States look to change way election decided With the midterms out of the way, all eyes are now focused on the 2016 election. But suddenly, theres a serious push to change the way the next president is chosen ... Partners of the National Popular Vote effort, which seeks to bypass the Electoral College established in the U.S. Constitution, have announced a possible “December surprise” that could change the nation’s electoral system by 2016. The NPV campaign is working to obtain the consent of the majority of the 538 votes in the Electoral College to award electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the popular vote in each state. Last April, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the National Popular Vote, or NPV, bill, making his state the 11th to enact the plan. With the passage of the bill, the interstate compact now has 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to put it into effect. Aside from New York, other states that already signed up are the heavily blue states of Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, Vermont, California and Rhode Island. The District of Columbia also has joined the pact. The states will not be required to award their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner until the NPV has signed up enough states to garner 270 electoral votes. After Cuomo’s signing of the law, the New York Post warned in an editorial the NPV effort could “undermines small-d democracy.” The Post quoted then-Sen. John F. Kennedy stating, “Direct election would break down the federal system under which states entered the union, which provides a system of checks and balances to ensure that no area or group shall obtain too much power.” Others have warned a national popular vote could ultimately lead to more vote fraud, arguing the Electoral College isolates the impact of such fraud to each state. The Founding Fathers firmly rejected a purely popular vote to elect the president, because they wanted to balance the power of the larger and smaller states. The Electoral College was fashioned as a compromise between an election of the president by direct popular vote and election by Congress. Now the NPV effort could change the way Americans elect the president without amending the U.S. Constitution. The plan simply requires that enough states join through votes in their legislatures along with gubernatorial approval. It takes two-thirds of both the House and Senate to pass a constitutional amendment to repeal the Electoral College. To bypass the constitutional amendment process, NPV minimizes the number of states that would need to agree. Instead, once enough states agree to allot electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, the Electoral College becomes irrelevant. Soros funding The NPV effort is fully partnered with a George Soros-funded election group, as WND was first to report. The group, the Center for Voting and Democracy, received original seed money in 1997 from the Joyce Foundation, a nonprofit that boasted President Obama served on its board at the time of the grant. Obama was a board member from July 1994 until December 2002. The NPV is run by individuals with a history of support for the Democratic Party, WND found. It is partnered with FairVote, a project of the Soros-funded Center for Voting and Democracy that advocates for a national popular vote for president. In a Dec. 15, 2008, Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros, wrote that it was time to junk the Electoral College. Soros’ Open Society Institute funds the Center for Voting and Democracy, where FairVote is based. The center’s website notes the group was kick-started in 1997 with two grants – one from the Open Society and another from the Joyce Foundation. With Obama on its board, the Joyce Foundation also funded the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, the National Council of La Raza and Physicians for Social Responsibility, among numerous radical groups. Meanwhile, the NPV leadership is comprised of Democratic Party supporters.... wnd/2014/11/december-surprise-for-next-presidential-race/
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 19:02:03 +0000
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