The Concord, New Hampshire Monitor has this letter to the editor from a former resident of New Hampshire who now lives in Oregon, David Appell. The letter-writer scolds New Hampshire for its insistence on always holding the first presidential primary, and also for insisting that no caucus be held during the week after the New Hampshire primary. The responses to the letter, in the comments section, are interesting.
Abolish the time bomb gerrymander Electoral College.
Were the 620,000 DEAD Americans in 1861-1865 after the 1860 minority rule election of Prez Lincoln because of the E.C. NOT enough to get rid of the E.C. ???
1. Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
2. NONPARTISAN election of all elected executive officers and all judges using Approval Voting – App.V.
Sorry NO moron statutory type fixes – interstate compact schemes, etc.
A Prez is supposed to the be Prez of/for ALL U.S.A. citizens — not just the party hack robots in the marginal E.C. battleground States.
The National Popular Vote bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. It does not abolish the Electoral College, which would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action, without federal constitutional amendments.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Elections wouldn’t be about winning states. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of battleground states.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
The bill has been endorsed or voted for by 1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
In Gallup polls since 1944, 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 (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO– 68%, IA –75%, MI– 73%, MO– 70%, NH– 69%, NV– 72%, NM– 76%, NC– 74%, OH– 70%, PA — 78%, VA — 74%, and WI — 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE –75%, ME — 77%, NE — 74%, NH –69%, NV — 72%, NM — 76%, RI — 74%, and VT — 75%; in Southern and border states: AR –80%, KY — 80%, MS –77%, MO — 70%, NC — 74%, and VA — 74%; and in other states polled: CA — 70%, CT — 74% , MA — 73%, MN – 75%, NY — 79%, WA — 77%, and WV- 81%.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA ,RI, VT, and WA . The bill has been enacted by DC, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, and WA. These 7 states possess 76 electoral votes — 28% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
As usual — NPV is a blatant violation of the equal protection clause INSIDE a sovereign State.
U.S.A.
A 70,000,001
B 70,000,000
Inside State Z
A 1
B 10,000,000
The ONE A vote would cause ALL of the State Z’s E.C. votes to go to A nationally.
Very good luck in trying to get NPV past SCOTUS.
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Also of course NPV has NOT received the approval of the gerrymander Congress according to Art. I, Sec. 10, para. 3
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress *** enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State ***.
Sorry — playing statutory fix games for electing a Prez is not a mere trivial interstate event.
How many InterState Compacts are there — i.e. de facto treaties between the sovereign States ???
Congressional consent is not required for the National Popular Vote compact under prevailing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. However, because there would undoubtedly be time-consuming litigation about this aspect of the compact, National Popular Vote is working to introduce a bill in Congress for congressional consent.
The U.S. Constitution provides:
“No state shall, without the consent of Congress,… enter into any agreement or compact with another state….”
Although this language may seem straight forward, the U.S. Supreme Court has method, in 1893 and again in 1978, that the Compacts Clause can “not be read literally.” In deciding the 1978 case of U.S. Steel Corporation v. Multistate Tax Commission, the Court wrote:
“Read literally, the Compact Clause would require the States to obtain congressional approval before entering into any agreement among themselves, irrespective of form, subject, duration, or interest to the United States.
“The difficulties with such an interpretation were identified by Mr. Justice Field in his opinion for the Court in [the 1893 case] Virginia v. Tennessee. His conclusion [was] that the Clause could not be read literally [and this 1893 conclusion has been] approved in subsequent dicta.”
Specifically, the Court’s 1893 ruling in Virginia v. Tennessee stated:
“Looking at the clause in which the terms ‘compact’ or ‘agreement’ appear, it is evident that the prohibition is directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States.”
The state power involved in the National Popular Vote compact is specified in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 the U.S. Constitution:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
In the 1892 case of McPherson v. Blacker (146 U.S. 1), the Court wrote:
“The appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States”
The National Popular Vote compact would not “encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States” because there is simply no federal power—much less federal supremacy—in the area of awarding of electoral votes in the first place.
There are hundreds of major interstate compacts, including the
? Colorado River Compact (allocating water among seven western states),
? Multi-State Tax Compact (whose membership includes 23 states and the District of Columbia),
? Interstate Oil and Gas Compact,
? Interstate Corrections Compact,
? Mutual Aid Compact,
? Great Lakes Basin Compact (to which the province of Ontario is a party along with various states),
? Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (a two-state compact), and
? Multi-State Lottery Compact (which operates the Powerball lotto game in 21 states).
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment says:
“no state [shall] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment only restricts a given state in the manner it treats persons “within its jurisdiction.” The Equal Protection Clause imposes no obligation on a given state concerning a “person” in another state who is not “within its [the first state’s] jurisdiction.”
The National Popular Vote bill does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
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 states over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
The winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes inside the state) is not in the U.S. Constitution. It is strictly a matter of state law. The winner-take-all method was not the choice of the Founding Fathers, as indicated by the fact that the winner-take-all method was used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789. The fact that Maine and Nebraska currently award electoral votes by congressional district is a reminder that the Constitution left the matter of awarding electoral votes to the states.
#4-7 SCOTUS always awaits to over-rule lots of its JUNK earlier opinions —
1938 Erie case — a mere 98 years of scores of SCOTUS opinions about alleged Federal *common law* over-ruled — as being UN-constitutional.
1964 Gerrymander cases — over-ruling about 30 years of earlier JUNK opinions about gerrymanders
Etc.
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
NONPARTISAN App.V. for electing all elected executive officers and ALL judges — even the SCOTUS folks.
DEMOCRACY NOW — before it is too late – especially with something like the MORONIC NPV S-C-H-E-M-E.