99 thoughts on “Brilliant Babs”

  1. The idea does at least have the attribute of making all voters relevant, not just those in swing states.

    1. All voters are not supposed to be relevant to the selection of a president. The president is elected by the states. The voters are represented by the House. It’s part of the separation of powers, and federalism.

      1. “All voters are not supposed to be relevant to the selection of a president. The president is elected by the states. The voters are represented by the House. It’s part of the separation of powers, and federalism.”

        To say nothing of the problem of those pesky 5 million uncounted votes they dug up in California; wonder how many are from undocumented aliens living in sanctuary cities? With the current electoral college system it makes no difference how large of a majority wins in Calif.; the no. of electoral votes is always the same, 55. Just as the framers intended so populous regions (urban) don’t dominate less populous regions (rural) too much. Once again thank the wisdom of the framers.

        1. Further, look at the House & Senate Democrat leadership – CA & NY dominate, WY & the Dakotas never will. The Electoral College is a superb antidote to the poison of size. Seniority serves the same purpose in Congressional committees.

          1. I’m old enough to remember when the Senate Democratic Leader was from South Dakota, way back in 2005. He was succeeded by a Senator from 5 electoral vote Nevada.

          2. But if you were born yesterday, you might know that the Democratic Presidential candidate was formerly a NY Senator, her NY senatorial partner was just elected to lead Senate Democrats.

            Sure, in the past, Democrats had leaders from South Dakota and Nevada. They also celebrated Senators from the KKK. Which history is moving forward in the DNC? It doesn’t look like it is electing leaders from rural states.

      2. I see no merit to your vague argument. The electoral college certainly does not operate in the manner that the founders envisaged for it and the difference between who would be elected President under a direct voting system as opposed to through the electoral college system as it actually works is nothing but chance (the chance in how the geographical distribution of voters has developed). There is no great founders wisdom in the actuality.

        1. Of course you don’t. Because first you decide the result would be better if Hillary won, then you frame your argument to fit that result. You are not dissadable.

          Now all you have to do is persuade 38 states that they should be irrelevant.

        2. The entire Federalist Papers are free for download to your Kindle, and they are surprisingly easy to follow; Federalist 68 and 72 include debate on the electoral college. The concerns expressed by the other states during the ratification process was that Virginia, due to its large population, would have an outsized influence in federal affairs. The electoral college was the compromise that brought the states together on this issue.

          1. I think you are confusing the electoral college with the Connecticut Compromise on the design of the Senate, which gave small states equal representation.

            The electoral college was not designed to benefit small states — Virginia was the largest state, and the immediate beneficiary of the electoral college, producing four of our first five presidents.

            The electoral college was a concession to slave owners. Slave states like Virginia wanted political power in proportion to their population, including slaves, but of course would never allow slaves to vote. So a popular vote would not do. The free states, for their part, weren’t willing to give in completely, so the two sides met midway, counting each slave as 3/5th of a person for purposes of calculating the number of electoral votes and House seats.

          3. Many states would not have joined the union if it had not been for the electoral college.

            Exactly. It was a compromise with powerful slave owners, just like the Constitutional provision to not interfere with the slave trade. We can look back on those compromises and see them as necessary in the moment. That doesn’t mean we have to think that the results were ideal, or the best choice for today.

        3. “I see no merit to your vague argument. The electoral college certainly does not operate in the manner that the founders envisaged for it …”

          In fact it works perfectly well and achieves what the Founders intended:

          Wyoming, and all it’s voters would be utterly disenfranchised and never listened to for one half second of the election was done by popular vote.

          Same with the Dakotas – who, by the way, want a pipeline run through their state.

          Same with Rhode Island.

          Same with Idaho

          Same with Kentucky or Tennessee.

          The NUMBER of electors in the state is in proportion to the number of Representatives, so every state gets a minimum of two (2 Senators) and then more electors based upon the number of congressmen which, in turn, is based upon the size of the population. It’s precisely the same as the design of the Congress and was utterly brilliant in it’s conception and execution.

          1. Wyoming, and all it’s voters would be utterly disenfranchised and never listened to for one half second of the election was done by popular vote.

            When’s the last time a presidential campaign listened to anyone in Wyoming at all? Or listened to anyone in New York or Illinois?

