Posted on 08/19/2021 5:39:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
A campaign to nullify the Electoral College has come to a screeching halt. For more than a decade, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) added states until reaching nearly three-quarters of its goal. Yet now it is moving backward, with states that nearly joined in the past rejecting it with large bipartisan majorities. Of 29 NPVIC bills introduced in 16 states, just two received a hearing, and those were voted down with Democrats and Republicans unified in opposition. Rather than a bump in the road, this may be a dead end.
The National Popular Vote movement began in 2006, but it is part of a long tradition of political losers trying to rewrite the rules. The idea came after Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush in 2000. Three law professors realized that if enough states gave away their electoral votes based on the popular vote across the country, they could upend the Constitution’s state-by-state election process. Without a constitutional amendment, they could force the Electoral College to rubber-stamp the popular vote result.
Enter John Koza, a computer scientist from San Francisco and the inventor of the scratch-ticket lottery. He had supported Gore, even serving as one of California’s presidential electors. Koza used his lottery fortune to create the National Popular Vote interstate compact and the eponymous campaign for it.
Interstate compacts are state laws that create an agreement between states that enact them. The NPVIC compact changes how states choose presidential electors (it does not tell electors how to vote, as some erroneously believe). NPVIC states would choose electors based on the nationwide popular vote, not the popular vote result within their state. All this has a trigger: it only takes effect if passed by enough states that they together control 270 electoral votes, a majority that would determine the outcome of presidential elections.
There is a raft of legal and practical problems with it, but if NPVIC took effect and functioned as intended, opponents of the Electoral College would get almost everything they want. While the Electoral College would remain in the Constitution, it would be a nullity. We would have a de facto direct election for president.
Maryland was the first state to join NPVIC, in 2007, followed by New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii the next year. It gained the public and financial support of Jonathan Soros, the son of liberal mega-donor George Soros. Other states joined, including Massachusetts, Vermont, California, and New York — the latter two bringing large numbers of electoral votes.
Major Democratic Party donors were backing the NPVIC campaign, and the bluest states were signing on, but success was a two-edged sword. Koza was running out of blue states, especially after major Republican gains in the 2010 and 2014 elections, so he shifted his lobbying to target red-state legislators. One tactic was to take lawmakers on junkets to places like Hawaii and Las Vegas. While some Republicans signed on, success was fleeting. No red state has ever joined NPVIC, and of the Republican legislators who did sign on, many have since recanted their support and become staunch opponents of the compact.
The partisan divide was amplified by the election of Donald Trump in 2016. While it spurred passage of NPVIC in five more blue states, any glimmer of Republican support for NPVIC disappeared. The bill also appeared poised to pass in both Maine and Virginia, where Democrats had recently won "trifectas" — control of both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion. Then came the election of 2020.
One effect of the Electoral College is to minimize the federal role in elections and cabin disputes within individual states. Presidents and their appointees have almost no power over presidential elections, and the role of Congress is limited. Within each state, the legislature writes election laws and then state and local officials carry them out. This decentralized process is itself a protection against all kinds of ills, real or imagined.
The NPVIC compact would undo all this in its effort to overlay a direct national vote on top of the Constitution’s state-by-state system. If the compact took effect, an official in each NPVIC state would try to obtain election results from every other state, total them up, and certify a national result. But what if one of those officials refused to accept the results from another state, or from a group of states? The compact says nothing about how to resolve ambiguities or disputes. At best, NPV would turn it all over to judges.
One silver lining of the last election is a renewed appreciation for the challenge of running elections and maintaining voters’ trust. American history is full of bitter political contests—along with pandemics, wars, depressions, dustbowls, and the like. This rediscovered realism has led to a bipartisan rejection of NPVIC, including in states like Maine and Virginia that had appeared poised to pass the measure. While there were always some Democrats opposed to NPVIC, their ranks are growing.
The Electoral College as it works today limits the harm any one bad actor can do in a presidential election. It uses states to contain disputes, while also protecting the power of states to control their own election processes. These are benefits that both Democratic and Republican state legislators appreciate.
Not long ago, the NPVIC campaign looked like it might actually nullify the Electoral College. Yet it never succeeded at winning even one red state, and now a growing number of Democrats as well as the vast majority of Republicans are rejecting NPVIC legislation. As recent events have led state legislators to think more deeply about elections, the dangerous flaws in this anti–Electoral College plan have become more glaring.
Whatever the Democrats want right now is the most important thing in the MSM’s world.
It’s because they are starting to no longer be able to get away with the fraud that is needed to substitute for the Electoral College.
In other words, you can insert or retract "a specified number" of votes into specific districts for the electoral win.
But the can't do the same with the popular vote. It's just too huge and unrelieable.
This makes me think that the democommies are well aware that Trump won in 2020 by a good 20 million votes, if not more.
The last election showed them how to game the electoral vote in selected states and selected voting districts …much easier than manipulating the popular vote
Of course it was.
I hate this state.
The last election didn’t show them that. That’s been their standard operating procedure for at least 60 years, probably more.
I love certain place in Maryland, but I WOULD NEVER LIVE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There can be no second thoughts.
Democrats seeking to destroy the electoral college must be permanently exterminated as enemies of the Republic
They must not be allowed existence
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, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
They just don't care.
They will have gotten what they wanted. (Why would they care?)
I like our Constitutional system much better.
The Electoral College as it works today limits the harm any one bad actor can do in a presidential election.
Unless group rigging is involved democrat party winks.
I have always believed the Electoral College could be reformed away from “winner takes all” for each state (538 total national votes) to electoral votes based on the popular votes in each county, in each state (more than 3,000 US counties).
That way is much more representative of voters opinions and gets rid of the dominance by one or two major municipalities in each state. Maine and Nebraska can split their EV votes by voting district and away from winner take all.
Oregon for example, is dominated by Portland Metro, while many other parts of the state are quite conservative. Anywhere from 5-7 counties, home to more than 800,000 citizens, have joined the effort to split off from Oregon to move their affiliation to Idaho because they know they are not represented by the current system.
It will likely fail on Constitutional grounds but it points out the problems with lack of true representative democracy.
As a Californian who is aware of the criminally loose conduct of elections in this state - registration on an “honor system” that requires no proof of citizenship, voting without voter ID - I realized in 2000 that the Electoral College actually works as a firewall, limiting California’s electoral crimes and corruption to this state. No matter how much they cheat, Dems in CA can only reap 54 Electoral votes. Eliminating the Electoral College would allow California - with its enormous population - to literally nullify election margins in multiple states with illegal votes.
One positive to living in Maryland is that it is so expensive that after years of living there, you move to Florida and it’s practically free. For example my 2800 square foot home in Maryland, property taxes were 8400 a year. My 2300 square foot home in Florida, property taxes are 2,080 a year. Yes I lost 500 square foot but still…..then Maryland state taxes were extremely high to florida’s zero! The only things more expensive are water (big time) and food (about a dollar per item more), but still……
Not according to FRacebook! LOFL...
Most people aren’t aware of the College and far fewer understand its importance and simple congruence with the American federal republic. State-based College electors interface with Congress, and like the pre-17th Amendment Congress, the College is both democratic and federal.
There’s no doubt that direct election is outwardly simple. It is so simple, it’s the way of Venezuela and Russia. However, when it comes to securing liberty, history has not been kind to the worldwide record of direct presidential elections.
Well, I’m moving to Florida in November. Feel free to follow me down there.
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