I take this to mean the interstate compact is donezo.
Let's say NC gets a majority Dem legislature that signs on to the compact and the governor agrees. Then a Presidential election rolls around and the State goes R. There is no lawful way for the electors to choose to be anything but R. The State can penalize them.
One of the questions will be "Ok well what if the elector says coolstorybro I'll pay the fine and vote for the D anyway"?
I think the route there is to say the punishment should be removal of the elector and replacement with the first alternate and so on down the line until the elector agrees to vote in-line with the majority of the State's voters.
Edit: I don't think the NC government could say "we factor California's popular vote into determining the weight given to a person's vote in NC". Talk about 1-person 1-vote, sheesh.
At that point why even have electors... the general public will know what numbers should go where, let's just have each state's secretary certify their vote, following which congress would receive those numbers. no electors needed.
I take this to mean the interstate compact is donezo.
The opposite, actually. It says that an elector must vote in accordance to the state rules. So if a state says “our electors will vote for whoever won the national popular vote” they would be legally required to do so, and couldn’t be faithless and vote for the candidate who won their state.
I see what you're saying but then the argument becomes voters within the State are having the weight of their votes manipulated by voters outside of the State. Citizens of California controlling the citizens of Georgia. I don't see that passing constitutional muster.
The argument the left always raises is that districts are drawn to "water down" their votes by - for example - putting all the blacks in one single district. The left will have to engage in some pretty hefty double speak to say that SCOTUS aired in striking down the pre-clearance portion of the voting rights act but SCOTUS did the right thing by allowing states to water down the citizen's votes by counting people that don't even live within that State.
I take this to mean the interstate compact is donezo.
Let's say NC gets a majority Dem legislature that signs on to the compact and the governor agrees. Then a Presidential election rolls around and the State goes R. There is no lawful way for the electors to choose to be anything but R. The State can penalize them.
One of the questions will be "Ok well what if the elector says coolstorybro I'll pay the fine and vote for the D anyway"?
I think the route there is to say the punishment should be removal of the elector and replacement with the first alternate and so on down the line until the elector agrees to vote in-line with the majority of the State's voters.
Edit: I don't think the NC government could say "we factor California's popular vote into determining the weight given to a person's vote in NC". Talk about 1-person 1-vote, sheesh.
At that point why even have electors... the general public will know what numbers should go where, let's just have each state's secretary certify their vote, following which congress would receive those numbers. no electors needed.
Agreed
This, in modern times, ought to be the process.
The opposite, actually. It says that an elector must vote in accordance to the state rules. So if a state says “our electors will vote for whoever won the national popular vote” they would be legally required to do so, and couldn’t be faithless and vote for the candidate who won their state.
No need to have a state vote at all.
As the state, we are ordering you electors who to vote for federally, as is our right granted to us by the Supreme Court, unanimously.
I see what you're saying but then the argument becomes voters within the State are having the weight of their votes manipulated by voters outside of the State. Citizens of California controlling the citizens of Georgia. I don't see that passing constitutional muster.
The argument the left always raises is that districts are drawn to "water down" their votes by - for example - putting all the blacks in one single district. The left will have to engage in some pretty hefty double speak to say that SCOTUS aired in striking down the pre-clearance portion of the voting rights act but SCOTUS did the right thing by allowing states to water down the citizen's votes by counting people that don't even live within that State.