Florida Sen. Nelson Proposes Scrapping Electoral College in Reform Package
By Trish Turner
In a state that has seen its share of electoral problems this decade, Florida’s senior Sen. Bill Nelson made a rare appearance before the state Senate Thursday to unveil sweeping federal election reform legislation that would eliminate the Electoral College.
As the state now wrestles with the national Democratic Party to find a solution to seat its 210 delegates at this year’s presidential nominating convention, Nelson noted that “the solution is very elusive,” but that, “If nothing else, this election has provided further evidence that our system is broken.”
The Democratic senator, who sued the Democratic National Committee and Chairman Howard Dean last year for stripping Florida of all its delegates, in his reform bill proposes eliminating the Electoral College and giving American citizens direct election of their presidents by popular vote.
Florida is perhaps ground zero for controversy over the Electoral College. The outcome of the 2000 presidential election meltdown left many Democrats stinging even to this day, since Al Gore won the popular vote but lost to George W. Bush because he was awarded the majority of the votes in the Electoral College, a decision reached by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Not only does Nelson’s bill abolish the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment, but it also establishes “six rotating, interregional (presidential) primaries” beginning in March and ending in June of each election year. It pairs states, large and small, into six different regions; the regions would then take turns going first — something that will surely not sit well with the nation’s first primary and caucus states, New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively.
“As I have engaged in this quest, for me it’s fairly simple, it’s a case of fundamental rights versus party rules,” Nelson told Florida lawmakers. He and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., whose own state is embroiled in the same delegate squabble with the DNC, introduced the rotating primary concept in 2007, but the bill went nowhere.
With regard to Nelson’s delegate lawsuit, a federal judge in December ruled against him and his fellow Florida Democrat, Rep. Alcee Hastings, citing a decades-old ruling that political parties should be free of outside intervention to craft their own rules. Nelson disagreed, saying it went directly to the heart of “one person, one vote.” Though he and Hastings had no time for an appeal, Nelson told Florida lawmakers Thursday that his new bill offers a solution.
The Nelson reform bill also eliminates machines that don’t produce a paper trail, allows every voter a chance to cast an absentee ballot, allows voters to vote early (something Floridians can already do), and permits states on a trial basis to develop mail-in ballots and secure Internet voting. And voting touch screen machines that were once touted as the 21st Century answer to voting technology problems would be wiped out by the bill by 2012.
Florida Democrats considered allowing a re-do of its latest Democratic primary by mail-in ballot, but concerns about security scrapped the deal. A total of 3.6 million citizens cast ballots in the Jan. 29 primary.
A number of Senate aides, both Democrat and Republican, tell FOX News it’s a near impossibility that Nelson’s new bill would be considered in the midst of a heated presidential election, despite one senior Senate Democratic leadership aide who said, “Election reform and efforts to increase voter participation are important issues that need to be addressed.”
“This country cannot afford to wait another 93 years before we fix the flaws we still see in our election system, because the blessings of liberty cannot wait. I believe the time for reform is now,” Nelson said, referencing to the fight Susan B. Anthony waged for women’s suffrage in the 19th Century.
Leave our electoral college the way that it is. Then we would have California and New York winning all the elections. This is another Clinton move. The vote should be by the land and the farmer who works the land. After all big business has tried to destroy the farmer but it is being proven that it is not going to be.
Wise up Mr Do Gooder Senator I am totally sick of all you do gooders. Next we wont be able to breathe free.
Hay Mr. farmer, I’ll let you rural folk control the electrol process if you stop accepting welfare (farm subsidy), but since you won’t stop demanding handouts lets stick to “one person, one vote!
I feel it is absurd, that the #1 Democracy in the world does not have a ‘one person, one vote.’
Are we (voters) that ignorant, that the Electoral College has to tell us, what is good for us.
Please, this is not the 1700’s. We know about the neo-con agenda.
John Sanchez.
The reason why the Electoral College was established predates modern technology that makes voting so simple today. During the time of the founding fathers, it was more sensible to send a group of representatives from a state to choose the president, because collecting and counting a nation’s popular vote would be too time consuming, not to mention damn near impossible.
The only reason why this decrepit and out-dated system is still in place is because it works to the advantage of campaign planners. They are more able to sneak by with a win if the focus on a few important spots than if they try to get the whole country to vote for their candidate. This has happened five times in our nation’s history, most recently being the victory of George Bush.
One might argue that this is one of the last remaining state rights, that most of the others have been stripped by the federal government. However, the major flaw of this point of view is that choosing the president should be a federal matter. In a time where people describe themselves as American and not Californian or Virginian, it only seems natural that the whole of America, not the states, should decide on the leader of the whole nation.
I like the Electoral College. As a matter of fact, I wish they would follow it more closely. If they can’t do that, then at least give the candidates the percentage of electoral votes they earn from the popular vote in each state (ie. if a candidate gets 60% of the popular vote in California, he/she gets 60% of the electoral vote). I would like to see the electors freed up to vote for who they really want, without penalty. I know all that is too far fetched to ever hope for, but what the hey. I do have a Constitutional question of the premier Constitutional legal mind of the “Great One”. There is no mention of a “ticket” in the Constitution. As a matter of fact, it says that there should be a “distinct” ballot for President and a “distinct” ballot for Vice-President. As far as I can see in Art II and the 12th Amendment is that the states have the perogative of how to elect their electors, but after that they should follow the Constitution. Please explain this disparity for me. Thank you. I look forward to your next show.
Oh, but Henry Clay is alive today, disguised as a woman.
dis·guised, dis·guis·ing, dis·guis·es
1.
a. To modify the manner or appearance of in order to prevent recognition.
b. To furnish with a disguise.
2. To conceal or obscure by dissemblance or false show; misrepresent.
I think it’s time to replace Bill Nelson with somebody that understands the Constitution. The primary purpose of the Electoral college is to balance the votes of more populous states with the ones from the least populous states. Without it the candidates would only campaign in the Northeast and on the Left Coast. They would basically tell the rest of us to drop dead. We’d have only liberal presidents from Massachusetts or from California.
I do like the idea of 6 regional primaries if only to remove the status of everyone paying attention two two states for so long, but getting rid of the Electoral College is a bad idea. The popular vote is fraught with corruption with ballot box stuffing and dead people voting via absentee ballots, not to mention pets and house plants casting votes for DemocRAts. There is a reason why the people cannot vote directly for President and I see no reason to change that.