            The electoral college focuses attention on voters (including myself) who live in states that are fairly evenly split, and so winnable by either side. Some of the battleground states are geographically large, like Florida and Nevada, and others are small, like New Hampshire. Some have large populations, like Pennsylvania, and some don’t, like Iowa. Some have big cities, while others have lots of farmland and ranching.

            As much as I personally enjoy having my vote count extra, there is no good reason why voters in battleground states should be more important than the voters in all the other states of the country.

        4. Well, then you haven’t studied American history.

          Before you offer ignorant, snarky comments, respect our history.

          1. Andrew,

            Please respect our history! Read James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787 where the matter of directly electing the President was discussed.
            Go to http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(fr00218))#0020061
            Scroll down to “Page 57”, start at the bottom of Page 56, and read what Madison himself had to say.

            What, you’re too lazy to click? Well, you have to read these remarks in context (available via the link) but here’s what I’m pointing you towards (and I’ll put it in bold):

            Mr. Wilson. It seems to be the unanimous sense that the Executive should not be appointed by the Legislature, unless he be rendered in-eligible a 2d. time: he perceived with pleasure that the idea was gaining ground, of an election mediately or immediately by the people.

            Mr. If it be a fundamental principle of free Govt. that the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary powers should be separately exercised; it is equally so that they be independently exercised. There is the same & perhaps greater reason why the Executive shd. be independent of the Legislature, than why the Judiciary should: A coalition of the two former powers would be more immediately & certainly dangerous to public liberty. It is essential then that the appointment of the Executive should either be drawn from some source, or held by some tenure, that will give him a free agency with regard to the Legislature. This could not be if he was to be appointable from time to time by the Legislature. It was not clear that an appointment in the 1st. instance with an ineligibility afterwards would not establish an improper connection between the two departments. Certain it was that the appointment would be attended with intrigues and contentions that ought not to be unnecessarily admitted. He was disposed for these reasons to refer the appointment to some other Source. The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself.8 It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.

          2. HTML conventions garbled my comment slightly, but the second speaker was James Madison, who was also the one writing down who said what. It is peculiar to me that he didn’t make the case for more populated vs less populated states.

          3. Yes bob, the North, which is comprised of the blue states today; did decide the South couldn’t count all their citizens equally. So in order to gain the South’s support, a set of rules were designed to give the states equal say, while allowing the citizens in the blue states permission to think less of individuals in the South. Nothing has changed in this regard other than the blue states now includes the West Coast states as well.

          4. “all their citizens equally”

            Leland, are you suggesting that the South treated slaves as “citizens”? Are you suggesting that the South gave slaves the vote? What do you think Madison ( a slave owner, from a slave state ) was saying?

          6. The 3/5 clause was put in because the slave holding states wanted full representation of slaves but, of course, kept them as slaves. The rest of the states needed the south, so a compromise was made. In case you are delusional enough to call it a “White Supremacist Document,” Frederick Douglass called the Constitution “a glorious liberty document.”

            Those at Slate are just slathering over the idea of getting flogged and spanked by people.

            http://www.commdiginews.com/history-and-holidays/frederick-douglass-and-defending-the-u-s-constitution-10541/#kkrJ4sPDxoqu8zAH.99

          8. What does it even mean to say “full representation of slaves”? If the slaves couldn’t vote, and moreover, if they are being treated like slaves, complete with enduring all forms of horrific abuse, can a government office holder who is working to keep that abuse legal be said to be “representing” them?

            Anyway, I like the electoral college! I like it because, as you point out, Gregg and Jon, it gives minorities a disproportionate voice in our nation’s affairs. I think we should have more electoral colleges! Right now we have just one electoral college, one which favors people in less populated states. But being from a small state is only one way for a voter to be a minority. We should have electoral colleges which favors other kinds of minority voters too, lest they be disenfranchised. For example, we could have an electoral college which favors voters who are redheads. And we could have an electoral college which favors left handed voters. And we’re always hearing about the 1% — why not an electoral college which favors tax-bracket minorities? Maybe you can think of some other minorities too, preferably ones whose voice isn’t heard in our current electoral system. Anyway, once every four years, the different colleges could come together as an electoral university to elect a president, a president who will reflect the will of all the different kinds of minorities, or at least a majority of them. Or maybe a minority of them? Majority, minority, I’m not sure which is better anymore.

