Major campaign underway to nullify Electoral College

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes I believe the Republicans can be just as great a set of overreaching idiots in 2013 as the Democrats were in 2009.  The Republican advantage in small States means that more often than not, they would benefit from the Senatorial EVs.  Of the three times where there has been a discrepancy, twice (1876 and 2000) there would not have been one were the Electoral College base solely on the number of Representatives.  While the GOP does suffer from wasted votes in safe States, it is nowhere near the level it was with respect to the solid South and the Democratic Party.  (That the Democrats didn't suffer from this effect more than once in 1884 with Cleveland is likely because the solid South also had low voter turnout, which got even lower in the 20th century.)

There's no evidence that turning the Presidential election into a national election instead of a State-by-State election would have a major effect on either the issues or the results.  That might be the case if we were like Canada, where a province (Quebec) has an issue that they care about but the rest of the country largely doesn't care pro or con on the issue.  But by and large, the issues today in the national elections of the United States are the same all across the country, with just what the majority position on them differs among the States.

As far as distortions in the electoral issues that occur from having elections being conducted State-by-State instead of nationally, the use of the same States each time to hold the early primaries and caucuses is a far more significant effect than campaigns concentrating on the swing States in the electoral college during the general election.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I spoke with the office of New York State Rep. Dinowitz, who sponsored the bill, and the person there said with the Assembly adjourning yesterday, the bill is effectively dead.  The person also said it's unlikely any action on the matter would be taken by the Republican-controlled Senate next Legislature, despite the bill having a lot of Republican crossover votes this year.

It looks like New York will not become part of the compact anytime soon.

Which doesn't surprise me in the least.  A fair number of those crossover votes were likely made to avoid making waves on a bill that wasn't see as likely passing the other house.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Electoral College nullification Compact loses 2 EV.  
With new reapportionment, the 6 states + DC that have passed the Compact collectively lost 2 EV: MA-1, NJ-1, IL-1, but WA +2.  So far states (+DC) .

So imagine if the compact had 270 EV and the states implement it requirement to award votes by popular vot ein 2012 and  then the compact drops back to 268, what happens?  Chaos!

Come on, do you imagine a candidate winning a block of 268 EVs and still losing the Electoral College ?

The way the compact is written, if reapportionment caused the toral to go from 270+ to 269-, then the compact would go into abeyance until more EV's joined, so no it wouldn't be chaos.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It looks like Vermont is about to sign onto the Compact:

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/states.php?s=VT

It's not a large state, but it is still one more under NPVIC's belt.

More troublesome for NPVIC supporters is not Vermont's size, but its politics. This only reinforces the image of this being a Democratic measure rather than a bipartisan one, and this will need real bipartisan support to get close to 270.  (Not just weak gestures towards bipartisanship that a few Republicans have made where it doesn't matter.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Both the Democratic and Republican Caucus Chairs in CA support the NPVIC, and it just passed the Assembly Elections Committee 5-4:

http://nationalpopularvote.com/pages/states.php?s=CA

Perhaps the Republicans in solidly Democratic states are beginning to recognize that they have become largely irrelevant in elections for president?

More like the Republicans in solidly Democratic states are saving their ammunition on fights that matter.  Unlike financial or social issues, this isn't one that they can excite their base by opposing. Now that Brown is governor I would be shocked if California didn't pass the NPVIC, even if every single Republican member of the Assembly opposed it.  Passage in California is not significant.

Passage in Missouri would be significant. I don't know Missouri politics well, but even if it passes the House, the Senate could be more difficult since the GOP is even stronger in that body than the House and half the membership will not be up for reelection in 2012.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

As I said, California Republicans supporting this is insignificant.  Missouri Republicans would be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Is there anything to stop a state legislature from overturning the results after the fact in the current system either?

If they do so, they would lose the safe harbor provisions of 3 USC 5.  Note that this was part of the controversy in Bush v. Gore and one of the errors in that decision.  SCOTUS ruled that the Florida legislature considered having its electors be protected by the safe harbor provisions of 3 USC 5 to be so important that any procedure for determining who the electors would need to be concluded by six days before the meeting of the electors so as to be protected under the safe harbor provision.  If a court was going to make that sort of ruling it should have been a Florida court that made it, not SCOTUS.

