Is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Unconstitutional?

[washunut]

We've had a few threads over the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and whether it's a good idea or not. I don't have a really strong opinion either way on that, but after looking at it in depth a bit, I do have a rather strong opinion that it would be constitutional if enough states enacted it that it goes into effect. So I thought it'd be nice to have a thread narrowed on that issue, and not whether or not it would be a good or bad thing if it was enacted.

The NPVIC is a compact that will go into effect once states with a combined 270 Electoral Votes have passed it. Each state in the compact agreed to select the electors corresponding with the candidate who won the national popular vote, rather than to who won the most votes in their state. Overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

Relevant Constitutional Text:

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2



Article II, Section 1, Clause 4

The number of electoral votes by state changes after census. So what would happen if they get to 270, then down the road their share goes below the threshold.

 

[mvymvy]

My issue with this is less about the idea and more about the process in which they are going about this. If they want to change how the election is done then go through the appropriate process, this just seems like they are exploiting a loophole in order to achieve their goal. I think this will lead to more division and resentment in this country.

No "loophole." No "more division and resentment."

The U.S. Constitution says "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ."
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The normal way of changing the method of electing the President is by changes in state law.

Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation's first election in 1789. However, now, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.

In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

 

[mvymvy]

The problem I see is if states get together and say other states have to decide that have to abide by these rules with no Constitutional Amendment and no agreeing law in a given state.

Individual states that don't wish to abide by this are under no duress whatsoever to abide by it. Or am I missing something?

Examining this more closely, what happens when a state is won by a given candidate that loses the popular vote nationwide and that state turns over the electoral votes to the popular vote getter, isn't that disenfranchising the voters in that state? It seems to nullify representative voting as a means of maintaining state autonomy.

Wont this further balkanize political parties into rural and metro groups? How is that healthy for either side?

This will cause more questions than answers in my opinion.

Virtually every other election in the country is won by the candidate with the most popular votes.

Voters in the biggest cities in the US are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.

16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.

16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

The rest of the U.S., in suburbs, divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

Support for a national popular vote has been strong in rural states

None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes ( not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution) does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states, and they are ignored. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.


In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.

 

[mvymvy]

Current state winner-take-all laws create the illusion that entire states voted 100% for the state’s winner, because the laws award 100% of each state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most votes in the state. However, for example, in Connecticut, the actual vote was 898,000 votes for Clinton; 673,000 for Trump, 49,000 for Johnson, and 23,000 for Stein.

The price that a state pays for its winner-take-all law is that no presidential candidate has anything to gain or lose by soliciting voters or catering to voter issues in 38 states in the November general election. The Democratic candidates take blue states for granted, The Republican candidates take red states for granted. Every voter in safe states—Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green—ends up without any meaningful influence or voice in the presidential election.

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.

The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire, Ohio, or Florida. The National Popular Vote plan would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.

 

[mvymvy]

I don't care what you are. It's exactly what it's about. The left knows that they don't have national appeal...the electoral map of America by county proves that. The only chance that today's left can win is by loading up on illegal voters (because they're now losing black voters as well) in heavy democratic districts.

The 2016 Democratic candidate nationally appealed to more than 2,800,000 more voters than the Republican

 

[mvymvy]

Instead of awarding ALL electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, why not award them proportionally like some states already do. That seems more democratic. And what if no one gets (51%) of the popular vote? What if it's split 35-35-30 ?

Maine and Nebraska do not apportion their electoral votes to reflect the breakdown of each state's popular vote.

Maine (only since enacting a state law in 1969) and Nebraska (only since enacting a state law in 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.

When Nebraska in 2008 gave one electoral vote to the candidate who did not win the state, it was the first split electoral vote of any state in the past century.

2016 is the first time one electoral vote in Maine was given to the candidate who did not win the state.

There are good reasons why no state awards their electors proportionally.

Electors are people. They each have one vote. The result would be a very inexact whole number proportional system.

Every voter in every state would not be politically relevant or equal in presidential elections.

It would sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives, regardless of the popular vote anywhere.

It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;

It would reduce the influence of any state, if not all states adopted.

It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant),

It would not make every vote equal.

It would not guarantee the Presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country.

The National Popular Vote bill is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees the majority of Electoral College votes to the candidate who gets the most votes among all 50 states and DC.

 

[mvymvy]

WOW! I thought this was a passing fancy with the left! This shows that you're really insecure about your chances in the future. You feel that you'll get enough new illegal immigrants to live in the main population centers where thought is fully controlled by the media, have the governors of those states give them ID, and then line them up to vote democrat...talk about a pipe dream!

