Posted on 02/27/2019 7:22:43 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
There is now way the National Popular Vote compact is getting to 270 so it doesn’t matter
There will be recalls over this and the anti-gun bills.
The issue that the Progressives don’t want to confront is the disenfranchisement of voters within their states. For example, if you are a Republican in New York, your vote really doesn’t count. Similarly, if you are a Democrat in Mississippi, your vote doesn’t contribute to any meaningful competition for state or national offices. By enacting this legislation, Colorado has effectively disenfranchised their own voters, as is their right.
I suggest that Maine and Nebraska have a better idea. Rather than throwing out the Electoral College, the individual states should make it more robust. Each state can internally reorganize their voting so that electoral votes are distributed according to the Congressional District within which the voting occurs. The winner of the majority of state districts could then claim the two Senatorial Electoral College votes, or split them if the vote is within a certain margin. Theoretically, this makes the Republicans’ votes in upstate New York valuable again. Similarly the Democrat votes in south Texas. Furthermore, it would require candidates for national office to campaign very differently, focusing their efforts on individual “swing” districts rather than states. And a nice benefit is that no alteration to the Federal Constitution is required.
I await your thoughts.
The way it works is that each state party submits a slate of electors that they assemble and vet with the candidate. This approved slate is then what gets chosen if the candidate "wins" the election in the state. The candidate is not actually running, but his/her name is a proxy for the slate of electors.
The parties will still be assembling their respective slate of electors, but the chosen slate will not be the slate voted on by Colorado voters, it will be the slate chosen by New York and California voters.
The National Popular Vote movement is an interstate compact that will require the approval of Congress to proceed. It's unclear to me how that will play out.
Personally, if this is supposed to be such a great idea, I challenge the interested states to unilaterally start doing this now. There is no need to wait for a number of states totaling 270 Electoral College votes to sign onto this, and then pursue Congressional approval. Just do it on your own, if it's such a good idea, and role model this for the other states.
The fact that no state is willing to do this on its own without the cover of other states tells us all we need to know about it. No single state legislature wants to go on the record defying the will of its own voters in favor of the voters of other states.
-PJ
If Colorado can exclude the Electoral College, then Colorado had damn well
better keep convicted felons and undocumented migrants off the voter rolls.
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A one sentence statement, no link to article(s) doesn’t say much about
the author with regards to explaining the assertion.
IF I lived in a state that made this ‘deal’, how close would the overall vote have to be before we need a total recount of the whole nation? What would ‘we’ do if there are 51 ballets in one precinct of Detroit but they reported 204 votes?
This could effect a national election, how is the nation to respond to a question of the legality of the overall voting?
Such a compact forfeits some state autonomy as far as Electors, and puts supervision in the hands of the Federal courts.
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/interstate-compacts/us.php
...As contracts between states, compacts affect the rights and responsibilities of states party to them (and their citizens); the US Supreme Court has indicated that the interests of non-party states could be a factor when determining whether congressional consent is required
A compact typically includes provisions regarding its purpose; specific terms with respect to the subject of the compact; in some cases, establishment of an interstate agency to administer the compact or some other method of administration; sources of funding; and other contract terms like dispute resolution, enforcement, termination of the compact, or withdrawal of a member...
Colorado - another Schithole State.
I wonder if "equal protection" could be the ultimate undoing of the National Popular Vote movement.
The problem with the compact is that large state votes would now cross state borders and count towards the whole. Small states could never have the influence in such a scheme relative to the influence they have in a bounded Electoral College scheme. They just don't have the total votes to exert any influence like California or New York.
I know the argument would be made that even in the Electoral college, a 3-vote state can't compete with a 55-vote state, but we know that the large state is capped at 55 votes regardless whether 10 million people vote or 25 million people vote. But under the National Popular Vote scheme, the excess votes in California alone will negate all the votes in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Delaware, etc.
It's not that the smaller states have a relative influence, it's that they will have no influence at all given the smaller total voting population in those states. That's where equal protection comes in -- these states will have no protection at all.
-PJ
I'm not so sure about that. The first time a state casts its Electoral Votes for a candidate who lost the election in that state, I would think every voter in that state -- particularly the racial/ethnic minorities among them -- is going to have plenty of legal standing to file suit over Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act violations. Clearly, these people would be disenfranchised by their own state legislatures.
The Constitutional problem might be deeper. There’s no mandate for popular election of the president. Mandating Electors follow a national popular vote that isn’t even required would seem to be a problem at the outset.
And would a state that technically votes for a slate of Electors rather than directly for a candidate have their votes excluded from the total?
>>The Colorado Legislature has unlimited discretion over how they appoint their Electors.
Not “unlimited”, the they must still guarantee the citizens a “Republican form of government” (Article IV, clause 4).
The technical argument would be that there is no true national popular vote because the candidate's name is technically only a convenient placeholder for electors, and since the slate of voters is different in each state there is no uniform national vote.
Technically, that is...
Congress can't even pass legislation standardizing a national regulation of popular voting because the Constitution gives each state legislature absolute power to choose its electors any way it wants. The state's right to choose is supreme law over anything Congress might try to do to force a national popular vote on the states.
-PJ
But there are no Presidential elections in the Constitution.
As noted, a compact puts Federal courts ultimately in charge of disputes over the ‘popular vote’. A compact has the force of Federal law enforced by Federal courts without reference to Congress.
There are no State elections in the Constitution, either. That doesn’t give a state legislature the legal authority to disenfranchise black people in state elections, does it?
I respectfully disagree about the states and their electors.
First, the so-called National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has a major constitutional problem imo.
More specifically, while I expect the anti-PDJT Congress to remain silent about this, the Founding States expressly prohibited the states from establishing compacts without the consent of Congress.
"Article I, Section 10, Clause 3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State [emphases added], or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
Next, from related threads, patriots not only need to support PDJT in putting a stop to Democratic tampering of electoral college by working with the states to enforce the 12th Amendment (12A), but they also need to support PDJT in putting a stop to Democratic ballot box manipulation by enforcing Section 2 of the 14th Amendment (14A).
Enforcing 12A will put an end to unconstitutional state winner-take-all electoral votes laws imo.
Excerpted from the 12th Amendment: "The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice- President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate [emphasis added]; …"
Additionally, Section 2 of the 14th Amendment specifies a penalty for states that weaken the voting rights of their citizens.
”14th Amendment, Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens [emphases added] twenty-one years of age in such State."
Note that voting rights amendments ratified after 14A effectively change how the express voting eligibility criteria of 14A is to be interpreted imo.
Regarding Section 2, the congressional record shows that post-Civil War federal lawmakers had pointed out not only that only citizens have the right to vote, but when a renegade state lets undocumented Democrats vote (my wording) the state is effectively nullifying the Constitution’s “uniform Rule of Naturalization” clause (1.8.4).
"Article I, Section 8, Clause 4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;"
" If the States can admit to the elective franchise those who are not citizens, thereby neutralizing the votes of citizens, not only the Federal power of naturalization becomes a nullity, but” * * * * "a minority of citizens by the aid of aliens may control the government of the States, and through the States the government of the Union [emphasis added]." —Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 1868. (See near middle of 1st column.)
" Whatever difference there may be as to what other right appertain to a citizen, all must agree that he has the right to petition and also to claim the Protection of the Government. These belong to him as a member the body politic, and the possession of them is what separates citizens of the lowest condition from aliens and slaves. To suppose that a State can make an alien a citizen or confer on him the right of voting would involve the absurdity of giving him the direct and immediate control of the action of the General Government [emphasis added], from which he can claim no protection and to which he has no right to present a petition." —Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 1868. (See bottom half of 1st column.)
PDJT needs to work with the states to make sure that only people who present valid citizenship / photo ID cards will be allowed to vote. Such cards need to be made scannable and / or include a security chip to facilitate Democratic ballot box officials with “poor” eyesight.
Corrections, insights welcome.
This popular vote compact makes the vote results in each state subservient to the vote totals in other states. This means the voters of Colorado (for example) would now have a legal stake in the integrity of the voting process in California, but they have no legal standing to file challenges to California's elections in court.
There's another angle to this that would turn the presidential election into a comical farce:
There were about 14 million votes cast in California in the 2016 presidential election. There were less than 260,000 cast in Wyoming. If I was a Wyoming legislator and a bunch of these other states were signing onto this silly election process where they'd cast their electoral votes based on the national popular vote total, the first thing I'd do is introduce legislation allowing every citizen of Wyoming to vote after they reach the age of FIVE. Now you'll see vote totals from these states that don't even have any consistency with the voter restrictions in other states.
Better yet ... change Wyoming law so that every registered voter gets 100 ballots to cast in any election. They can cast them all for one candidate, or spread them among multiple candidates. So Donald Trump wins the 2016 election in Wyoming not by a margin of 174,000 votes to 56,000 votes ... but by 17.4 million votes to 5.6 million votes. Trump's popular vote margin in tiny Wyoming would exceed Clinton's vote margin in California. Let these stupid "National Popular Vote" compact states figure out how to deal with that when the national vote totals are reported.
-PJ
Once a state enters a compact, all bets are off.
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