“This violates the constitutional principle of ‘one person, one
vote’ under the Fourteenth Amendment”
“In addition to these constitutional violations, Texas’s WTA law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it results in Hispanics and African-Americans ‘hav[ing] less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.’”
These two arguments contradict each other. African-American are like every other voter. They get one vote each. Their votes count exactly the same as everyone else.
A significant percentage of African-American voters are starting to support Donald Trump. There votes would count less (in the same way the plaintiffs are arguing that other African-Americans experience now) if “winner-take-all” was struck down.
The “winner-take-all” approach does give more clout to the majority in a state, but no individual is disenfranchised of his or her right to participate in the process. Every individual has the exact same voting power, as it should be.
The only way the logic of the Plaintiffs could be validated is if the comparison is made between the voting power of individuals in one state not being equal to the voting power of individuals in another state. This is because in every scenario within a state, you have winners and losers. And not being in the majority means being a loser in a democratic election by definition. But this is innate to the electoral college and the Constitutional provision for states determining their own methodology.
Some blacks vote Republican. Some whites vote Democrat. All ethnicities vote all kinds of ways. Many people choose not to vote at all.
The arguments being used are a bait and switch in which individual votes and collective voting preferences are interchanged whenever it best suits the arguments of the Plaintiff.
Hispanics and African-Americans still get one vote each. Just like any other cross section of society, they do not get to put their thumb on the scale because they are a minority.
Imagine applying the same logic to any category of people. For example, let’s suppose plant workers almost universally vote a certain way. And let’s also suppose that the majority in their state tend to vote in a different way. Well, the plant workers are not in the majority and will not win the elections in which the majority votes differently from them. This is not discriminatory. It is the precise way democratic elections work.
The founders did not create a coalition government. They specified an electoral college which is allocated as states choose.
The founders did not create a coalition government. They specified an electoral college which is allocated as states choose.
_________________________________________________________
Your reply is correct but there are many states now trying to subvert the Constitution by having a compact between states to award all their electors to the person who wins the majority of votes in the Union, not the state. They would in the last election have awarded all the electors in their state to Hillary Clinton even if she had not received a single vote in their state. There are those who say it is up to the state to determine how they award those votes in their state but if my state were in the Compact I would sue to say my vote did not count.