Tom Tancredo (R-CO) supports the National Popular Vote bill - "it is harder to mobilize massive voter fraud on the national level without getting caught, than it is to do so in a few key states . . . The National Popular Vote make [voter fraud] a smaller [problem]."

The National Association of Secretaries of State, on a bipartisan basis (21 Democratic, 33 Republican, and 1 Independent members), stands by the integrity of our elections.

Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution mandates the U.S. Census count every resident in the United States.

The current system gives "illegal immigrants" a 10 vote advantage in the Electoral College for the Democrats...because they tend to live in safe Democratic states.

An election for President based on the nationwide popular vote would eliminate the Democrat’s advantage in Electoral College members arising from the uneven distribution of non-citizens


Trump, April 26, 2018 on “Fox & Friends”
“I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
“I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”

Trump, October 12, 2017 in Sean Hannity interview
“I would rather have a popular vote. “

Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“ I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”

In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
"The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."

In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin.

Recent and past presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX-1969), Bob Dole (R-KS-1969), Gerald Ford (R-MI-1969), Richard Nixon (R-CA-1969).

Recent and past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN),

Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”

Eight former national chairs of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have endorsed the bill

The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).

In 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the bill.
In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the bill.

In 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill by a 28–18 margin.

In 2009, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed the bill

Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9), and New Mexico (5).

 

[Renae]

There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the presidency.

“The bottom line is that the electors from those states who cast their ballot for the nationwide vote winner are completely accountable (to the extent that independent agents are ever accountable to anyone) to the people of those states. The National Popular Vote states aren’t delegating their Electoral College votes to voters outside the state; they have made a policy choice about the substantive intelligible criteria (i.e., national popularity) that they want to use to make their selection of electors. There is nothing in Article II (or elsewhere in the Constitution) that prevents them from making the decision that, in the Twenty-First Century, national voter popularity is a (or perhaps the) crucial factor in worthiness for the office of the President.”
- Vikram David Amar - professor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UC Davis School of Law. Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry Blackmun at the Supreme Court of the United States.

I posted a link to a paper that has a different take on the matter from you. A popular vote is a bad idea, that's why we don't have one to begin with.

 

[mvymvy]

Very interesting but, maybe I missed it, I don't remember them addressing the issue that one could argue that the state was not deciding for itself how the electors would be apportioned if they were part of a confederation of states and they were bound (forced) to apportion electors based on the will of the confederacy and not by the individual state in question. What if Republican states banded together and decided to do the very same thing, only instead of going by the national popular vote, these states decided that only the one percenters could vote for the electors?

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

ASSuming states that would decide that only the one percenters could vote for their electors, would be Republican states, that would decrease their states' influence in the national popular vote, which would determine the winner.

The coastal United States is home to all multi-county clusters of mass affluence. A vast zone of affluence stretches across the northeastern seaboard, from the suburbs of DC all the up to Vermont.

The Western zone of affluence is centered on San Francisco and comparable in affluence to the DC area.

https://policytensor.com/2017/04/12/zones-of-poverty-and-affluence-in-america/

The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Maryland (11), California (55), Massachusetts (10), New York (29), Vermont (3), Rhode Island (4), and Washington (13). These 11 jurisdictions have 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

 

[Bullseye]

The point is, that no voter would be disenfranchised.

All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
Candidates, as in other elections, would allocate their time, money, polling, organizing, and ad buys roughly in proportion to the population

Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting, crude, and divisive and red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes, that don’t represent any minority party voters within each state.
No more handful of 'battleground' states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable winner states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
We can limit the power and influence of a few battleground states in order to better serve our nation.

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.

Trump, April 26, 2018 on “Fox & Friends”
“I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
“I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”

Trump, October 12, 2017 in Sean Hannity interview
“I would rather have a popular vote. “

Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“ I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”

In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
"The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."

The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

Sorry, no, I don't buy any of this. And I don't care what Trump says. If a state majority is for one candidate then its electors should go to the candidate. Simple principle. This keeps people in smaller red states from being railroaded by the lunatic left in California and New York.

 

[Waddy]

Maine and Nebraska do not apportion their electoral votes to reflect the breakdown of each state's popular vote.

Maine (only since enacting a state law in 1969) and Nebraska (only since enacting a state law in 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.

When Nebraska in 2008 gave one electoral vote to the candidate who did not win the state, it was the first split electoral vote of any state in the past century.

2016 is the first time one electoral vote in Maine was given to the candidate who did not win the state.

There are good reasons why no state awards their electors proportionally.

Electors are people. They each have one vote. The result would be a very inexact whole number proportional system.

Every voter in every state would not be politically relevant or equal in presidential elections.

It would sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives, regardless of the popular vote anywhere.

It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;

It would reduce the influence of any state, if not all states adopted.

