Re:Electoral College Decision Tree
by dragonwriter on Friday October 23, 2020 @06:36PM
(#24875058)
> The biggest problem with it is that it's unconstitutional.
There is considerable debate about that.
> States are not allowed to make agreements with each other parallel to the system.
Yes, they are. In certain circumstances, such agreements require affirmative Congressional consent, though its questionable if the National Popular Vote "Interstate Compact" would meet the standards for requiring such consent, whether it would require only negative consent, or whether it would be outside of Congress' authority because of the assignment of the power of choosing electors.
> if you can get that many states to agree to it, then you could have just done a constitutional amendment
No, that's not at all necessarily even approximately true. For it to be effective, you need jurisdictions with a bare majority of electoral votes to implement it. For a constitutional amendment, you need 3/4 of states.
The minimum number of states to hit a majority of EVs is 16, as opposed to 38 for a constitutional amendment.
> since all you need for that is for the states to agree, and the senate to agree.
You don't need the Senate to agree to a Constitutional Amendment. You need 3/4 of state legislatures to agree.
You can propose a constitutional amendment with 2/3 of both houses of Congress, or call a Constitutional Convention on the application of 2/3 of states.
Both proposal and ratification (presuming senators vote in line with their states, regardless of the House) have a higher minimum threshold than would be otherwise required for states representing a majority of EVs to assign electors in line with the national popular vote and determine Presidential elections that way.
There is considerable debate about that.
> States are not allowed to make agreements with each other parallel to the system.
Yes, they are. In certain circumstances, such agreements require affirmative Congressional consent, though its questionable if the National Popular Vote "Interstate Compact" would meet the standards for requiring such consent, whether it would require only negative consent, or whether it would be outside of Congress' authority because of the assignment of the power of choosing electors.
> if you can get that many states to agree to it, then you could have just done a constitutional amendment
No, that's not at all necessarily even approximately true. For it to be effective, you need jurisdictions with a bare majority of electoral votes to implement it. For a constitutional amendment, you need 3/4 of states.
The minimum number of states to hit a majority of EVs is 16, as opposed to 38 for a constitutional amendment.
> since all you need for that is for the states to agree, and the senate to agree.
You don't need the Senate to agree to a Constitutional Amendment. You need 3/4 of state legislatures to agree. You can propose a constitutional amendment with 2/3 of both houses of Congress, or call a Constitutional Convention on the application of 2/3 of states.
Both proposal and ratification (presuming senators vote in line with their states, regardless of the House) have a higher minimum threshold than would be otherwise required for states representing a majority of EVs to assign electors in line with the national popular vote and determine Presidential elections that way.