          11. Bob,

            You think you are trying to represent absurdity by being absurd. This is a stupid question and nobody will probably answer it because you’re just trying to be clever. And people who think they are clever, in my experience, are annoying. Oscar Wilde once said, “I’m so clever, I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

            What stake does a redhead have? What stake does a vegan have? These are stupid questions, because our system says all people are equal. I think that you are so mired in your bizarre identity politics that you have forgotten the basic creed that all of us are created equal. You also seem to think that government should be so involved in our lives that it is responsible for the rights of redheads.

            Now, you’ll think–hey! I got Jon! He’s so stupid because he’s pushing for one man one vote.

            No, you don’t. If you don’t think that there are valid interests that can be squashed by the tyranny of the majority then you don’t follow politics. Infrastructure projects is just one example out of many. Where does the money go? How is it allocated?

            By the way, a weighted system is used in many countries. Proportional representation is a way of protecting the minority populations. Did you know that Bob? Did you look into party representation into other countries?

          12. Jon, thank you for your reply.

            Jon, when it comes to the USPresidency (a very important caveat), I think that it is almost as absurd to think that red-heads have special interests making it a good idea to favor them in an imaginary Electoral College as it is to think that Wyoming voters have special interests requiring favoritism from the real Electoral College. I understand the merits of federalism, but I don’t see how which state you live in should influence how much your voice counts when voting for the US President.

            ( I understand why it came about in history, and I understand why it is unlikely to change, but I’m talking about whether it is a good system.)

          13. Because the founders feared a tyranny of the majority. Look at the mobs protesting in the streets. That’s democracy as the founders (and thoughtful people) see it.

            I guess you just don’t care about the people in Wyoming. Why is that?

          14. “I guess you just don’t care about the people in Wyoming. Why is that?”

            I guess you just don’t care about redheads. Why is that?

            If you care about people, then in a democracy you give them an equal voice – one person, one vote, regardless of minority status. It isn’t a good idea to give preferential treatment to minorities. Right?

          15. Stop it, Bob. You’re not good at satire.

            To do satire, you have to understand the problem. If you don’t understand the difference between redheads and Wyoming, there is no help for you.

        5. the chance in how the geographical distribution of voters has developed).

          I think you meant to say choice. It wasn’t chance that caused people to move to these states but choice.

          Also, the electoral college protects the states from tyranny of the minority of the states. States have rights and interests all their own. I am sure California and NY are more than happy to pillage the interior states for energy and building materials but that shouldn’t mean these states shouldn’t have any influence over the process.

    2. We live in a republic, not a democracy. Our states are now dominated by the major cities. That makes the rural and small town voters irrelevant.

      1. People in favor of abolishing the EC in favor of NPV should be required to answer how they’d feel if (say) Hillary won the EC but lost the popular vote.

        1. Obviously Clinton would have handed the White House to Trump in that case.

          Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha… just kidding.

          The left just can’t stand to lose, because no-one has ever told them ‘No!’ in their lives before.

        2. I’d be glad that Clinton was elected, chagrined that she hadn’t convinced a plurality of voters to support her, and I’d still support NPV. You carry out today’s election under today’s rules, and then work to improve the rules for the next time.

          1. Rioting and beating people up because you don’t support the rule of law or peaceful transition of power isn’t working to improve anything.

            Democrats are participating in both organized and unorganized violence, just like they have the entire election and just like they have for over a hundred years.

    3. All of the voters are relevant in the context that they select who their state’s electoral votes will go to.

      Battleground states are important because who they give their votes to is contested rather than assured. If other states want this honor, all they have to do is change their voting habits.

      New York and California have many many many electoral votes and yet they always vote for Democrats so other states like Florida and Ohio get more focus despite having fewer electoral votes.

      1. Agree overall, but I must pick a nit anent Florida and New York. Both currently have 29 electoral votes. New York is, indeed, reliably Democratic, but Florida appears to be trending more and more Republican. This is a relatively recent development. 50 years ago, for instance, New York had 43 electoral votes and Florida had 14. So five decades have seen their ratio go from 3:1 to parity. In 2020, things should swing decisively in Florida’s favor.

        There is a long-term trend of reliably blue states losing population and red states gaining. 50 years ago, New York had 43 electoral votes, California had 40 and Texas had 25. The numbers are now 29, 55 and 38, respectively. New York has fallen from first in population to fourth. California and Texas have both swapped political affiliations along the way. That has been accompanied by an accelerating increase in the Texas population and a notable deceleration in California’s. When California was Republican, its population grew enormously. Now that it’s a progressive bastion, that’s over. California has only one more electoral vote today than it did in 1990 while Texas picked up four more in 2010 as California marked time and will probably do even better than that in 2020 when California seems likely to lose at least one or two electoral votes for the first time ever.

