Originally Posted by Maurice Clark
Hi James,
I am curious, why do you think it would be horrible? I don't know much about the proposal. What do you see as the downside?
One thing I am curious about. There doesn't seem to be any push to distribute electoral college votes, proportionally. I would imagine that would be worthwhile. Instead of a few thousand votes in a handful of states determining the president, all states would be critical. Ant thoughts on that?
Cheers
Maurice
I like the fact the EC gives small states a very slight electoral advantage over the huge states.
The debate at the constitutional convention was between those who wanted "one state, one vote" and those who wanted "one voter one vote." The EC was a compromise, and it works well enough. In general, I prefer states to have more authority over our laws and lives than the Federal government, this is a small way of encouraging and emphasizing our history of federalism.
If we had a popular vote the campaigns will be encouraged to "run up the score" in CA, FL, TX, NY, PA, and OH - leading politicians to lavish attention on the big states, while ignoring the small states,
even after they are elected, with an eye on the next election.
"Horrible" was too strong of a word, life would go on just fine if the US had a popular vote for president. But if we do, I would want it done by a constitutional amendment rather than a compact between states.
The compact might be unconstitutional, it would certainly be difficult to manage, possibly temporary, subject to litigation, would interject uncertainty, and so on. Technically, there is no national popular vote for the compact to utilize. That seems like a minor detail, but it might be legally important. What we have are 51 entirely separate state and DC voting systems that are administered under very different circumstances in each state, resulting in 51 turnout rates and 51 certification processes. It is only the press that then assembles these results into an approximate "national" popular vote. Imagine the litigation if the synthetic "popular vote" was close.
(of course it was a joke)