Maryland Makes My Vote Meaningless

On the same day Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed a bill allowing convicted felons to vote in elections he also signed a bill floated by the Democratic controlled Maryland Legislature that eliminates the Electoral College in Maryland and gives the 10 electoral votes Maryland holds to the winner of the National Popular Vote. The premise behind the change is that Maryland is largely ignored by presidential candidates during campaigns because they assume the Democrat-leaning state will vote for the Democratic candidate, and they are right, they always do. Despite having a very conservative base in the suburbs more people vote in Montgomery County, Baltimore City and County and Anne Arundel County than in the rest of the state combined, so as the Balt-Wash Corridor goes, so goes Maryland.

The problem with this legislation is that candidates are still not going to come to Maryland to get our 10 votes, and in fact if other states go along with this plan Presidential Candidates won’t have to campaign in any other state than the top 11 (CA, TX, OH, NY, PA, NJ, MI, FL, GA, IL, VA) and campaign for 269 of the possible 538 votes. To win, a candidate needs 270 votes. If a majority of other states go along with this then Candidates only need to campaign in the most populous states to win an election alienating even more voters and some how still win by popular vote. Items such as the Iowa Caucus and early voting will be moot since their votes will no longer be needed, they will be automatically assigned to the “winner” of the popular vote.

The real reason this legislation passed isn’t to make Maryland more competitive in the electoral landscape, it’s because Al Gore lost the election in 2000 and democrats all over the US are still whining about a stolen elections, and find it unfathomable that someone could “win” the popular vote and still lose the election. Well this legislation makes it even easier for someone to lose the popular vote and still win the election!

Small rural states are going to be the hardest hit by this type of movement of course its no surprise that a majority of those states are also in the “fly-over” region of the county, an area that democrats continue to ignore as they are “too conservative.” States like: Alaska, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming are going to be ignored by candidates because their 3 – 5 each votes won’t matter at all.

I haven’t even touched on the fact that this legislation violates Article II, Section 1 and the 12th Amendment of the US Constitution, but also United States Code Title 3, Chapter 1.

Thanks for making me a second class citizen, Governor O’Malley.

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Others blogging about this topic:
The Sundries Shack - Governor O’Malley vs. Representative Democracy