        1. Good point and it emphasizes that things don’t always remain the same. Democrats can’t count on always controlling the big cities, as the recent riots should be showing them.

    4. “The idea does at least have the attribute of making all voters relevant, not just those in swing states.”

      It does precisely the opposite. The popular vote disenfranchises millions of people.

          1. Governors and Senators are elected by popular vote, and they don’t restrict campaigning to major population centers. Many of them were only elected because they rallied support in rural areas. Any campaign that wrote off rural voters would do so at its peril. By contrast, currently both general election presidential campaigns write off most of the voters because they live in states that are sure to go to one side or another.

          2. “no one will care about their vote, or do anything to try to earn it.”

            That’s not borne out by the experience in other countries, if one party ignored part of the electorate it just makes that part of the electorate easier for other parties to pick up.

            To me the one man one vote principle is sound in the same way a free market is sound, I’d argue the one man one vote principle is the electoral form of the free market and the EC system like political manipulation of democratic principles for political ends.

          3. Governors and Senators are elected by popular vote, and they don’t restrict campaigning to major population centers.

            Simply not true. The rural voters in Minnesota were recently told that their votes do not matter.

          5. @Jim Many of them were only elected because they rallied support in rural areas.

            Not in WA state.

            @Andrew_W To me the one man one vote principle is sound

            We have that in every state. Our system is built on checks and balances despite recent efforts to erode them.

          6. As it happens I used to live in Eastern Washington. It’s hard for a Republican to be elected statewide in Washington, but it’d be impossible without maximum turnout on the Eastern side.

            As a thought experiment, consider what politics in Washington would be like if the governor was chosen by a state-level electoral college. There wouldn’t be any campaigning at all in the rural areas, because their electors would be sure to vote Republican. The GOP candidate would have no incentive to maximize rural turnout in order to offset Democratic votes from the cities.

  4. Question to the people progressive trolls in the comments, should the UN be a pure democracy?

    2nd question, will the DNC end the practice of super delegates before telling us how wrong the electoral college is? After all, if the DNC was a pure democracy, then Hillary would have beaten Obama in 2008.

  5. The founding fathers understood exactly why the power needs to be spread throughout the country (or when they were there in ‘old country’, the kingdom). They saw what happened when the majority of people lived in or near the big cities and most of the country was empty – very bad for people who weren’t in power.

    If the EC is abandoned, the country will be nothing more than several large city areas within 2 to 3 Presidential elections. Entire states will be worthless to would be Presidents, so they are ignored. As cities end up electing federal officials, the money will flow to those areas. The people will follow.

    What are you going to eat then (everyone leaves farm areas)? How are you going to power the cities (everyone has left coal/oil areas)? Where are your textiles/steel/lumber etc come from (everyone has left small towns to big cities)? Great thinking, Babs.

    Lastly, to all who look at popular vote – please note that the election has NOTHING to do with popular vote. It was to get to 270 electoral votes. The overall vote count is contextually meaningless in this election. Kind of like saying you got outscored, but had more yards in a football game. May be correct, but means nothing with respect to the results.

    1. Perhaps it’s time to make the popular vote a lot more meaningful that now. We could give the winner of the popular vote something… hrmmm… I think a coupon for 50 cents off at Starbucks would be appropriate.

      Okay, my serous take is that while I totally agree with he electoral college concept in the main, I absolutely do not like relying on the actual electors – some have been faithless. I’d much, much prefer to see the first ballot be automatic.

      1. First intelligent idea I’ve heard about the electoral college.

        You know what didn’t happen a few months ago? When #NeverTrumpers started pushing an alternate to prevent neither Trump or Hillary getting to 270. Neither Trump nor Hillary complained about the electoral college being unfair. It’s only unfair when the game was played by the rules set forth and the child didn’t get the win. Then it’s tantrum time for a rule change.

    2. Someone pointed out an even better analogy in the 1960 World Series. The Yankees outscored the Pirates overwhelmingly over the entire series, 55 runs to 27. But the Pirates nonetheless won the Series because they won 4 of the 7 games. (The Yanks ran up the score massively in the three games they won.) Those were the rules each played under – the goal was to win four games, not score the most runs in the aggregate over them.

