Mississippi’s Constitution says that no one can be elected Governor without both receiving the greatest number of votes, and carrying a majority of state house districts. A lawsuit is currently pending in U.S. District Court to overturn that law. On August 19, the voter-plaintiffs who filed the case filed this 40-page brief. The case is McLemore v Hosemann, s.d., 3:19cv-383.
The Mississippi Constitution says that if no candidate both gets the most popular votes and also carries a majority of the state house districts, then the legislature chooses the Governor.
Interesting, do any other states use a double-majority system for election State officials?
I wonder if such a method (popular vote and majority of states) could replace the Electoral College?
UNEQUAL numbers of ACTUAL voters in ALL districts —
too difficult for math MORONS to DETECT.
VOTERS VOTE- NOT NON-VOTERS – A TOTAL failure to follow up on Gray v Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963) in the 1964 SCOTUS gerrymander cases.
@GWP,
See Gray v Sanders, though that involved a quite malapportioned weighting of the units which were Georgia counties.
Election by popular vote, of couse is quite constitutional, as is requiring a majority. In Vermont, the governor and other statewide officers require a popular majority, else the decision is made by the General Assembly (members of both houses). Since 1853, the General Assembly has chosen the pluraslity leader. The lasr time a popular election was flipped, was for lieutenant governor in 1976, where the Democrat was suspected of insurance fraud (though the official version on the SOS web site says this was public knowledge prior to the vote).
In 2014 Peter Shumlin did not receive a majority, the Republican runnerup urged legilators to vote their district. He claimed that would give him a 93-87 majority, while other analysts said it would produce a 90-90 tie.
It would be constitutional to have the legislature elect statewide officials. In Maine this is done for all officers but the governor. Having a special body of gubernatorial electors is not remarkable so long as the electors are chosen on a OMOV basis. Eliminating the actual electors is a mechanical detail.
If both methods do not produce a winner, it is quite reasonable to have the legislature choose a governor.
Exec/Judic —
NONPARTISAN AppV pending Condorcet