What were the four main “presidential slates” in 1824?

In the 1860 election, how would you document the popular vote in Pennsylvania?

And what was the national popular vote in 1880?

What if Maine or Nebraska decide to let voters cast separate votes for the CD and statewide electors? Perhaps the CD votes could be cast for individual electors.

Or perhaps a state will choose its electors by elector district (the traditional way of electing presidential electors in the USA). Is this a “statewide popular election”?

What if a State (that is not a member of the compact) fails to count overvotes where a voter both votes for an on-ballot candidate and a write-in candidate?

What if a State decides to require majority election of its electors? Do votes cast in the general election and the runoff both count? Surely they are both cast in a “statewide popular election”.

What if Texas decides to let each voter cast 34 “popular” votes to allocate among the presidential slates in the manner that the voter sees fit. Do all 272 million votes count in determining the popular vote winner?

Or what if a State decides to proportionally allocate its electoral votes? Are votes cast under different conditions to be treated the same?

What if last September, the Texas Democratic chair had testified in the Barr lawsuit that he had missed the deadline, offered his sincere apologies, but agreeing that the law must be followed. So that cuts a million vote Republican plurality from the national vote total. Or alternatively, the court rules in favor of the Republicans and the Obama presidential slate loses 3.5 million votes.

And it could happen elsewhere as well. A straightforward reading of the California Constitution would have had Hillary Clinton on the general election ballot as the Democrat candidate. A similar thing happened in 1912, when Republican voters in the primary chose presidential electors that supported Teddy Roosevelt. That is why William Taft received so few “popular votes” from California.

“presidential slate” shall mean a slate of two persons, the first of whom has been nominated as a candidate for President of the United States and the second of whom has been nominated as a candidate for Vice President of the United States, or any legal successors to such persons, regardless of whether both names appear on the ballot presented to the voter in a particular state;

So perhaps you are arguing that in 1960 that John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were a “presidential slate”.

But it then defines an “elector slate” in the following way:

“elector slate” shall mean a slate of candidates who have been nominated in a state for the position of presidential elector in association with a presidential slate;

The bill defines the total of the votes cast for the 51 elector slates as being the “national popular vote” for purposes of determining the president.

There is no way that one can claim that the Byrd electors were nominated in association with the Kennedy-Johnson presidential slate, when the electors were chosen in the Democrat primary on a platform of opposing the election of Kennedy. It would be pure sophistry to argue since they were not formally pledged to vote for Byrd, that we should count votes cast for the Democratic slate of electors should as supporting the Kennedy-Johnson presidential election slate.

Surely many Alabamians did not intend to vote for Kennedy. If they thought that would be the effect of a vote for the Democrat electors, they would have voted for Nixon. If only 18% of Alabamians who voted for the Democrat elector slate had instead voted for Nixon, then Nixon would have had the most popular votes, even if we count all the remaining Alabama Democrat votes as being for Kennedy.

Of course if this had happened, we’d still be having ballot boxes filled with Democrat votes turning up in Chicago, (rhymes with Blago), and South Texas.

The fact is:

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A POPULAR VOTE HELD FOR THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT IN THE UNITED STATES.

What we have are state by state votes which allocate each individual state’s electoral votes. In states where there is no contest, there is no need for voters to vote at all. Hence, the vote is greatly supressed. It is simple minded beyond the pale to suggest that aggregating such vote totals constitutes a national popular vote total. It is stupid beyond belief.

It makes no more sense to aggregate such vote totals than it would to include the votes from other places that don’t count, such as Canada or New Zealand.

We can in no way know what the outcome would have been if there had been an actual popular vote just as we can not know what the outcome would have been if suffrage had been granted to deprived groups, such as women and African Americans, in elections where they have been restricted or denied. We can be sure of one thing however:

THE CANDIDATES SELECTED, THE PARTIES RUNNING CANDIDATES, AND THE VOTE TOTALS, WOULD HAVE BEEN VASTLY DIFFERENT.

To deny this truth is to deny reality.

If we were to go back to any election year, we would find such states.

What would the vote total be in Wyoming if the votes actually counted? Since the votes only determine the distribution of 3 electoral votes, and since the outcome is assured, people have no reason to vote.

Since this is basically a one party state, if the election were based on popular vote, hundreds of thousands of additional votes would be cast. We would likely see vote totals in one party areas near or in excess of 100%.

