Posted on 09/13/2008 7:49:36 AM PDT by NutmegDevil
New Jersey Rejects Electoral College Two States Have Now Joined Compact To Give Their Votes To Winner Of The Popular Vote =============== (AP) New Jersey on Sunday became the second state to enter a compact that would eliminate the Electoral College's power to choose a president if enough states endorse the idea.
Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed legislation that approves delivering the state's 15 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The Assembly approved the bill last month and the Senate followed suit earlier this month.
Maryland - with 10 electoral votes - had been the only state to pass the compact into law. ....
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Exactly.
Which basically means that the state legislature told the voters of NJ to get bent, your vote doesn't count.
This will last until those states' EC votes get handed over to President Palin in 2012 ;)
Not a chance in the world. If that happened, they would simply void the pact and vote for the Dem anyway. The NPVIC is on very shaky Constitutional ground to begin with. If it was on the verge of doing something so hideously, glaringly wrong as electing a <gasp>Republican, then an army of Constitutional law professors would march on the Supreme Court and have it struck down.
This has been discussed at quite some length here. The gist of it is that this will make it so that the few states with large liberal cities will determine who the President is. Democrat candidates will only need to campaign to win the large cities and they will win the Electoral votes.
Exactly.
“This makes it a compact among states. Compacts among states must be approved by Congress to be valid.”
Correct.
Some obvious problems with this nitwit idea are:
(1) Who counts the so-called “nationwide popular vote”? CNN?
(2) Who administers a nationwide recount?
(3) Who stops one corrupt political machine in a single state from deciding a national election?
I think States could throw darts at candidate’s names to pick its electors and it wouldn’t violate the Constitution.
Because it is clearly spelled out in the Constitution that the state legislature shall determine how the EC votes are allocated. There are multiple ways they could do it. State wide citizen vote, parliamentary vote through the legislature, flip a coin for each EC vote, trial by combat, all of them are 'legal' by the Constitution.
Worse than that. An amendment requires a 2/3 vote in each house of Congress and ratification by 3/4 of the states.
There's a reason we don't amend the Constitution any more.
Worse than that. An amendment requires a 2/3 vote in each house of Congress and ratification by 3/4 of the states.
There's a reason we don't amend the Constitution any more.
The very fact that these states are and have been for some time discussing this among themselves makes it a compact.
You and I, or any two other parties, can very easily make a compact, at law, by simply agreeing verbally that we both shall do such-and-so at some future time under some set of conditions.
I'm sure it would be subject to interpretation who won the popular vote to throw it to the left.
East coast Democrats are very different than west coast ones. NJ is very conservative and tradition oriented. The stores play music from 30 years ago, many banks still have drive up tellers instead of ATMs, women have beehive hairdos, there is no deposit on soda cans. The attraction to Democrats is about corruption, getting union and government jobs and pay raises for family and friends. They have little interest in destroying America like the left coast Democrats are working to do.
When defeat is certain, make waves and blow some smoke to seem like you are winning. A second version of this tactic is taking place in Alaska and known as Troopergate.
How sweet it will be when a Republican wins the popular vote while losing the electoral college vote, but wins the election because the geniuses in Joizy conspired to bite themselves in their own stinky butts.
Maine allocates its electoral votes based on who wins in each congressional district. The state has 2 districts. If McCain wins in district 2 and Obama in district 1 each gets one electoral vote.
Maine has a total of 4 electoral votes-in essence the number of districts + number of senators. Whoever wins the popular vote in the state wins the extra 2 electoral votes.
The Constitution created the electoral college but does not tell the states they cannot do what Maine has done and New Jersey trying to do.
“Sigh. Cherry Hill, NJ is a nice place to live. Corzine is making it more and more difficult to remain.”
My wife and I were both born in NJ and spent nearly all of our lives in the state, sans the time spent at college and in my case also the service. We packed up and left NJ in the spring of 2003. THE BEST THING WE EVER DID. I can’t stand to go back just to visit family and friends. NJ is hosed.
There’s an entire country out there with some very good states to choose from.
You are exactly right. Having the electors chosen by the voters is a tradition. It isn’t in the Constitution.
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