No, it's perfectly legit. States can assign their electoral votes how they see fit. I believe a few states still permit an electoral district to award its vote to the winner of the majority of that district, even if the majority of the statewide vote goes the other way; there was some talk of Ross Perot picking up an electoral vote in Maine or Colorado, IIRC. It used to be quite common for states to divide their electoral vote, until they figured out that this divided their influence in presidential elections.
Thanks for the info. I thought it was illegal. If it were, it would be unConstitutional, thus treasonous.
I don't like the idea of contravening the EC, though. Our FFs were brilliant.
Maine & Nebraska are the states that can split their electoral votes.
Is it just me, or would this provision partly take away California's voting power? They're essentially "piling on" with whoever has the most votes across the country. Wouldn't California prefer to cast its own votes rather than jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else?
Additionally, if the article is correct, this provision would disconnect California electoral votes from California's individual voters, except to the degree that individual Californians contribute to the national popular vote.
Were I a Californian, I would be angry about this. It is a serious reduction of the power of the vote in that state. As a North Carolinian, however, I'm entirely in favor of California passing this measure. =]
Yes, generally speaking "States can assign their electoral votes how they see fit.", as you stated. But there are still trwo big problems here.
First, there are multiple civil rights issues. There are Federal laws covering elections run by States. It's why a State cannot simply disenfranchise, say, all it's female voters, or apply onerous conditions to the voting process.
Next, since there is no such thing as a 'national popular vote', one would have to tabulated and verified. What authority would do this? How would it be done? I know the States certify the Presidential election results (send them to Congress), but what they certify and send is the electoral results, I beleeve, not popular vote totals. What exactly would require Alabama to send to California or some other inter-state agency its certified popular vote results? Or what would stop Alabama from inflating those results dramatically (not changing the Electoral totals reported to Congress), if Alabama desired?