It would be in the interest of the dominant party in such one party states to make registration simple or even automatic and allow vote collectors to round up the ballots well in advance of the election, of those who might be unable or just too lazy to come to the polls. The number of dead people and mental patients voting would skyrocket.

There are already areas of the US where one party dominates, and where such intrastate vote fraud is rampant. I have seen party workers go into homes for the mentally incompetent and the aged and emerge with hundreds of ballots marked 100% for the dominant party, to be cast in advance as absentee ballots, unquestioned (actually, encouraged and abetted) by the officials charged with supervising the vote.

In some areas where one party dominates, the dominant party takes control of the other party’s local party apparatus. Then, when the voting takes place and when the ballots are counted, the dominant party is able to send its own members as the poll watchers representing BOTH parties. It becomes a one party free for all on election night. Known voters supporting the minority party will find themselves unable to vote or their ballots not counted for the slightest reason. Having personally witnessed exactly such a vote count, I would never countenance the adoption of an electoral system designed to magnify such electoral fraud.

Supporters of a real National Popular Vote for President and VP of the United States need to wake up to the fact that there has never been such a vote. This fact does not diminsh their argument. It only takes away the stupid assertion that in some past elections the losing candidate would have been elected under such a system. Such claims constitute foolish sophistry discernable by those with even a modicum of intelligence.

However, a national Popular Vote system will cause runaway electoral fraud to such a degree that the very fabric of the democratic system will be undermined. Millions of fraudulent votes will be cast. Massive challenges, violence and nationwide recounts will ensue.

The result will be the end of Liberty in the US – at least until a more indirect and less vulnerable system could be recreated.

Of course, we already have such a system. We only need to end the winner take all aspect, by expanding the Maine/Nebraska system to all 50 states (and maybe a regional allocation within states with a single House member) and by expanding the number of total Electoral Votes by increasing the size of the US House of Representatives.

“Since there has never been an election for President where the winner would be chosen by “popular vote,” we have no idea what the popular vote would have been in any election.”

This is of course absolute horsehit.

The popular vote has been registered and documented in every GE since 1824. True, the EC decides the winner, but the principle was supposed to be that the states are supposed to aquiesce to the will of the people, namely that in the case of a WTA state, that state is to cast it’s electors for the person who won the popular vote in that state.

Susan has also brought up extremely valid points. The electors from the eleven largest states in the union plus one small state (3 ev) is enough to put a candidate over the top. This makes the possibility of getting trounced in the PV and yet still winning the election a real one.

And indeed there have been 4 electoral backfires: 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000. Which means that 4 of the 47 elections in which the popular vote has been counted have been backfires, or 8.51% of the cycles, to be exact.

Coming back to the LP also wrote:

“If any of the Presidenial elections of the past were to be rerun under a popular vote plan, you would see different parties, different candidates chosen, different electoral and campaign strategies and different outcomes.

The idea of popular election of the President is terrible for the cause of liberty. It would be the final nail in the coffin the socialists are building for liberty.”

And what would be so wrong with a different strategy, namely, a national strategy?

And the last sentence is such a stupid oxymoron, it’s hard to know where to begin. How in the hell would a PV election be a threat to liberty? Do we not trust democracy enough to actually let democracy rule, or is this all just lip service?

Sounds like the ramblings of a pissed-off right-wing nut still smarting because Obama won and the GOP got a pasting for the second time in two years.

And in 2008, the Democrat candidate who received the most “popular votes” in the primaries was not on the ballot in November. Why doesn’t the so-called National Popular Vote bill address this issue?

And what is so special about “most” votes, when “most” voters have cast a vote for someone else? Why not include a provision for a runoff?

And if the States are forming a compact, why doesn’t the proposal include provisions so that the States coordinate their ballot access, and other election laws?

This quote is untrue and just stupid.

Since there has never been an election for President where the winner would be chosen by “popular vote,” we have no idea what the popular vote would have been in any election.

There is no “popular vote” total for any Presidential election in US history.

If any of the Presidenial elections of the past were to be rerun under a popular vote plan, you would see different parties, different candidates chosen, different electoral and campaign strategies and different outcomes.

The idea of popular election of the President is terrible for the cause of liberty. It would be the final nail in the coffin the socialists are building for liberty.