      So it is with the electoral college. Both campaigns knew the rules, and tailored their strategies to win it – not the popular vote.

      1. Do you have small children? Whenever they lose a game, they always won’t to retroactively change the rules such that they won. Their is no understanding about the hollowness of the victory. No sense of the lessons not learned. They just want to be victors because it suits them. For example, see Andrew above.

        It’s a good analogy and of course adults have to teach children. But folks like Andrew are grown adults that have never learned. Metaphors will surely go right by them.

        Still, the beauty of the baseball metaphor is that is accurate to the hidden complaint. The argument isn’t about the merits of the electoral college, as it was fine when Hillary looked likely to win it, or it could be gamed by the NeverTrump folks. The argument is Hillary still has a chance if only she could get the rules changed.

        2. Leland, how can you equate anything Andrew said above with children wanting to change the rules of a game AND applying those rules retroactively? Particularly when Mr. Trump himself has spoken out against the Electoral College and in favor of popular vote elections both before November 8, and after he won, explaining that he believes that had the election been based on his preferred popular vote he would campaigned differently and won that vote.

          While I can see merit on both sides of the argument, I’m inclined to disagree with Mr. Trump and support the continued existance of the Electoral College.

          1. Leland, how can you equate anything Andrew said above with children wanting to change the rules of a game AND applying those rules retroactively?

            It was pretty easy actually, since that’s what he is doing. See here.

          2. Leland, if you’re saying I’m suggesting Trump’s election shouldn’t be considered 100% valid you’re an idiot. It is the system, he was elected using it, Americans currently support it. I’m saying things could be better, more democratic. Yes, to me more democratic = better. There are other more democratic systems around the world that work far better than the unrepresentative, expensive, divisive and cumbersome US system.

          3. Yes, to me more democratic = better.

            Well, it’s not to people who agree with the Founding principles. The Founders rightly feared a tyranny of the majority, and were determined to limit government as much as possible.

          4. @Andrew_W There are other more democratic systems around the world that work far better than the unrepresentative, expensive, divisive and cumbersome US system.

            Trump spent less money that other recent campaigns showing that money doesn’t buy elections. Divisiveness wouldn’t go away with your proposal but would get worse. It also isn’t cumbersome at all. The system is easily managed, understood, and responsive to demographic changes.

            @Kirk I’m inclined to disagree with Mr. Trump and support the continued existence of the Electoral College.

            This follows the theme of Rand and Instapundit that Trump was a better choice because dissent will be legitimized again. I’ve already had a few encounters where someone says I have to agree with a position Trump has and I respond, “Nope!”

            At the very least, this insures that there will be a lot of debate about everything. Trump is guaranteed to take positions that either alienate or generate support from all sides of every issue, with who is alienated and supportive not always being the same people.

          5. Americans currently support it.

            You didn’t click the link, eh? You can try to distant yourself from them, and should; but I have no reasons to think you don’t find common cause with them.

          6. “The Founders rightly feared a tyranny of the majority, and were determined to limit government as much as possible.”

            There’s nothing in the EC system that works against a tyranny of the majority any better than a simple popular vote system would.

          7. If only Andrew, there was anything that supported your claim. Maybe we will find evidence hidden in the ocean depths due to wave action.

          9. His idea was mentioned. Personally I have no idea why a Kiwi would come out after an election not in his country and decide to argue about the merits, or lack thereof, of an electoral system in another country. But he provides the same arguments (called common cause) as paid protestors in the US.

            Now Kirk, you may be slow, but I don’t give quarter. You haven’t figured out that 1) I don’t care if Trump disagrees with me, because you have Trump because people are allowed to disagree with him 2) if he argued against the electoral college prior to the election then he is being consistent 3) his arguments in the WaPo article supports my arguments and those of many others here, a popular vote makes the election about the whims of a few populated areas.

            You seemed to miss all that to argue that Andrew has some valid argument by simply claiming he hates the electoral college. That’s pretty slow of you, Kirk.

            Oh and Kirk, Andrew also believes the reason global temps have stayed steady is because the heat is hidden in the ocean because of wave action because Andrew doesn’t understand amplitude. So by all means, validate him if you feel like it.

      2. I have seen this one a lot but has anyone seen a soccer rebuttal yet?

        In soccer, goals scored impact the final outcome and not just who won a game.

