Posted on 02/12/2020 10:41:58 AM PST by yesthatjallen
The Democratic-led Virginia House of Delegates has passed legislation that seeks to award the states electoral votes to the presidential candidate that wins the national popular vote in an election.
The measure, also known as House Bill 177, passed the legislative chamber in a 51-46 vote on Tuesday after clearing the bodys Privileges and Elections Committee in a vote last week.
If the legislation is passed by the Senate, where Democrats also hold control, and signed into law by the governor, Virginia would subsequently be entered into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Under the compact, Virginia agrees to award its electoral votes to the presidential ticket that receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, a bill summary states. The compact goes into effect when states cumulatively possessing a majority of the electoral votes have joined the compact.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
The constitution sets out that the state gets so many electoral votes proportional to its population and that the people vote for those electors.
The state can determine how those electoral votes are allocated pursuant to the voting of its populace. Either winner take all or, more recently, proportional electors based on, again, the populace vote. (Im not sure if the proportional vote has been tried in court yet) Either way the electors are still directly picked by the populace - NOT the state government.
Here, the state is shirking its representation by giving its electoral votes to, potentially, a state with a denser population. This effectively throws away the votes of its populace and also violates the point of the electoral college to begin with - that is, balance the voting strength of the states vs their respective populations.
[cites equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment]
No it doesn't.
"My vote is not equal to someone else's vote if they live in New York or California and this "popular vote" act is used."
That's already true. Electors aren't apportioned strictly by population. People in small states have a disproportionally larger influence in the Electoral College because each state gets the same number of electors that they have House Representatives and Senators. See: When it comes to voting, not all states are created equal.
This is by design. The states elect the President, not the People. And the power of each state was set equal to the state's representation in Congress.
If the 14th Amendment invalidated unequal say in presidential elections then the entire electoral system would have been invalidated. It doesn't do that.
The Constitution specifically lays out the procedure for electing a President, and it gives that power to each state legislature to do as they like. You have no right to vote for President. You legislature has chosen to use its power to hold an honor the results of an election. They don't have to do it that way. If a state legislature instead wanted to simply pass a resolution to designate electors, they could. If they want to assign electors depending on the outcome of the popular vote, or whether it rained that day, they could.
Thanks for explaining that. I was under some incorrect notions.
You posted an interesting article about the disparity between electoral college vote strength as it applies to the five smallest population states. In general, however, electoral college representation remains relatively even for everyone else. I was not aware that these small population states received one more elector than they had representation in the Congress because the minimum is three. This is still preferable to having New York and California decide who our President is every election.
Something which does not actually exist and is not certified.
What is actually occurring is that they are voting to take away their own citizens right to vote for President and have their Electors chosen not by their own voters, but by voters in other states...unfortunately I do not see this being the message against Dem controlled legislatures that have done this in other states.
Speaking of which - I would actually change the 3 electoral votes that DC has alone and make those three votes collectively be for all non-state US territories combined.
bfl
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government"
Bypassing the will of the voters in your state is denying them the guaranteed Republican form of government whereby one elects someone else to represent their wishes. If you want to argue that the Constitution says that the states themselves elect the President and Vice President, then that argument loses standing after over 200 years of precedent showing that this has been given to the citizens to decide. The USSC would weigh in on the side of the citizens as they really would have no choice.
p
That's correct.
"What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your states entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes.
Under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College. For this reason, in the following discussion, the word state also refers to the District of Columbia.
Each candidate running for President in your state has his or her own group of electors. The electors are generally chosen by the candidates political party, but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are. Read more about the qualifications of the Electors and restrictions on who the Electors may vote for.
....
Most states have a winner-take-all system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of proportional representation. Read more about the allocation of Electors among the states and try to predict the outcome of the Electoral College vote."
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html
Are there restrictions on who the Electors can vote for?
There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states.1 Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categoriesElectors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties' nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called "faithless Electors" may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
Today, it is rare for Electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party's candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged.
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) has compiled a brief summary of state laws about the various procedures, which vary from state to state, for selecting slates of potential electors and for conducting the meeting of the electors. The document, Summary: State Laws Regarding Presidential Electors, can be downloaded from the resources/elections menu on the NASS website.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html#restrictions
[1] Since there is no law and no Constitutional provision requiring electors to vote for the candidate that wins the most votes within that state's election results, the electors within the state can be directed by state law to vote for the national populare vote winner (for example).
Correct.
interesting
Thanks
I think you pretty much nailed it...
***
Article II
Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
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.
***
Maine & Nebraska apportion by Congressional District...
Yes there is. It's Article Four, Section Four of the U.S. Constitution.
"The United States shall guarantee to every
A Republican form of government is one where the people select representatives to "represent" their opinions at the big table of government. The Constitution GUARANTEES this type of government to the STATE. Not representing the wishes of the people you represent breaks this guarantee. The wording of this guarantee also appears to mean that this guarantee is to the individual STATE, not states or group of states, thus implying that representation is limited to a state by state basis.
Still a Republican form of government, even if conservatives don't like the outcome of the previous election.
As long as they don't form a pact w/another state, this is completely constitutional even if we wish it wasn't because there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent THEIR Republican form of state government from directing their electors to vote a certain way.
This can only be argued if the citizens of Virginia are NOT allowed to vote in a Presidential election. If they are allowed to vote then your argument is not correct. Is Virginia planning on not allowing their citizens to vote in the election this year?
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