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Well, then get busy finding your 38 states that you need to amend the constitution.
That smacks of federalism.
you need to get with the tyranny of the majority. The new way to pass Constitutional amendments should be the popular vote as well. Kick those smaller states to the curb, who needs them. Muhaha!
Not entirely accurate. The distribution of seats in the US House of Representatives is referred to as apportionment, which is based on states total population. This included slaves back in the bad old days, and it includes illegal immigrants of today. A national census of the population is taken every 10 years to apportion seats in the US House.
In 1990, 12 seats were redistributed, and in 2000, 16 seats were redistributed, in 2010 12 seats were redistributed. The Electoral College is based on the size of congressional delegations.
We have so many illegal aliens in the US now, that they are distorting our congressional representation, and with that, the electoral college. How many illegals and non citizens do we have? No one really knows, 30 million, more?
OK, I stand corrected. The EC and the 3/5s rule were at least indirectly related in that the 3/5s rule affected apportionment, which in turn does affect the EC.
But it remains true that the two were written into the Constitution from different motivations. The EC was intended to keep small states from being dominated by large states. The 3/5s rule was intended to boost the power of states with large slave populations.
Again 3/5s became defunct once the 13th Amendment was ratified. The EC is still with us today.
If this idiocy ever actually took hold by a narrow margin, what would be possible, and frankly hilarious, would be the following situation. A candidate wins the overall popular vote, but the other candidate wins in enough states that he would win the electoral vote. In one key state where the vote went against the national popular vote winner, at the last minute (between election day, and the date the electoral college votes are cast), that state legislature votes to pull the state out of the compact and collapses it. There nothing in the compact that makes it binding on a state to stay in.
States have the right to determine how they award EC votes. How many times do you have to be told that?
But it is clever exploitation of a loophole that I doubt the founders envisioned. The founders wrote the EC into the Constitution explicitly. The NPVIC plan would render it null and void. In other words it would effectively modify the Constitution. The founders intended the Amendment process as the means to modify the Constitution, and made it a very high hurdle on purpose.
One other thing to remember, the electoral college was part of the deal that formed this country. A big part of that deal was that the bigger, more populous states could not dictate to the smaller, less populous ones. If the big states insisted on that right, the country would likely have never formed. That situation still exists. If the big population states try to change the deal, especially with a sneaky, back door method like this, a majority of the states, with a majority of the land area of the country may decide it's time to break the deal entirely.
No it doesn't. Without the EC, candidate just needs to worry about the 5 or 6 most populated states while ignoring the rest. Policy will shift to benefit those states while the rest get screwed.
And with EC the only states that matter are the most populated states that happen to be close to 50/50 split among Ds & Rs. It'd be a lot better for democracy if Republican candidates had an incentive to win over Californians, or Democratic ones campaigned more in red states.
If this idiocy ever actually took hold by a narrow margin, what would be possible, and frankly hilarious, would be the following situation. A candidate wins the overall popular vote, but the other candidate wins in enough states that he would win the electoral vote. In one key state where the vote went against the national popular vote winner, at the last minute (between election day, and the date the electoral college votes are cast), that state legislature votes to pull the state out of the compact and collapses it. There nothing in the compact that makes it binding on a state to stay in.
Very clever. And this scenario shows the irresponsibility of trying to alter the way the Constitution works via an end-run around the amendment process.
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