8 ms·

I just deplore winner takes all in a states electoral college. California and Washington are not completely blue just as Texas is not completely red. They are a

I just deplore winner takes all in a states electoral college. California and Washington are not completely blue just as Texas is not completely red. They are actually more purple than half the rest of the country. The electoral college results should reflect this appropriately.

est31 6y ago
The issue is that if there is a 60/40 state, if the party holding the 60% decided to give 40% of the electoral college members to the smaller party, they'd lose 40% of a state's college members for little gain. Who would harm themselves? Only places that have a long term difference in legislature and presidential election votes would consider it. That being said, Texas could strike a deal with California or something that they both implement it at the same time. If the right states made a deal, nothing would change in the makeup of the parties, and the dealmaking states would attract more attention from presidential candidates trying to care for their issues.
- lurquer 6y ago
  No State can enter into any compact with another State without consent of Congress.
  - quiescant_dodo 6y ago
    Haven't heard of this before. Do you have a source?
    - HaloZero 6y ago
      "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." Article 1, Compact 3 of the US Constitution. That's the basis of questioning the legality of the NPVI
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        Wikipedia has quite a good overview[0] of the constitutionality issues. It may be that the NPVIC has to be replaced by an informal agreement, where the states that support the Compact all simultaneously but "unilaterally" change their system for appointing electors to one that implements a national popular vote. The trigger for this would that enough states have passed motions of intent to support this change "at some point". That would seem like no more of a Compact than one state lowering its sales tax when it notices a nearby state doing the same. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#Constitutionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
        ScottBurson 6y ago
        Hmm, this is interesting: As part of concerns about whether the NPVIC would shift power from the federal government to state governments, at least two legal scholars have suggested that the NPVIC would require explicit congressional approval because it would remove the possibility of contingent elections for President being conducted by the U.S. House of Representatives under the 12th Amendment. First off, I would tend to consider the potential need for a contingent election as a bug, not a feature. But that aside, the claim seems wrong. It is certainly possible in principle for a popular-vote election involving the whole country to result in a tie; it's just extremely unlikely. But perhaps the wording of the NPVIC doesn't stipulate that in the event of a tie, the participating states' electors will be allocated so as to generate an Electoral College tie as well, if possible — and what happens if it isn't possible?
- adsljfl3 6y ago
  Check out the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which is kind of what you are describing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUX-frlNBJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUX-frlNBJY
  - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
    Washington and California are already signatories. Naturally, it's the red states that are dragging their heels, as they feel like they have the most to lose. If Texas manages to finally flip during this presidential election, though, I'd say all bets are off and the NPVIC might finally become law of the land.
    - kmonsen 6y ago
      I don't think it is meaningful if Texas flips, only if it becomes a swing state. If Trump looses Texas he will already have lost the election a long time ago so it doesn't really matter. Note that some states with almost similar number of electoral votes are going in the other direction. Florida is becoming more safe red all the time, and PA is a swing state and might become safe red at some point.
      - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
        only if it becomes a swing state That's what it flipping would mean. TX was purple. Then it became red. Its demographic trends[0] show it coming into play again. The good news is that under a national popular vote, a Republican could probably survive a narrow popular vote loss in Texas or Florida and still win the presidency, because every GOP vote in those states would still count toward a national popular vote majority. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/28/gop-national-popular-vote-227915 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/28/gop-natio... [0] At least as long as the Republican Party is adamantly anti-immigrant. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/20/texas-hispanic-population-pace-surpass-white-residents/ https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/20/texas-hispanic-popul...
        6y ago
- baddox 6y ago
  I think the suggestion is that states shouldn’t get to decide how to act depending on whether they would “harm themselves,” but rather that the people should get to decide.
- kmonsen 6y ago
  I'm not sure about this. Two problems for California right now is that it is seen as a blue state so is on the shit list of the GOP, and that it is not a swing state so it doesn't get any influence during elections. If CA would award the electoral college votes proportional it would force both parties to take it seriously. It would also make each vote more meaningful and listen to the voters. It would obviously be bad for the democratic party, but good for the state and the people living there. And perhaps it would make other states take the same choice to be relevant again. Although some red states are becoming unintentionally relevant like Texas that is actually not a safe state this election.
- nkrisc 6y ago
  You're not wrong, which is part of the issue with the electoral college. If it's a 60/40 state, each candidate should simply receive that share of the popular vote.
kibwen 6y ago
Note that states are allowed to decide how to allocate their electoral college votes, with Maine and Nebraska being the two that currently avoid winner-take-all.
- matthewbauer 6y ago
  They still have two at large electoral votes, but it’s definitely more proportional.
FireBeyond 6y ago
Washington under current system had all 12 EC votes go to Clinton. Except 4 of them were faithless and voted for Colin Powell (and I believe someone else) instead. That being said, Washington is only just over one-third red.

