The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

[SteveRogers]

While I will always support abolishing the electoral college, this isn't the right way to do it. A minority of states representing a minority of the population shouldn't be circumventing the Constitution to decide the way that the whole nation must elect the president. Also, the NPVIC doesn't address the fact that a nationwide popular vote doesn't make much sense without nationwide standards for administering the election.

I want the electoral college gone, but that's a decision we should have to make as a nation through the Constitutional amendment process.

[SteveRogers]

Surely this would be struct down by the current Supreme Court if it shifted the outcome of the election from Trump to the Democrat.

Why? States are allowed to choose their EC members under Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution:

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Doesn't say anything about having to abide by the popular vote winner of the state in question.
If the state legislature wants to

I think that Situationist means that Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh are judicial activists and they will rule any way they want to, despite a lack of legal credibility, because they can get away with it. Just look at Bush v. Gore.

But the legislature's prerogative in how electors are appointed is one of the arguments they used in Bush v. Gore.

The majority in Bush v. Gore wasn’t interested in intellectual consistency.

[SteveRogers]

I wonder how long it would take for lawmakers to start trying to undermine the NPVIC if it ever went into effect. Doing this on a state-by-state basis is probably the worst way to go about it, seeing as America has a long, storied tradition of lawmakers abusing their power over elections to develop advantages for themselves or outright rig the entire process. I think there is at best a 1% chance that lawmakers don't try to repeal this if their party loses due to it. Although given that they control more states and over the past 10-15 years, developed a very troubling record of anti-democratic behavior, and that they depend on the electoral college right now, and that they are more aggressive in undermining or outright repealing citizen-approved laws, I think Republicans would probably be the first to flip out.

Yes, but then pro-democracy forces can reinstitute the law when the pendulum swings back. The whole point of the law is that the pendulum is already swinging hard, if not having already so small, and anti-democratic oppressive laws shouldn't stop that wave for a second.

Sure, but would an unstable situation where we don’t know from election to election whether we’re going to have an electoral college or a national popular vote be better than the status quo?

I certainly support abolishing the electoral college, but I don’t think I can get behind a plan whereby a minority of states imposes that change on the whole country.

I’d propose a Constitutional Amendment that takes effect 8 years after passage so that the amendment cannot be said to favor one party or the other.