dailyutahchronicle.com

Former Iowa Senator Chet Culver talks about the the benefits of moving to a popular vote system. TheSupport Popular Vote bill will change the way the voting system work by enabling the popular voting

system instead of the electoral vote system.

http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/?p=2564341

Hinckley forum: Utah Legislature to consider popularvote billby: Jake Stout on January 27, 2012

The Electoral College has been the traditional system for electing the U.S. president —however, some political figures are challenging the fairness of the system. When voting inthe Electoral College, voters pick who their state’s delegates will vote for, with different

states worth different numbers of votes based on population.

“How many presidential candidates have you seen come here [to Utah]? None,” said AnthonyPanek, president of the Utah College Republicans.

Panek was speaking at the Hinckley Institute of Politics on Thursday for a bipartisan eventpromoting a change to the way votes are tallied in presidential elections. The organization SupportPopular Vote sponsored the event to raise awareness about shortcomings and fallacies of theElectoral College system. They argued that the system is outdated and in severe need of change.

“The Founding Fathers did not envision this system,” said former congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. “They based their governance on a system in place 200 years ago.”

In our nation’s first presidential election in 1789, only three states used the winner-take-all rule. Therule has allowed candidates to win the presidency without winning the most popular votesnationwide in four of 56 elections. The most memorable was the 2000 election that saw Al Gore winthe popular vote but lose the election because of the winner-take-all system. In 2004, a shift in60,000 votes in Ohio would have elected John Kerry despite George Bush’s three millionnationwide lead. The swing favors neither party.

“We’re irrelevant,” Panek said. “We have the lowest voter turnout in Utah, especially among youngvoters.”

“We’re a flyover state. Politicians are going to spend 98 percent of their time in 15 ‘battleground’ or‘swing’ states,” he said. “I pay taxes like everyone else. My vote should count like everyone else.”

Panek said as a Republican in a very red state, he knows even if he doesn’t go out to vote, hisnominee will still win Utah anyway. But in a popular vote system, the candidates would have tocampaign just like every governor currently does: district by district.Former Iowa Gov. Chet Culber said he believes presidential Republican nominee Rick Santorumwon in Ohio because he campaigned in every county.

Culver said our system is outdated and this legislation is a nonpartisan solution to a dereliction intwo of the past three presidential elections.

“Who doesn’t believe the candidate with the most votes should be president?” he said. “Seventy-five percent of Americans support this legislation and 70 percent of Utahns support this legislation.”

Opponents of changing the system believe it subverts the U.S. Constitution and that it would get aDemocrat elected every time.

Not so, Tancredo said.

“It works within the frames of the Constitution. Article II, section 1 gives states exclusive control overthe manner of awarding their electoral votes,” he said. “The winner-take-all rule is not in theConstitution.”

The bill has been introduced in Utah and if passed it would be the first red state to pass it.

Tancredo said this would give credence to states like Texas that traditionally vote Republican orCalifornia that votes Democratic to pass the law. Both these states have huge populations and thusa huge number of voters who are not represented. If Florida had this law in the 2000 presidentialelection, the outcome would have been significantly different.

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Posted by Jake Stout on Jan 27 2012. Filed under News, Politics. You can followany responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings arecurrently closed.