(Note, SCOTUS likely correctly inferred the intent of the Florida legislature, as losing the safe-harbor provisions is one reason why the legislature stayed out of the controversy despite considering inserting themselves into it. However, it wasn't their job to do the inferring.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm still not convinced this will work.

The whole "Any member state may withdraw from this agreement, except that blah blah blah" bit is useless.

Remember this is a state law. Therefore, what this really says is

ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF MARYLAND, LAW 5182 MEANS WE GIVE OUR ELECTORAL VOTES TO EBERYBODY SO WE KAN ALL SHARE MMMKAY

All you need to do is pass a new

ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF MARYLAND, LAW 5182 IS NOW VOID. HAHAHA SUCKERS.

If this compact were to get Congressional approval there would be no question about whether the six month provision is enforceable.  Even without Congressional approval it probably would be.

But even if they were to be able to withdraw, after the six month deadline, it likely would not cause a suckerpunch moment at the government level.

If Maryland passes a new law after election day, then Maryland would lose the safe harbor status for its electors and they likely would suffer a challenge in the Congress.  (It's also possible that electors chosen in conformity to the compact would also suffer a challenge.)

If Maryland passes a new law before election day, then the other states would be able to assign electors on the basis of their previous law.

About the only impact that would be likely to occur from a late withdrawal would be upon campaigns that planned their strategy assuming that the compact is in force only to find that we were back to winner take all by state.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What is their rationale for opposing this ? "Democrats support it, so it sucks" ? Or "Electoral college will always help us in close elections" ?

Internal party politics could play a factor as well.  The delegate allocation rules for the two parties determine bonus delegates for how the party does in Presidential Politics differently.  The Democratic rules effectively allocate a bonus based on the percentage of the PV in the State during the last three Presidential elections.  The Republican rules give a straight up bonus based on whether the Republican got a majority of the EV in the last Presidential election. (Nebraska receives its full bonus since 4 of its 5 EVs were cast for McCain) That makes some sense under the current method of electing a President, but not if we switched to PV for electing Presidents.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What is their rationale for opposing this ? "Democrats support it, so it sucks" ? Or "Electoral college will always help us in close elections" ?

Internal party politics could play a factor as well.  The delegate allocation rules for the two parties determine bonus delegates for how the party does in Presidential Politics differently.  The Democratic rules effectively allocate a bonus based on the percentage of the PV in the State during the last three Presidential elections.  The Republican rules give a straight up bonus based on whether the Republican got a majority of the EV in the last Presidential election. (Nebraska receives its full bonus since 4 of its 5 EVs were cast for McCain) That makes some sense under the current method of electing a President, but not if we switched to PV for electing Presidents.

Can't they just change such a silly rule ?

Rhetorical question of course : the GOP is an awesome party so its rules are all perfect and shall never be changed.

Of course they could change it, but it would mean that Republicans from highly Democratic states such as California and New York would gain influence at the expense of those who currently have it in the party.  Still, I expect this factor is of less importance than the perception that the Republicans by and large have the advantage in the small population States that have a greater influence in the EV than they would in the PV.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Indeed. Why don't they simply apportion delegates according to the number of votes get by their presidential candidates ?

They are doing that.  They just apportion the bonus delegates for the presidential vote by the votes that count at present, the electoral votes, not the popular votes.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There is no possible, legitimate argument in favor of the Electoral College.

Wrong.

First off, while nowhere near as diverse as they were when the Constitution is adopted, the States have varying voter registration requirements. Secondly, voter participation rates vary as well. The EC serves as a mechanism to balance those out, though the added EVs from the Senate should probably go.  In an idealized EC system for the United States, the voters of each state and territory would select 1 elector per 50,000 resident citizens with the electors being proportionately elected based on who they pledged to support.

Not that I think we'll ever get that system for much the same reasons why we won't get rid of the EC until and unless we rewrite the Constitution from scratch.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Maybe. maybe not.  While in 2000, the NPVIC would have worked to Gore's advantage, in both 2008 and 2012 it would have potentially worked to the advantage of the GOP assuming a uniform swing to a tight election.  So it makes some sense that GOP states would start to sign on, but also that some Democratic states would choose to leave it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'll admit that this has done much better than I thought it would, but it's still at only 136 EV and there are no signs it has any chance of going into force in time for 2016.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Solid South wasn't as much as a help to the Democrats in the PV as one might think as the vote in the general election tended to be suppressed both because of institutional reasons but also voter apathy.