Tue Feb 09 2010
On the morning of Nov. 4, only a few delusional dreamers thought Barack Obama " the first African American elected president " had a chance to carry Kentucky.
There was even less suspense Monday when Kentucky's eight presidential electors across the state gathered in the elegant Supreme Court courtroom to cast their ballots.
The fix was in.
It was a done deal as a smiling William Kirkland " better known as "Bill" on the streets of Frankfort and in his hometown of Gravel Switch " would say.
A local attorney and diehard Republican, Kirkland was in the audience because he's a member of the State Board of Elections.
"I also came because it's a constitutional part of our democracy in this country and it's a part that's not often seen by the public. I wanted to witness the ceremony."
Kirkland's longtime Frankfort friend, prominent statewide Republican Robert Gable, once a gubernatorial nominee, was chosen as one of the eight electors.
Then after Supreme Court Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. administered the oath of office to the electors, Gable was unanimously elected as permanent chairman of them, all from the Republican Party.
John McCain and Sarah Palin, who won Kentucky's popular vote by nearly 300,000, received all eight votes for president and vice president Monday.
"This vote today represents another step in the presidential electoral process," said Secretary of State Trey Grayson. "The electors in Kentucky chose to follow the lead of Kentucky's citizens by backing the winners of the popular vote in Kentucky."
In an interview after the ceremony, Gable said, "I think it's extremely important that we have an Electoral College. I've heard some suggestions for change and I think the worst one would be to just do away with it and have a national vote, which would be administered by the media presumably."
That worries him.
"In Kentucky we have had, and hopefully it's in the past, a reputation in some counties for pretty big fraud," Gable said. "There are other states which have learned how to do that, too. I think the Electoral College to some degree is a buffer against massive fraud.
Gable was the only repeat elector Monday.
The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote.
On the Monday following the second Wednesday of December, as established by federal law, each state's electors meet in their respective state capitals and cast their electoral votes, one for president and one for vice president.
The electoral votes are then sealed and transmitted from each state to the president of the U.S. Senate, who, on the following Jan. 8, opens and reads them before both houses of Congress.
If electors from every state cast their ballots in conjunction with the state's popular vote, Obama and Joseph Biden will be elected by a vote of 365-173.
Nebraska was expected to cast one electoral vote for Obama and Biden because that state allocates votes to winners of congressional districts and Obama and Biden won one congressional district to McCain and Palin's two.
Electors in 24 states are not bound to vote for the winner of the popular election, as is the case in Kentucky.
Kentucky has eight electoral votes, equal to the number of its U.S. senators and representatives.
The electors from the six congressional districts were chosen at Republican District conventions and the two at-large electors, Gable and Elizabeth Thomas of Flemingsburg, were elected at the state Republican Convention.
Gable said there was no doubt about Monday's outcome in Kentucky because the electors of the Republican Party "wouldn't switch their vote for anything."
Grayson said Monday was the first time since 1960, when John F. Kennedy was elected, that Kentucky's electoral votes went to a loser, Republican Richard Nixon, who later was elected president twice before resigning from office in his second term after the Watergate scandal.
Other electors from Kentucky Monday were Franklin's James Snider, 1st District; Walter Baker, 2nd District, Louisville's Edna Fulkerson, 3rd District; Louisville's Amy Towles, 4th District; Corbin's Nancy Mitchell, 5th District; and Lexington's Don Ball, 6th District.
Mitchell was elected permanent secretary of the electors Monday.
Others participating in Monday's ceremony were Hugh Derek Hall, who led the pledge of allegiance, Doug Lalli, minister of Westport Road Church of Christ in Louisville, and vocalist Kenny Bishop who sang "My Old Kentucky Home" and "God Bless America."
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Next 10 Comments of 19 Total Comments
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19.
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Posted by Luanne December 19, 2008
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If you are speaking to me, I say if it is not broken do not fix it.
Look up a blue red map for the last three elections. They all look about the same. If anyone can come up with a better way, send it to a law maker that will listen to you and I wish you luck. (sincerely) Remember, the two senators in your state represent the whole nation. The other senators work for you too. Jsut remind them you pay their salaries. Congressmen are a bit different. Though the buck starts with them voting wise, they seem to be more concerned with their local districts. |
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18.
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Posted by pinpointers December 18, 2008
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damn mvymvy...but...do you have an opinion yourself too besides regurgitating previously published material ...?
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Posted by Luanne December 17, 2008
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Standing 'O" for mvymvy!
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16.
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Posted by realdeal December 17, 2008
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man that was a lot of copy and paste action!
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15.
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Posted by smartgirl December 17, 2008
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wow mvymvy. you may have set a record there.
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14.
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Posted by mvymvy December 16, 2008
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The potential for political fraud and mischief is not uniquely associated with either the current system or a national popular vote. In fact, the current system magnifies the incentive for fraud and mischief in closely divided battleground states because all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state.
Under the current system, the national outcome can be affected by mischief in one of the closely divided battleground states (e.g., by overzealously or selectively purging voter rolls or by placing insufficient or defective voting equipment into the other party's precincts). The accidental use of the butterfly ballot by a Democratic election official in one county in Florida cost Gore an estimated 6,000 votes • far more than the 537 popular votes that Gore needed to carry Florida and win the White House. However, even an accident involving 6,000 votes would have been a mere footnote if a nationwide count were used (where Gore's margin was 537,179). In the 7,645 statewide elections during the 26-year period from 1980 to 2006, the average change in the 23 recounts was a mere 274 votes. |
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13.
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Posted by mvymvy December 16, 2008
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The U.S. Constitution does not require that the election laws of all 50 states are identical in virtually every respect. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment only restricts a given state in the manner it treats persons "within its jurisdiction." The Equal Protection Clause imposes no obligation on a given state concerning a "person" in another state who is not "within its [the first state's] jurisdiction." State election laws are not identical now nor is there anything in the National Popular Vote compact that would force them to become identical. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution specifically permits diversity of election laws among the states because it explicitly gives the states control over the conduct of presidential elections (article II) as well as congressional elections (article I). The fact is that the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution permits states to conduct elections in varied ways.
The National Popular Vote bill does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. |
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Posted by mvymvy December 16, 2008
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The people vote for President now in all 50 states and have done so in most states for 200 years.
So, the issue raised by the National Popular Vote legislation is not about whether there will be "mob rule" in presidential elections, but whether the "mob" in a handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, get disproportionate attention from presidential candidates, while the "mobs" of the vast majority of states are ignored. In 2004, candidates spent over two thirds of their visits and two-thirds of their money in just 6 states and 99% of their money in just 16 states, while ignoring the rest of the country. The current system does NOT provide some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges. |
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Posted by mvymvy December 16, 2008
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What the U.S. Constitution says is "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all rule) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election. In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote, and only 3 states used the winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state's electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). Since then, as a result of changes in state laws, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the winner-take-all rule is used by 48 of the 50 states. The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. |
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Posted by mvymvy December 16, 2008
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The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections. In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide. The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes"that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill is currently endorsed by 1,246 state legislators " 460 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 786 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill. The National Popular Vote bill has passed 22 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes " 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect. See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com |
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