        The point about playing by existing rules is still made. I am just pointing out that some people might have a different sports example to support their preferred set of rules.

        I guess if the analogy was played out, Republican votes in blue states would count as 2 votes and the same for the reverse.

      3. Another analogy would be drag racing. The winner is whomever crosses the finish line first, not the driver with the lowest elapsed time. Usually, the same person manages to do both, but so-called “hole-shot victories,” in which the driver who gets off the start line and over the finish line first wins despite the competitor with poorer reflexes posting a lower elapsed time are far from rare.

  6. And speaking of the popular vote, as absentee ballots trickle in and their counts are reported (and yes, every state does eventually count and report all ballots, even if the race is not close) Mr. Trump’s total appears to be surpassing the 60.93 million of Mr. Romney’s 2012 run. AP is reporting 60.83 million as of this morning, but Dave Leip is now giving him 61.25 million. (Leip has Ms. Clinton still up by 1.16 million.)

    I don’t know how their methodologies differ, but I am under the impression that the AP is rather conservative in their election reporting, and their tallies lag many other sources. Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections is new to me, but it appears to be considered a reliable source.

    1. And speaking of the AP, they finally called New Hampshire for Ms. Clinton, 47.60% to 47.22%. Ever cautious, they still haven’t called Michigan where they are currently reporting Mr. Trump up 47.59% to 47.34%.

    1. He would just do to Hillary what she did to Bernie. Promise more free stuff, that he would be better at distributing free stuff, and that he would be attack people and groups Democrats hate much harder than Hillary.

  8. One thing is certain: as someone mentioned above, the EC is a wonderful firewall. No matter how many dead people vote in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maryland, it can’t affect the outcome anymore than the states’ electoral votes.

    1. Indeed, the different election standards between different States is a strong argument in favor of the electoral college. Without uniform election standards and practices, the total “popular” vote doesn’t mean much. A State with sloppy countermeasures against fraud would have an outsized influence.

      Also, look at how close the reported popular vote totals are. If that had been that standard we’d be having a replay of Florida 2000 nation wide, with the complications of non-uniform standards. As if that isn’t messy enough, we stand to have the totals of the popular vote reverse from election night results as mail in and provisional ballots are counted.

  9. The hurdles for a Constitutional Amendment (2/3 of both houses and 3/4 of the states) are just too high for this to go anywhere. A much more likely path is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

    Ten states (CA, HI, IL, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI, VT, & WA) and D.C., representing 30.7% of the current Electoral College, have already signed on, and it is currently pending in PA and MI, representing another 6.7% of the Electoral College. (It has also passed at least one chamber in AZ, CO, ME, NV, & NM.) Once enough states enact it so that they represent over 50% of the Electoral College, then all those states agree to choose all of their electors votes based on the national popular vote.

    This presents a much lower bar than a Constitutional Amendment, and while it may appear to be an end run around the process, it is consistent with allowing the states to select their own method of choosing presidential electors.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
    http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

    1. While this might pencil out on paper, the key object is not “How does it works when it is working” but instead “How does it work when it isn’t working?”

      1) You’ve reduced the number of concerted vote fraud efforts needed to sway the entire election to -one-. One single asshole Secretary of State and one out-of-control vote-printing press and “Woah, look, 5,000,000 more votes, I guess we lucked out of voting for THAT asshole.” Comments about how many registered voters are even -in- the district have been swept under the media radar before.

      2) Even if the vote total is acknowledged, you’ll have states break the compact. Now what? Breaking black-letter law hasn’t slowed down the Democrats on a variety of fronts, can you honestly imagine CA or WA voting for a Republican if thats what’s required by this compact? And what’s the remedy? Supreme Court? Lawsuits? Pistols at fifty paces? Doing it by Amendment at least has the backing of explicitly making it ‘Constitutional’ as opposed to merely contractual.

      1. It could be even simpler than fraud. A state could say, “we count all of our citizens as voted. Those who are satisfied with either candidate and decide not to go to the polls will have their votes added to the more preferred candidate, thus making sure all of our citizens voices are heard on the matter”.

      2. [Note again that I’m not arguing for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, but just describing it as more likely to happen than a popular vote constitutional amendment, since the former requires not even a majority of states, but only just enough states to control a majority of the Electoral College (and it is already over halfway there), while the later requires 3/4 of the states.]

        Your point 1 is part of the general argument against the popular vote election itself, not the compact.