It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant),

It would not make every vote equal.

It would not guarantee the Presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country.

The National Popular Vote bill is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees the majority of Electoral College votes to the candidate who gets the most votes among all 50 states and DC.

And it (national popular vote) would insure that a handful of big cities would control national government. How exceptionally UN-democratic. Quite the smoke and mirrors game you got going. But of course you know proportional distribution is the ONLY truely democratic way to disburse electoral votes. But that doesn't fit your meme.

 

[AliHajiSheik]

Tom Tancredo (R-CO) supports the National Popular Vote bill - "it is harder to mobilize massive voter fraud on the national level without getting caught, than it is to do so in a few key states . . . The National Popular Vote make [voter fraud] a smaller [problem]."

The National Association of Secretaries of State, on a bipartisan basis (21 Democratic, 33 Republican, and 1 Independent members), stands by the integrity of our elections.

Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution mandates the U.S. Census count every resident in the United States.

The current system gives "illegal immigrants" a 10 vote advantage in the Electoral College for the Democrats...because they tend to live in safe Democratic states.

An election for President based on the nationwide popular vote would eliminate the Democrat’s advantage in Electoral College members arising from the uneven distribution of non-citizens


Trump, April 26, 2018 on “Fox & Friends”
“I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
“I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”

Trump, October 12, 2017 in Sean Hannity interview
“I would rather have a popular vote. “

Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“ I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”

In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
"The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."

In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin.

Recent and past presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment, before the National Popular Vote bill was introduced: George H.W. Bush (R-TX-1969), Bob Dole (R-KS-1969), Gerald Ford (R-MI-1969), Richard Nixon (R-CA-1969).

Recent and past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN),

Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”

Eight former national chairs of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have endorsed the bill

The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).

In 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the bill.
In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the bill.

In 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill by a 28–18 margin.

In 2009, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed the bill

Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9), and New Mexico (5).

Your copy pasta is getting really old, Tom Tancredo hasn't been in office since 2009. I stopped reading after that to see what other old stuff you have in there.

 

[mvymvy]

Sorry, no, I don't buy any of this. And I don't care what Trump says. If a state majority is for one candidate then its electors should go to the candidate. Simple principle. This keeps people in smaller red states from being railroaded by the lunatic left in California and New York.

With the National Popular Vote bill, when every popular vote counts and matters to the candidates equally, successful candidates will find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Ohio and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support. Elections wouldn't be about winning a handful of battleground states.

Fourteen of the 15 smallest states by population are ignored, like medium and big states where the statewide winner is predictable, because they’re not swing states. Small states are safe states. Only New Hampshire gets significant attention.

Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group

Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.

Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.

State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.

In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.

Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections.

Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.


Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

 

[mvymvy]

California and New York together would not dominate the choice of President under National Popular Vote because there is an equally populous group of Republican states (with 58 million people) that gave Trump a similar percentage of their vote (60%) and a similar popular-vote margin (6 million).

In 2016, New York state and California Democrats together cast 9.7% of the total national popular vote.

California & New York state account for 16.7% of the voting-eligible population

Alone, they could not determine the presidency.

In total New York state and California cast 16% of the total national popular vote

In total, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania cast 18% of the total national popular vote.
Trump won those states.

The vote margin in California and New York wouldn't have put Clinton over the top in the popular vote total without the additional 60 million votes she received in other states.

In 2004, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

New York state and California together cast 15.7% of the national popular vote in 2012.
About 62% Democratic in CA, and 64% in NY.

New York and California have 15.6% of Electoral College votes. Now that proportion is all reliably Democratic.

Under a popular-vote system CA and NY would have less weight than under the current system because their popular votes would be diluted among candidates.

 

[mvymvy]

Your copy pasta is getting really old, Tom Tancredo hasn't been in office since 2009. I stopped reading after that to see what other old stuff you have in there.

Trump, April 26, 2018 on “Fox & Friends”
“I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
“I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”

 

[mvymvy]

And it (national popular vote) would insure that a handful of big cities would control national government. How exceptionally UN-democratic. Quite the smoke and mirrors game you got going. But of course you know proportional distribution is the ONLY truely democratic way to disburse electoral votes. But that doesn't fit your meme.

The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States.

Voters in the biggest cities in the US are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.

16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.

16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

The rest of the U.S., in suburbs, divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.

Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

There are good reasons why no state awards their electors proportionally.

Electors are people. They each have one vote. The result would be a very inexact whole number proportional system.

Every voter in every state would not be politically relevant or equal in presidential elections.

It would sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives, regardless of the popular vote anywhere.

It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;

It would reduce the influence of any state, if not all states adopted.

It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant),

It would not make every vote equal.

It would not guarantee the Presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country.

