New York joins campaign to end Electoral College role in presidential elections

New York Daily News ^ | Wednesday, April 16, 2014, 6:45 AM | Glenn Blain

[Olog-hai]

New York has joined the campaign to effectively end the Electoral College’s role in determining winners of presidential elections.

Under the National Popular Vote Compact, which Gov. Cuomo signed off on Tuesday, the state has agreed to award its electoral college votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the national popular vote.

Currently New York’s electoral colleges votes go to the winner of the state’s popular vote. …

[Jonty30]

My hope is they won’t succeed. To have national elections decided by a couple of states and large cities would be ruinous for the country.

[tcrlaf]

New York, by means of it’s huge population, would obliterate the voice of the smaller states.

That is NOT what the founders intended.

[servo1969]

If Cuomo thinks it’s a good idea you know it’s bad.

[willywill]

if anyone wants to do the math, i’m willing to bet that the states that pass this would usually go democratic anyway, so those college votes will be dem one way or the other. I don’t see it makes a difference.

[pepsionice]

Basically, it means no campaign funding will be established for states like Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Vermont, South Dakota or North Dakota. Nor would I waste any campaign stops in twenty of the fifty states.

I’d put my efforts strictly into ten key states....bulk on campaign promises to bring money and projects to the ten....and just about forget there are any other states or citizens in the US.

In the beginning, there was a fair amount of fear that both Virginia and Penn would be unfairly attracting the bulk of voters, thus controlling the outcome of future Presidential elections. The electoral college was the only method to ensure small states had a voice.

[Bobalu]

If you want to hear progressives screaming just get a few states with Republicans in control of the legislature and which have massive dem voter fraud in large cities to change from winner take all to dividing up the electoral votes according to the percentages.

[Kickass Conservative]

Yeah, that will work. Imagine if the Republican Candidate wins the Popular Vote and all the Democrat needed were the Electoral Votes from New York to win the Electoral College and the Presidency.

With that scenario, under the “law”, they would have to give all their Electoral Votes to the Republican.

Heads will explode in NYC and the NYT Building will burst into flames.

[Rashputin]

Without a change to the Constitution this "compact" is a clear and open attempt to subvert the Constitution and therefore everyone a party to it is guilty of conspiring to avoid the highest law in the land.

The RICO act should be used to put all the State legislators who vote for this "compact", at a minimum, in Federal prison and the leaders of the movement should be executed for publicly advocating and fostering treason.

The causes of the Civil War pale in comparison to what are now routine clear and open violations of the Constitution by both State and Federal officials.

Three-fourths of what's wrong with this country today would never have happened had Grant been the one surrendering to Lee. We'd have different problems, but I seriously doubt they'd be as bad as we're having now.

JMHO

[Arthur McGowan]

These states are agreeing to award their Electoral College votes on the basis of the votes of people in OTHER states.

Haven’t reviewed the language of the Constitution, but I don’t recall anything about people voting for the electors from states they don’t live in.

[Olog-hai]

Grant didn’t surrender to Lee because it was Lincoln that called out to God for help. And FWICR, the Confederacy had no intention of taking over the rule of the northern states. A divided USA would have gone nowhere, something tells me, and might have been reabsorbed by Britain.

[Slings and Arrows]

Yeah, that will work. Imagine if the Republican Candidate wins the Popular Vote and all the Democrat needed were the Electoral Votes from New York to win the Electoral College and the Presidency.

With that scenario, under the “law”, they would have to give all their Electoral Votes to the Republican.

No, they would simply say "It was just a informal agreement; we're not bound by it," and award their electoral votes to the Dem. The blue states are that corrupt.

[Lockbar]

ANYTHING New York wants needs to be rejected without review.

[Rashputin]

LOL, sure, gotcha.

Then we know for sure that there wasn't a Christian south of the Mason-Dixon and God loves a man who goes to the whorehouse now and again.

We know that because while Lee, Jackson, and the majority of the Southern leadership would never lower themselves to going whoring, God obviously loves men like Lincoln who visit a whorehouse now and again prior to marriage.

Divided? That's another canard from the BS artists. Had Grant surrendered to Lee the South would be in charge with no reason to form a separate nation. They could simply stick to their interpretation of the Constitution which would have been the path of least resistance for them anyway given the number of "Copperheads" in Congress and Union State legislatures.

[jospehm20]

Really? Lincoln praying? The industrial output and massive population advantage of the north decided that conflict. I also don’t believe England was capable of taking either side or even a beat up state or two. BTW, the united USA doesn’t appear to be going anywhere good at this point in time.

[Olog-hai]

The South would not have wanted to be ruled from Washington nor the North from Richmond, so yes, the Confederacy would have remained separate if they had won.

Who in the Confederacy’s leadership called out for prayer and fasting to God for their victory? Lincoln is on the record doing that, at least. So any propaganda against Lincoln has a curse on it.

[Olog-hai]

Really, Lincoln praying. Never read this? It would be a lesson to us today, no matter what one believes about Lincoln or the prior foibles of Lincoln in his law practices and other politicking. Faith in technology and numbers is often misplaced.

Calling the British Empire “England” is a misnomer. Remember that the greatest growth of the British Empire was between the 19^th and 20^th centuries, reaching its greatest extent just after World War I. A weakened and divided USA would have been ripe for picking.

[nathanbedford]

The constitutional question arises whether the state can compel an Elector to vote according to the state's will rather than according to the elector's choice. There is precedent affirming the right of the state to require electors to honor their pledges and that would seem to indicate that the state under the federal system has the power to control electors votes.

But there is, of course, another school of thought which goes to the denial of the citizens' vote if the Elector who is pledged candidate A is forced by the state to vote for candidate B. One man, one vote and all that.

Here is the excerpt from Wikipedia which I found:

"A faithless elector is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than the person pledged or does not vote for any person. 24 states have laws to punish faithless electors. In 1952, the constitutionality of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952). The Court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as removing electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a functionary of the state, not the federal government. Therefore, states have the right to govern electors. The constitutionality of state laws punishing electors for actually casting a faithless vote, rather than refusing to pledge, has never been decided by the Supreme Court. While many only punish a faithless elector after-the-fact, states like Michigan also specify that the faithless elector's vote be voided.[51] As electoral slates are typically chosen by the political party or the party's presidential nominee, electors usually have high loyalty to the party and its candidate: a faithless elector runs a greater risk of party censure than criminal charges.

Faithless electors have not changed the outcome of any presidential election to date. For example, in 2000 elector Barbara Lett-Simmons of Washington, D.C. chose not to vote, rather than voting for Al Gore as she had pledged to do. This was done as an act of protest against Washington, D.C.'s lack of congressional voting representation.[52] That elector's abstention did not change who won that year's presidential election, as George W. Bush received a majority (271) of the electoral votes."

It depends on whether a left-wing court controls or conservatives control the court. If the former, the court will hold that the inherent power of the state to appoint electors under this federal system implies the right to control their vote as well and that liberal majority on the court will use Ray vs. Blair as precedent.

[Arthur McGowan]

Do these new state laws contain provisions to eliminate or punish electors who don’t go along with the Democrat scheme?

I can’t imagine loyal Republican electors voting for the Democrat just because the state legislature has expressed a wish that they do so.

Or have the legislatures put in place a whole new system where the Democrat conspiracy chooses all the electors AFTER the November election?

[zeestephen]

Why is this not unconstitutional?

In 1787, the smaller states would have never signed the Constitution if they had understood the Electoral College could be overturned without an Amendment.