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To: Will88
And if you believe that, maybe you also think it would be constitutional to reallocate the number of US senators based on population, without a constitutional amendment.

You're mixing hypotheticals, and suggesting a false analogy. Let's stay focused on the electoral college.

Article II Section 1 Clause 2 clearly says:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The state legislatures already have the authority to allocate their own electoral votes any way they choose. Most states choose a winner-take-all method, and two states allocate them via congressional districts, with the two Senate votes going to the overall winner. I'm saying that a state would be within its constitutional right (as shown above) to choose to allocate its electoral votes for the national winner if it wanted to.

What it cannot do is make this scheme contingent on a bloc of other states agreeing to do the same. That would be an interstate compact, with the effect of the bloc of states ganging up on the remaining states.

-PJ

66 posted on 06/24/2010 10:11:46 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too ("Comprehensive" reform bills only end up as incomprehensible messes.)
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To: Political Junkie Too
The state legislatures already have the authority to allocate their own electoral votes any way they choose.

I'm not mixing anything. You're refusing to look at the intent of the founders, and why we have some representation based on population, and some based upon individual states, in both Congress and the Electoral College. And that is precisely what the schemers are trying to get around.

But, since you've laid down the law in your above statement, if a state chooses to allocate all it's electoral votes to the candidate receiving the smallest number of votes, then that is still constitutional. No problem with that, according to you.

Or maybe some states would like to allocate their electoral votes to some individual who didn't even run in the presidential primaries. Still fits your guideline as being constitutional.

73 posted on 06/24/2010 10:21:02 AM PDT by Will88
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