409
US edges closer to popular vote deciding winner of presidential elections (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
81 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Virginia signs national popular vote bill into law, joining interstate compact with 17 other states and District of Columbia

A national majority vote for president is one step closer to reality after the Virginia governor, Abigail Spanberger, signed the national popular vote bill into law, joining an interstate compact with 17 other states and the District of Columbia.

Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state. The compact takes effect when states representing a majority of electoral votes – 270 of 538 – pass the legislation and thus would determine the winner of the presidential contest. With Virginia, the compact now has 222 electors.

Every state that has so far enacted the compact has Democratic electoral majorities, including California, New York and Illinois. But legislation has been introduced in enough states to reach the 270-elector threshold, including swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 7 months ago* (4 children)

In such cases as the popular vote cannot be determined, or should enough members withdraw such that the majority of Electors no longer fall under the compact, the states can just fall back to their previous methods for determining their elector distribution. That's already established in the compact for the latter case, if I recall, though I don't know that they've a specific provision for another state not publishing their popular vote count. But regardless, worst case scenario, it can just default back to how it already is now.

That would cause the compact to be ineffective, certainly, but still not constitutionally unsound or illegal.

But even that isn't really a true limitation. If they wanted to, they could also just decide to only consider the officially published vote counts of all the states that choose to report it to keep any rogue states from holding the compact hostage. Or they could even just only count the votes of those states in the compact if they so collectively chose, to. I doubt they would, but they could. Again, they have unbound latitude here. Hell, if they were so inclined they could collectively decide to elect the president with the first name in alphabetical order. What's to stop them?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (3 children)

    I don't think the compact allows for only counting votes from participating states, but otherwise yeah.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    It doesnt now. Nothing stops them from agreeing to change the compact though.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Making that change would be at least as difficult as getting it passed in the first place has been, probably harder, since for that to happen each state would need to pass a new law amending it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago*

    I wasn't suggesting that changing it so would be easy or simple. The point of the thread thus far was discussing the legality and effectiveness of such a compact.

    Someone suggested that as it is now it would be challenged and overturned by the courts. I argued that it is well within the bounds of the language in the constitution and legal precedent.

    And someone else suggested that would all but be overturned if any state withheld their voting numbers or if any state in the compact withdrew. I was agreeing that it could be stymied by such things under the current terms of the compact, but also pointing out that the compact can be changed by those in it to make it more resilient/impervious to external sabotage and to mitigate the risks of a schism while still remaining in constitutional bounds.

    The difficulty of that change is not nothing, for sure, but still far easier than a constitutional amendment.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent