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To: Captain Rhino
"This scheme subverts the original rationale behind the electoral college; prevent the populous states from dominating the smaller ones. That rationale is well known and was made explicit in the Federalist Papers, IIRC. There are a lot of other aspects of the Constitution were the underlying rationale for one provision or the other is not explicitly stated. This is because the Constitution implements decisions already argued over and resolved in the proceedings of the Constitutional Convetion. Could or, rather, will such an argument support a challenge to this agreement before the Supreme Court?"

Opinions about unstated rationales for constitutional provisions are not law. What matters is what the constitution says.

This plan still doesn't undermine that rationale anyway. Each state gets a certain number of electors, per the constitution. This is how the big state/small state issue was resolved. The number is determined by representation in both the House and Senate, where the Senate doesn't depend on population.

This does not change. Only how the state chooses its electors changes, not the number of them. States are free to establish any method they like.

158 posted on 05/23/2019 5:09:46 PM PDT by mlo
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To: mlo

Yes. But doesn’t agreeing to award all your electors to the national popular vote winner (regardless of how the state actually voted) effectively negate the votes of the state’s citizens?

Crap! This scheme is way worse than awarding a state’s electors based on the candidate’s proportion of the vote. Under that scheme, it was worth fighting for every vote in every state because the winner takes all practice of awarding the state’s electors had been scrapped.

I am not a lawyer, but from the law classes I have taken and reading about law over the years, I seem to recall that a technically legal act (statute, law, etc.) can still be held to be illegal if, in operation, it yields a manifestly unjust result. Isn’t this the basis for lawsuits over the years on voting rights and state redistricting cases?

BTW, thanks for taking time to dialogue on this topic. I do appreciate it.


159 posted on 05/23/2019 6:04:23 PM PDT by Captain Rhino (Determined effort today forges tomorrow.)
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To: mlo
States are free to establish any method they like.

Well then! I suppose that Mississippi could dictate "No electors shall vote for a black or female candidate".

Or California and New York could dictate "All Electors must vote for the Democrat candidate".

160 posted on 05/23/2019 6:57:22 PM PDT by Lazamataz (We can be called a racist and we'll just smile. Because we don't care.)
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