The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
The Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution— “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The National Popular Vote bill preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College.
The Republic is not in any danger from National Popular Vote. It has nothing to do with direct democracy.
With National Popular Vote, citizens would not rule directly but, instead, continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.
Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country.
“The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution.”
Sorry, but the electoral college system itself is in the Constitution and the chicanry of the “national popular vote” enterprise is an attempt to use state law to produce a de-facto nullification of the electoral college system, becaause those proposing the “legislative” end run know that what is really required is an amendment to the Constitution and they know they cannot achieve that.
“State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.”
Yes, any state can allocate the votes of its electors proportionately (as some now do), instead of winner-take-all. That does not/would not eliminate the electoral college, or eliminate the indpendent choice of the votes of the states’ voters in assigning/allocating their states electors.
The “national popular vote” disenfranchises the voters, replacing what may have been their choice(s), proportionately or “winner take all” with what may in fact be a totally different “choice” simply “prescribed by law”.
It is an attempt to create a legislated de-facto endrun around the Constitution.
It will not be upheld.
“Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states.”
You are talking polling (what voters already think without/before the candidate says anything else) and statistics and “campaigning”, not reality, and certainly not the reality of whether or not voters care more about to whom a candidate is makimg a pitch (they don’t) or what they think of the pitch no matter to whom they are making it (they do).
As I noted in my initial response in this thread; during the last eight presidential elections, the eventual winner obtained a majority of votes in a majority of counties all across the country.
And that is how the winners actually obtain a majority of electoral votes. The amass more majorities of more places in the country, even when the “popular vote” is something less than a majority. This was true when Bill Clinton only got 43% of the vote and it was true in the election of 2000. The winner accumulated the assent from “more of the country”, not just the places with the “most votes”.