41–50 of 106 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so?
Any of the states that aren't party to it could file suit, and the ones that are against it probably would. There's also the bald reality that the NPVIC does overall advantage one party and disadvantage the other, and that "other" party is known to have much more of an influence in the Supreme Court.
Another approach that is in the works is the so-called States Compact whereby each state would assign all its electors to the candidate that gets the most votes nationwide . This has the advantage that no change to the Constitution is needed. Currently, several States have agreed to this, and the Compact will be activated once enough States sign on that provide more than the 270 electoral votes required to win the el…
Although we are often taught that it is slavery slavery slavery, the electoral college is also an attempt to prevent the tyranny of the majority - something the founding fathers were worried about. It is also easy to forget that we are called the United States for a reason. We were more like the EU than we are like France...
Is it? I'm no history buff, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the main way the founders attempted to avoid the tyranny of the majority was by having the Senate be two representatives per state regardless of size.
- California has 38,940,231 inhabitants and 54 electors. That means 1 elector every 721,115 inhabitants - Oklahoma has 4,053,824 inhabitants and 7 electors, so 1 elector every 579,117 people.
They have been trying to reform the electoral college for as long as there has been an electoral college, and all attempts have foundered for the simple reason that those that benefit from the power it gives them will block attempts at reform.
In any event, in this election the point is moot.
Although we are often taught that it is slavery slavery slavery, the electoral college is also an attempt to prevent the tyranny of the majority - something the founding fathers were worried about. It is also easy to forget that we are called the United States for a reason. We were more like the EU than we are like France...
Preventing the tyranny of the majority is what the separation of powers to executive (President), judiciary (Supreme Court), and legislative (Senate and House) was set up for.
Preventing domination of the small states by the large states was why the Senate and House were structured as they are.
Depending who is in office, one party will never go for this. The reason is states like California and maybe Florida/Texas will never allow this, it removes their advantage in the current electoral collage. Also it does not fix the population skewing for smaller states. Per voter, Wyoming voters have more power that people in Calif and Texas. The better options is this, which will bring back the original intent of th…
Another approach that is in the works is the so-called States Compact whereby each state would assign all its electors to the candidate that gets the most votes nationwide . This has the advantage that no change to the Constitution is needed. Currently, several States have agreed to this, and the Compact will be activated once enough States sign on that provide more than the 270 electoral votes required to win the el…
So the electors are restricted to what they can do to some extent, but can the individual state tell the electors to do something that conflicts with what their own voters may have overwhelmingly voted against? That seems like it would inevitably fall apart. Also present a lot of mystery about "they going to do it?" and then someone doesn't and someone else chooses something else. Talk about a mess for democracy ...
Similarly in the other direction: aside from DC, the most Democratic state was Vermont, which ignored its 31% of voters choosing Trump.
Now consider that these are the most extreme states, and by definition, all other states ignored larger proportion of voters through winner-takes-all. Arizona had 49.36% D vs 49.06% R. Did the republican vote matter? Barely 10k more votes and the whole state decides all of its 11 votes are for Biden.
Yet somehow, no riots, no overthrowing state governments. (Yes yes we eventually had riots but that's a different issue - they were totally okay with the rules, they just didn't like the results.)
Popular vote is basically "Our state decided to choose what the majority of Americans want. The people have spoken, and chose candidate X. We're now honoring the decision." There's no reason why it should fall apart any more than the electoral college should.
Another approach that is in the works is the so-called States Compact whereby each state would assign all its electors to the candidate that gets the most votes nationwide . This has the advantage that no change to the Constitution is needed. Currently, several States have agreed to this, and the Compact will be activated once enough States sign on that provide more than the 270 electoral votes required to win the el…
This approach, unlike the one in the OP, removes the per-state quarantining effect that the electoral college has on voter fraud. That makes it a non-starter for red states: https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/california-gover...
States without strict voter id still have mechanisms to ensure people who vote are real people and that they vote once. Strict voter id is security theater, though it does not reduce turn-out, either.[4]
[1] https://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
[2] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/26/15424270/v...
[3] https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/The...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The current compact only kicks in is the electoral college vote and the popular vote differ. That is quite a bit different than the popular vote as you can see this year when Trump would have basically run the board of electoral college votes without that caveat.
Either way, the person who wins the popular vote wins the election; what difference does it make how many electoral college votes they get (if the electoral votes are determined by a rule like that).
I wish these sorts of suggestions were less on the end of "here's what would be better" and more on the end of "here's how it would be possible". Anything that requires a magic wand to enact is a bit of a waste of energy. Would love to see more actual action plans on how to enact the change though.
Anyway, as I told in another comment, I'm not from the US, so my intention wasn't really to say how to implement the proposal. I just had this idea and wrote it down in a blog post.