Eventually I got tired explaining

September 30, 2007 6:08 AM

What steps can I personally take over the next year to help abolish the electoral system and move to a popular vote for the president? (Live in Brooklyn, don't want to attend a ton of meetings, can donate $50-$100 to charity. Bonus points if I don't end up helping a specific candidate.)
posted by whitewall to Law & Government (12 answers total)

You need an act of Congress, a new law. That will take more than 50-100 bucks and you will need an attorney.
posted by lee at 6:46 AM on September 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

You say you don't want to attend a ton of meetings. Does that mean you don't have a lot of time to spend on something like this, or that you just don't like meetings?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:51 AM on September 30, 2007

Response by poster: Eh... more that I don't feel very comfortable with the overall Brooklyn activist scene, since I'm not really an activist. I went to a few "anti-Iraq war meetings" in early-2003 and just got really confused and turned off when they ended up discussing bombing the Vieques, the merits of veganism, etc.
posted by whitewall at 7:23 AM on September 30, 2007

If you actually want to accomplish this over the next year, I'm afraid you will need to do almost nothing but attend meetings, as you will have to align yourself with others who have the same goal. You'll also need to figure out how to sway a lot of people on the left, right and center to your point of view. Your small amount of money is probably inconsequential, but your willingness to work very hard could make a difference.
posted by mattholomew at 7:25 AM on September 30, 2007

There is the National Popular Vote movement. Their goal is not technically to abolish the electoral college, which would be legislatively hard to do. Instead, if enough states ever sign on (it's an interstate compact) to control a majority of the electoral votes, they will throw all their electors to whoever wins the popular vote.

They have "Donate" and "Take Action" links.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 7:41 AM on September 30, 2007

You need an act of Congress, a new law.

You'd need a Constitutional amendment.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:42 AM on September 30, 2007

Mod note: A few comments removed. Take the bomb jokes and the debate about the merits of the EC elsewhere.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:04 AM on September 30, 2007

Best answer: As noted earlier, abolishing our current system of electors would take a constitutional amendment, not a simple act of Congress. There are also state level legislative changes that could get what you want too.

So, things you can do:

1. Do some homework. CRS Report (pdf) on current electoral college reforms in Congress. National Archives page on the electoral college for general background.

2. Write to your members of Congress encouraging them to introduce/cosponsor/support legislation to amend the constitution to abolish the electoral college. There are a few proposals already out there.

Write to your Represenative

Contact your Senators

3. Write to your state legislators encouraging them to adopt state legislation awarding your state's electoral college votes to the winner of the NATIONAL popular vote (not your state's popular vote). See below for explanation of that. You're in New York, right?

I assume your issue is not the electoral college per se, but rather the state-by-state system in which the electors award all of their votes to whomever wins in their state. Really, the electoral college is just a bunch of dudes who ratify each state's popular vote: it is this state-by-state approach that has caused mismatch between national popular vote and electoral college results.

So one approach is to continue to use the mechanics of the electoral college, but base their votes on the nationwide popular vote. To do this, you could pursue adoption legislation at the state level that would award all of a state's electoral votes to the individual who wins the majority in the national popular vote (no matter how they did in that state's popular vote). The main organization active on that proposal appears to be National Popular Vote. I don't know much about them, but they look like they're not totally loonies. (You probably wouldn't have to endure too many discussions of veganism or other unrelated causes, although the political-science-club vibe might be a little intense.)

My two cents: I think moving to a system of national popular vote - whether you literally abolish the electoral college or not - is a bad idea. Our current state-based system ensures that every region of the country is heard. With a single national popular vote, elections would be decided on the basis of heavy TV advertising (even worse than now) and minimal on the ground campaigns in a handful of densely populated areas.

BUT that's just my opinion. I encourage YOU to get involved, because getting involved in something is better than getting involved in nothing, and maybe you'll convince me and others like me that we're wrong.
posted by wick47 at 8:08 AM on September 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Maybe you should choose an issue you can do something about in a year.
posted by callmejay at 11:04 AM on September 30, 2007

You can't. Not in a year. Not in ten years. The less populous states will never give up the electoral college, because if they do, then policy will be decided by whatever California plus the east coast states want.
posted by happyturtle at 12:09 PM on September 30, 2007

As Happy Turtle says, the Electoral College will never be abolished because it benefits too many small states, and it only takes 13 states to say "no" and a Constitutional amendment fails.

The National Popular Vote movement, linked above, is a fairly brilliant workaround. It's the way to go if you really want to see that policy implemented -- but it's a long way off.
posted by MattD at 1:21 PM on September 30, 2007

Run for Congress or lobby Congressmen to work towards a Constitutional Amendment. The only thing that will get you closer to your goal.

Alternatively, you could donate money to something that has a better chance of success such as funding research into cold fusion or building a giant fan to counteract global warming.
posted by dios at 4:48 PM on October 2, 2007