Posted on 04/15/2014 11:40:27 AM PDT by Lucky9teen
A plan, now stealthily making its way through state legislatures with astonishing speed, would junk the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote.
The plan involves an Interstate Compact where states would commit to select electors pledged to vote for the national popular vote winner regardless of how their own state voted. When enough states pass this law, sufficient to cast 270 votes which is the majority of the Electoral College, it will take effect.
So far, nine states and the District of Columbia, casting 136 electoral votes, have joined. This is halfway to the 270 needed to put the compact into effect. The ratifying states are: Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, Vermont, California, and Rhode Island.
Both houses in New York have passed it and it's on Gov. Andrew Cuomos desk.
It has already passed in the House in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon. These states, plus New York, represent 107 votes. Combined with the others they are up to 242 votes. They need 270.
Who is pushing this?
All of those ratifying voted for Obama.
The movement is funded, in part, by the Center for Voting and Democracy, a George Soros-funded election group.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Yeah, the source isn't one of our favorite people, but still...
I had no idea that NM was thus throwing away its Constitutional rights and responsibilities.
But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they are.
When's THAT ever stopped the left?
Funny, but I don't recall voting on this in the last election.
Good thing my elected officials are smarter & more caring than me and made the decision for me.
Correct
and even those who think they want that to happen will lose if it does
Could this be a way/means for Obama to claim eligibility for a new election under the new system, OK by the Constitution, so it would open a new gate for him to run for another two terms???
While it’s certainly not unconstitutional, I would think it would be very difficult for such an arrangement to be binding. If Massachusetts, for instance, decided that a Republican popular vote winner should not receive the electoral votes that Massachusetts should give based on this law, I would think it would be very difficult for a challenge to be made if the legislature of Mass. decided just to award the electoral votes to the Dem candidate.
Such an action would also be constitutional. The Constitution places no restriction on how a state legislature determines the recipient of a given state’s electoral votes. It merely says that the electoral votes shall be determine by a method determined by the state legislatures.
I also don’t necessarily think that the agreement to cast electoral votes for the popular vote winner actually represents an interstate compact, especially if the language of the laws is written carefully. For instance, a law stating that “The electoral votes in a Presidential election for the state of (INSERT NAME OF STATE HERE) shall be awarded to the candidate who gains the most popular votes nationwide. This provision shall take effect at such time as other states have passed similar provisions such that the total number of electoral votes allocated to the states that have passed these provisions represents a majority of the electoral votes at stake in the election.” It would seem to me that this is a law governing only a particular state’s electoral vote tally, not a direct compact among other states.
Another poster above, though, pointed out a real weakness in this popular vote agreement, namely the fact that there is no such thing as an official national popular vote tally. Any state who wishes to render such a compact ineffective would merely need to artificially inflate the popular vote total of one candidate in its certified totals. I can see no way of defining national popular vote other than as the total of the official state tallies. Therefore, any state has the power to skew the national popular vote to its own liking.
This pact among states is very clearly unconstitutional.
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
Has Congress consented to this Compact?
If a state triggers this law, without having congressional approval, that state has violated the constitution.
I support the district method. Whoever wins a majority of the congressional district gets that district’s electoral vote. If no clear winner, hold a run off election 30 days later with only the top two candidates on the ballot.
The candidate that gets the most votes within a state also gets one of the state’s electoral votes. The candidate that wins the most districts within that state gets the other state electoral vote. If there is a tie with the number of districts, the Govener decides.
Yeah, the source isn’t one of our favorite people, but still...
I had no idea that NM was thus throwing away its Constitutional rights and responsibilities.
But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they are.
You are misrepresenting the true nature of this compact.
For starters, it is called the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.” It actually uses the very word (compact) that is explicitly prohibited by the constitution.
Moving on. This most certainly is NOT a case of NJ going along with whatever happens in NY (which btw may violate the Voting Rights Act). It is a binding agreement among states. In short, say on July 20, 2016, enough states have joined to amass 270 electoral votes....no state can leave the compact until after January 20 of the next year. That means that, if on July 21st, 100% of the NJ legislature decided to back out...they could not. They would have abdicated their ability to choose their method of determining electors.
I would guess that the Massachusetts legislature would just meet in emergency session, and then change the law back to the way it was. No way will the GOP gain anything from any of this.
Morris was right. Just saying...”
...Agreed. Morris was one of many that said Romney had it.
FWIW, the number of electoral votes this movement claims as of 9/14/13 is 136, 50.4% of the electoral votes it needs (270) to activate.
The good news is that as of today, those numbers are still what they have. No forward motion in seven months.
The current winner take all electoral system is suicide for the Repubs. With the exception of TX, all the big states are solidly RAT so the Repubs pretty much HAVE to win everything else which is extremely difficult. Unless we go to a proportional electoral system the Repubs may NEVER win another Presidential election.
No.
Hmm, Blue State, Blue State, Blue State, Blue State, Blue State, Blue State, Blue district, Blue State, Blue State, and Blue State. Why am I not surprised.
If this ever did come to pass, however, I wouldn't think it would be as bad as some predict, because it will motivate conservative voters to turn out and vote even in the Bluest of Blue states. As it is now, a conservative in Massachusetts knows his state will go for the Democrat, so why vote?
My preference is for states to apportion one Electoral Vote to each Congressional district's popular vote, with two Electoral Votes for Statewide popular vote. This, too, would encourage those in conservative parts of a Blue State, (Kalifornia comes to mind,) to get out and vote.
Meanwhile some states have absentee ballots that aren't going to be counted because their election laws say they only get counted if that state's results are close. They could be decisive.
What happens in the compact states? They don't have a popular vote winner and won't for months. If their electors aren't chosen before Dec 10 they lose "safe harbor" and can be challenged. If one backs out and they get below 270 then the rest have to back out. But they already told their people they weren't voting for their electors, just getting lumped in with the popular vote.
Watch them call a special session of the legislature and change the rule back.
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