to prevent voter participation, and HAVA compliance is something both parties have strived to achieve in the wake of election challenges, but continually lowering the bar e.g., same-day registration, no photo ID requirements, bring about blatant violations that only serve to undermine the faith in elections.

The strident and shrill partisanship doesn't help either but it's the Buzz Blog, whaddya expect.

Drugs should given to every voter, that will get them to the voting booth. Hand out Viagra and rename the voting booth the Ball Room and change it from duty to a party.

If reform lasts more than 48 hours please call your doctor.