one person, one vote? why does iowa count more than texas or ca?

Hadn't thought about this in a while and it came up in conversation when flying back from New York the other day.

The way it works is: "The compact is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors. States have chosen various methods of allocation over the years, with regular changes in the nation's early decades. Today, all but two states award all of their electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes statewide.

States joining the compact will continue to award their electoral votes in their current manner until the compact has been joined by enough states to represent a controlling majority of the Electoral College (currently 270 of the total 538 electoral votes.) After that point, all of the electoral votes of the member states would be cast for the candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. With the national popular vote winner guaranteed a majority in the Electoral College, he or she would automatically win the Electoral College and therefore the presidency."


So far the states that have passed the popular vote interstate compact are:

1 Maryland, 10 votes
2 New Jersey, 14 votes
3 llinois, 20 votes
4 Hawaii, 4 votes
5 Washington, 12 votes
6 Massachusetts, 11 votes
7 District of Columbia, 3 votes
8 Vermont, 3 votes
9 California, 55 votes

So 132 electoral votes out of the needed 270, or almost 50% are available so far. You can see the progress in various states here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...rstate_Compact

All fun and games until a conservative wins the national popular vote and all those liberal states are forced by their state laws to submit all of their electoral votes to that candidate.

The popular vote is a horrible idea! With a popular vote the rural communities, including states are left with whatever the liberal metro areas want...

In order for actual liberty, as designed by our founding fathers, the 17th Amendment needs to be repealed. This would once again allow the state legislatures to appoint senators, returning power back to the state legislatures where it belongs....


The death of the rights of secession and nullification was achieved in 1865, and the final nails were pounded into the Jeffersonian, states' rights coffin in 1913, with the adoption of the income tax, the Federal Reserve, and the Seventeenth Amendment. The income tax declared, essentially, that all earned income is the property of the state, and the state will decide how much income working Americans may keep for themselves by determining the rates of taxation.

The Fed soon became an enormous and menacing tool of political control based in Washington, D.C., with the board of governors. The Seventeenth Amendment, which established the popular election of senators, relieved U.S. senators from the obligations they once had to vote only for legislation that was generally in the interest of the citizens of their states, since they were appointed by state legislatures. After 1913, they were "obligated' mostly to whomever could give them the biggest campaign contributions.

See Here: Constitutional Futility by Thomas DiLorenzo

The popular vote will be the final nail in the coffin for liberty and the beginning of a new dictatorship!

Iowa is better than everyone else!!!!! Just Kidding! I live in Iowa and I never understood the whole caucus thing. The last presidential election I didn't vote at the caucuses and if I had known that it actually makes the candidates think about how the election as a whole is going to be in November, I would have voted. The person I was watching closely dropped out of the race after the caucus only because they didn't have the majority vote.

Interesting to read about the history of the 17th amendment, thanks Sam (note: not the link Sam provided, but that does also touch on the 17th am.)

Iowa does not count more than most. The Iowa caucuses are important because they are typically the first state to have a caucus. In the 2008 election cycle Mike Huckabee won with 34%. I don't think Iowa meant a hill of beans in the 2008 election cycle.

Iowa is given equal representation in the electoral collage so it doesn't count more in that regard either.

The Governor of Iowa is actually out today telling everyone to ignore the Iowa caucus if Ron Paul wins.

Interesting article. The sense of entitlement by the Iowans is very interesting! Nice to see a media outlet give Paul some praise, even if some of it is backhanded and misleading - as my understanding is not that he's pro-legalization as much as he is pro states rights and shrinking the reach of the feds.

I think this year is going to be a free-for-all and the Republicans will end up having a brokered convention. I think Ron Paul can/will win a brokered convention. He had delegates going against their own state elections trying to vote for him at the Nevada convention in 2008 and in Arizona he some actually did.

Ron paul 2012

I think Randy is biased. lol