The National Popular Vote bill is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees the majority of Electoral College votes to the candidate who gets the most votes among all 50 states and DC.

The bill eliminates the possibility of Congress deciding presidential elections, regardless of any voters anywhere.

 

[Moderate Right]

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

ASSuming states that would decide that only the one percenters could vote for their electors, would be Republican states, that would decrease their states' influence in the national popular vote, which would determine the winner.

The coastal United States is home to all multi-county clusters of mass affluence. A vast zone of affluence stretches across the northeastern seaboard, from the suburbs of DC all the up to Vermont.

The Western zone of affluence is centered on San Francisco and comparable in affluence to the DC area.

https://policytensor.com/2017/04/12/zones-of-poverty-and-affluence-in-america/

The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico (5), New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Maryland (11), California (55), Massachusetts (10), New York (29), Vermont (3), Rhode Island (4), and Washington (13). These 11 jurisdictions have 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

Hey, have at it! Let a bunch of blue states sign the agreement. None of them give Republicans any electoral votes anyway. It will accomplish nothing and could only have a down side for them. Bring it on. You're crazy if you think red states are going to sign on to it.

 

[mvymvy]

I posted a link to a paper that has a different take on the matter from you. A popular vote is a bad idea, that's why we don't have one to begin with.

The founders did not intend that women, black people, and native Americans vote.
Most of the founders intended that only in some states white men with significant money could vote for president.


Prior to arriving at the eventual wording of section 1 of Article II, the Constitutional Convention specifically voted against a number of different methods for selecting the President, including
● having state legislatures choose the President,
● having governors choose the President, and
● a national popular vote.
After these (and other) methods were debated and rejected, the Constitutional Convention decided to leave the entire matter to the states.


Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation's first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.

Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.

 

[AliHajiSheik]

More copy pasta that doesn't address what I said, so I presume you to be a bot and not extend the courtesy of replying with quote.

 

[Waddy]

mvymvy; The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States.

Voters in the biggest cities in the US are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.

The REAL goal is to insure Democrats get elected.

80.7 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas as of the 2010 Census, a boost from the 79 percent counted in 2000. That brings the country's total urban population to 249,253,271, a number attained via a growth rate of 12.1 percent between 2000 and 2010, outpacing the nation as a whole,

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/

Nearly one in seven Americans lives in the metropolitan areas of the country's three largest cities: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.......Add metro Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, Atlanta and Boston to that group (totaling the country's 10 most populous metros), and nearly one in three Americans lives in these few spots on the U.S. map.

"We are a much more big urban nation than a lot of people think," says William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.

New Census data released Thursday further suggests that within the last year (from July 1, 2012, to July 1, 2013), virtually all of the country's population growth took place in metropolitan areas, with a significant chunk of it even further clustered in and around the largest cities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-growth/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ade29a49b5bb

And your plan means that nine states control every election.

More than 330 million people live in the United States, but that doesn't mean the population is distributed evenly. Far from it.

Using the latest US Census data, we determined that just nine states — California, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia and Florida — account for half of the entire US population.

Half of the US population lives in just 9 states - Business Insider

So your plan to make sure liberals get elected each time, every time, all the time means the rest of the nation gets no say in the matter. How democratic of you.

 

[Greenbeard]

And your plan means that nine states control every election.

States don't control elections under a popular vote system. Voters do.

The supremacy of geography in outcomes is an Electoral College construct. One that transition to a popular vote eliminates.

If you're disturbed by the concept of a small number of states controlling every election, welcome to the club.

 

[itsforthekids]

The 2016 Democratic candidate nationally appealed to more than 2,800,000 more voters than the Republican

All of those voters came from 2 counties...LA and Manhattan. I don't want my potus chosen by 2 counties. The vast majority of America's counties voted for President Trump. The electoral college works.

 

[Greenbeard]

All of those voters came from 2 counties...LA and Manhattan. I don't want my potus chosen by 2 counties. The vast majority of America's counties voted for President Trump. The electoral college works.

What rationale is there for counties choosing anything (other than county-level governance)? Why would you make a county the fundamental unit of analysis in an election as opposed to a voter?

 

[fredmertzz]

You also have the 14th amendment guaranteeing a person the right to vote in election to elect electors.

But you're still voting, and your vote is still counted in the popular vote, which is what determines the electoral college. I disagree with the pact, but I do believe it's constitutional.

 

[itsforthekids]

What rationale is there for counties choosing anything (other than county-level governance)? Why would you make a county the fundamental unit of analysis in an election as opposed to a voter?

Because America is a sea of red. Showing counties is the only way to show where the country stands.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?...347414B3DAE6DF70850BEC8BA7C4D5445&FORM=IQFRBA