I agree that the states have always had the ability to choose how their electoral college votes are determined. I dispute the contention that the National Party Vote scheme "protects" the Electoral College.
To me, what the NPV scheme does is make a state's Electoral College votes no longer decided by the people of its own state, but rather, their vote is now determined by the people of other states.
"Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election" was not the intent of the Electoral College, since the votes in the Electoral College are not evenly distributed. The NPV scheme is intended to redistribute the Electoral College votes, essentially, as you said, to even them out.
This does not "protect" the Electoral College, it destroys it.
-PJ
The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps for their party’s presidential candidate. That is not what the Founders intended.
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 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.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
The bottom line is that there is nothing in Article II (or elsewhere in the Constitution) that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the presidency.
With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government.
I did not say National Popular Vote is intended to redistribute the Electoral College votes, essentially,to even them out.
The National Popular Vote bill is meant to guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
National Popular Vote is a nonpartisan coalition of legislators, scholars, constitutionalists and grassroots activists committed to preserving the Electoral College, while guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who earns the most votes in all fifty states.