        Regarding your point 2, the compact becomes part of the state laws for choosing the state’s electors. What is currently keeping Douglas J. La Follette (Democrat Secretary of State of Wisconsin) or Pedro Cortés (Democrat Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) from assigning electors in support of Ms. Clinton despite Mr. Trump wining those state’s popular vote? The law is what. And nothing changes there when the state decides on different laws governing the choice of their electors.

    2. And when the people of a state vote one way, and then get told by their state legislature that their votes are going to be reversed where it counts, what do you think is going to happen then?

      And no, I don’t see any way to enforce an “interstate compact” except through civil suits alleging something like breach of contract, and I don’t see how they could prevail against the Constitution granting each state the right to pick its own electors however it wishes.

      1. What is there to enforce other than the individual state’s laws concerning the method of their choice of electors? It would be no different from today where a state government can’t go against the vote of their people just because they don’t like the result.

        1. What is there to enforce other than the individual state’s laws

          I meant if one state decided (possibly due to the torch-and-pitchfork-wielding mob surrounding the state Capitol) to renege on the “compact”, I don’t see any way the other states involved could force that state to abide by it.

          1. Perhaps the word “compact” is a source of confusion. There is not “handshake agreement” between states here that needs enforcing, only individual state laws.

            Per the Constitution, individual states have the right to determine their own method of choosing electors and are as free to pass laws establishing the national popular vote as their method as they are the statewide popular vote. They could even choose some wacky hybrid method in which the national popular vote is used for elections in calendar years following a National League World Series win and statewide popular vote in those following an American League win.

            The NPVIC is like that, only what determines which method is used is whether or not sufficient states have similar laws in place in order to exercise control over the Electoral College. Yes, nitty-gritty details are needed to work around issues of a state changing its rules shortly before an election, but after the fact, post election day, there is nothing to renege on, other than the state’s own laws. A state government saying that they don’t like the result and retroactively abrogating their own laws would be no different from the Pennsylvania government declaring that they don’t like the current results and assigning electors in favor of Clinton/Kaine.

          2. A state government … retroactively abrogating their own laws would be no different from the Pennsylvania government … assigning electors in favor of Clinton/Kaine.

            Legally, you are probably correct. But there would be a very practical difference in the response of the state’s own citizens to those two scenarios. If the PA secretary of state tried today to direct that PA’s electors vote for Clinton/Keane (and wasn’t prevented from doing so by saner heads in the state government) he/she would be lucky to avoid lynching. If state officials suddenly discover some deficiency in their adoption of NPVIC after an election in which it would assign electors contrary to the wishes of the state’s voters, it would more than likely be because they are already under threat of lynching.

  10. In a spirit of comity, understanding & cooperation, I fully support this effort on the part of Barbara Boxer & the Democrats.
    Let them waste what few political pennies remain on a useless effort.

  11. Andrew whines about the EC but if he had been reading our counter arguments, he’d understand. Specifically, I told him how the cities now dominate the states thanks to the Warren Court. Jim of course, disagrees with me because of his incredible experience living in flyover country.

  12. There’s nothing in the EC system that works against a tyranny of the majority any better than a simple popular vote system would.

    Why is Andrew suddenly throwing in his ignorant opinion of US politics? I’d be embarrassed to tell New Zealanders how to govern their affairs. It looks like Andrew is a busy body who thinks 320 million other people should do as he says.

    Andrew, are you angry that Trump is going to ruin your climate gravity train? I can only speculate but the fact that you are so angry that Trump one leads me to believe so.

    1. I’m talking about the US political system, not US politics. I find political systems, and how they work or don’t work in various countries, fascinating. The best in the world is probably the Swiss system, the US system I wouldn’t rate in the top 10. It’s cumbersome – these days the two houses do essentially the same thing, it encourages pork barreling more so than in almost any other country, it’s highly divisive, it’s not very representative and it encourages politicians running for the Presidency to be two faced.

      1. Having said that it does have a huge attribute in being a federal system with substantial power at the state level.

      2. It’s cumbersome – these days the two houses do essentially the same thing

        That wasn’t the way it was originally set up. You can thank the “progressives” and the 17th Amendment for that one. And the difference remains in that the minority in the Senate still retains some power with the filibuster, though Harry Reid significantly eroded that (something that the Democrats may regret next year) and still has the power to confirm or deny judicial and executive nominees.

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