est31 6y ago

The issue is that if there is a 60/40 state, if the party holding the 60% decided to give 40% of the electoral college members to the smaller party, they'd lose 40% of a state's college members for little gain. Who would harm themselves? Only places that have a long term difference in legislature and presidential election votes would consider it. That being said, Texas could strike a deal with California or something that they both implement it at the same time. If the right states made a deal, nothing would change in the makeup of the parties, and the dealmaking states would attract more attention from presidential candidates trying to care for their issues.

lurquer 6y ago
No State can enter into any compact with another State without consent of Congress.
- quiescant_dodo 6y ago
  Haven't heard of this before. Do you have a source?
  - HaloZero 6y ago
    "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." Article 1, Compact 3 of the US Constitution. That's the basis of questioning the legality of the NPVI
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Wikipedia has quite a good overview[0] of the constitutionality issues. It may be that the NPVIC has to be replaced by an informal agreement, where the states that support the Compact all simultaneously but "unilaterally" change their system for appointing electors to one that implements a national popular vote. The trigger for this would that enough states have passed motions of intent to support this change "at some point". That would seem like no more of a Compact than one state lowering its sales tax when it notices a nearby state doing the same. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#Constitutionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
      - ScottBurson 6y ago
        Hmm, this is interesting: As part of concerns about whether the NPVIC would shift power from the federal government to state governments, at least two legal scholars have suggested that the NPVIC would require explicit congressional approval because it would remove the possibility of contingent elections for President being conducted by the U.S. House of Representatives under the 12th Amendment. First off, I would tend to consider the potential need for a contingent election as a bug, not a feature. But that aside, the claim seems wrong. It is certainly possible in principle for a popular-vote election involving the whole country to result in a tie; it's just extremely unlikely. But perhaps the wording of the NPVIC doesn't stipulate that in the event of a tie, the participating states' electors will be allocated so as to generate an Electoral College tie as well, if possible — and what happens if it isn't possible?
adsljfl3 6y ago
Check out the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which is kind of what you are describing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUX-frlNBJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUX-frlNBJY
- aaronbrethorst 6y ago
  Washington and California are already signatories. Naturally, it's the red states that are dragging their heels, as they feel like they have the most to lose. If Texas manages to finally flip during this presidential election, though, I'd say all bets are off and the NPVIC might finally become law of the land.
  - kmonsen 6y ago
    I don't think it is meaningful if Texas flips, only if it becomes a swing state. If Trump looses Texas he will already have lost the election a long time ago so it doesn't really matter. Note that some states with almost similar number of electoral votes are going in the other direction. Florida is becoming more safe red all the time, and PA is a swing state and might become safe red at some point.
    - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
      only if it becomes a swing state That's what it flipping would mean. TX was purple. Then it became red. Its demographic trends[0] show it coming into play again. The good news is that under a national popular vote, a Republican could probably survive a narrow popular vote loss in Texas or Florida and still win the presidency, because every GOP vote in those states would still count toward a national popular vote majority. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/28/gop-national-popular-vote-227915 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/28/gop-natio... [0] At least as long as the Republican Party is adamantly anti-immigrant. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/20/texas-hispanic-population-pace-surpass-white-residents/ https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/20/texas-hispanic-popul...
      - 6y ago
baddox 6y ago
I think the suggestion is that states shouldn’t get to decide how to act depending on whether they would “harm themselves,” but rather that the people should get to decide.
kmonsen 6y ago
I'm not sure about this. Two problems for California right now is that it is seen as a blue state so is on the shit list of the GOP, and that it is not a swing state so it doesn't get any influence during elections. If CA would award the electoral college votes proportional it would force both parties to take it seriously. It would also make each vote more meaningful and listen to the voters. It would obviously be bad for the democratic party, but good for the state and the people living there. And perhaps it would make other states take the same choice to be relevant again. Although some red states are becoming unintentionally relevant like Texas that is actually not a safe state this election.
nkrisc 6y ago
You're not wrong, which is part of the issue with the electoral college. If it's a 60/40 state, each candidate should simply receive that share of the popular vote.

kibwen 6y ago

Note that states are allowed to decide how to allocate their electoral college votes, with Maine and Nebraska being the two that currently avoid winner-take-all.

matthewbauer 6y ago
They still have two at large electoral votes, but it’s definitely more proportional.

FireBeyond 6y ago

Washington under current system had all 12 EC votes go to Clinton. Except 4 of them were faithless and voted for Colin Powell (and I believe someone else) instead. That being said, Washington is only just over one-third red.