
New Mexico Is Latest State to Join National Popular Vote Compact - webmaven
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/05/new-mexico-joins-national-compact-casting-electoral-college-votes/3374747002/
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mc32
Doesn’t this dilute the value of your electoral college if they are bound by
the national popular (plurality) vote? I’m not sure I agree with local votes
being beholden to the national results.

Doesn’t this kind of make complete landslides even more possible? Reagan I
think almost had a complete victory but for one state which went for his
challenger.

In any case the campaigns will be forced to run in like four states, CA, TX,
FL and NY. The rest will be bystanders, no?

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erentz
It makes the electoral college redundant, which it is intended to do. This is
a work around instead of a constitutional amendment to remove the electoral
college because that would be very difficult.

Landslides aren’t a bad thing if that’s what people want. I’m not sure why you
phrased it as if they were.

The ideal would be for national popular vote using an instant runoff system
(single transferable vote or ranked choice voting).

In lieu of that the next best is plain first past the post with popular vote
which this would gives when it reaches the required number. Now that way no
matter where you live in the country your vote will still count. At the moment
if you’re a blue voter in a predominantly red state or vice versa there is no
reason for you to leave the house on Election Day. Under this system your vote
still matters so you have a reason to cast it.

More importantly presidential politics stops being beholden to the wishes of a
minority in a few swing states and now has to consider the wishes of the whole
national population everywhere.

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xvedejas
Instant runoff voting is not obviously better than the current system, and in
fact it might be worse. Not only does it still have issues with "vote
splitting", it also has a property called non-monotonicity. This means you can
hurt a candidate by ranking them higher, or help a candidate by ranking them
lower. I find this to be a fairly dishonorable voting system to implement. If
you want voting systems without these issues, you need range voting or
condorcet voting.

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1123581321
I assume this will eventually gain enough support. The interesting question to
me is how much longer that will have to take before the pact will affect the
2020 elections but not give one or both of the candidates enough time to
adjust their strategy. It’s not simply a matter of a different flight schedule
since campaign platforms/promises are crafted to appeal to voters in states
where the vote outcome is unknowable.

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PHGamer
this is stupid. the small states should not do this even if they dont get
visits. you will be forced to follow california and new york always. but i
guess the dems in NM want to spite trump.

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klipt
One person in a small state will have the same influence as one person in a
large state.

Currently only people in swing states have influence which is clearly stupid.

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shaftway
He's right though. There's zero reason for a state like Wyoming to vote for
this. Wyoming residents' votes for president are worth more than 3.8 times
Florida residents' votes. I agree that it's stupid that they have that
additional weight, but from their perspective it'd be stupid to pass something
like this.

30 states/regions have more weight than the national average, and 20 have less
weight. Louisiana is right at the national average.

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acheron
The whole idea is stupid. There's only two outcomes: the state votes the same
way as the national vote, in which case this doesn't matter, or the state
doesn't vote that way, in which case you're spiting your own state's voters in
favor of voters elsewhere. Obviously they're all hoping to trick some other
state into spiting its voters, but there's a bit of poker going on: if you
can't spot the sucker at the table, it's you.

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_bxg1
It's taking a step of good faith. If momentum carries every state to do this
(and it itself is a very popular idea, one that politicians get points for
supporting), then we've done the impossible and circumvented the electoral
college.

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yellowapple
So how would it work if - like in the 2016 election - nobody actually got the
majority of the popular vote?

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bobwaycott
The compact isn’t structured to award based on who gets the strict majority
(>50%) vote. It’s structured to award electoral votes based on who wins the
national popular vote, which means a plurality of votes cast. It’s the same
way all but two states currently award their electoral votes, but the compact
is tying it to the _national_ —as opposed to state-level—popular vote. Had the
compact been in effect for 2016, the US would have had its first female
president—if I’ve understood it correctly.

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yellowapple
> plurality of votes cast

So we'd be electing someone against whom the actual majority of voters voted.
Not really an improvement, since either way a minority of voters ends up
winning the election.

> the compact us tying it to the national - as opposed to state-level -
> popular vote

In other words: the states are completely ignoring the voices of their own
citizens and completely defeating the whole point of the Electoral College
(especially in cases where, say, the majority or plurality of the state's
voters voted against the plurality nationwide, in which case the state would
be actively betraying its own citizens).

There are surely better ways to fix our political system than to defenestrate
what semblance of democracy we actually have (though I will admit that it's a
good demonstration of the flaws of the Electoral College - in particular, the
flaw that states are apparently not required to actually cast their votes
according to the wishes of the citizens of those states).

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bobwaycott
> _So we 'd be electing someone against whom the actual majority of voters
> voted._

No. The 2000 & 2016 elections—along with 3 others since 1824—saw a person
elected despite the majority of voters who cast ballots voting _against_ that
individual—52% voted against Bush, 54% voted against Trump. Both elections saw
the US _electing someone against whom the actual majority of voters voted_.

The compact is essentially an agreement to make presidential elections match
up with the person who secures the most votes nationwide, which sure seems to
be _far closer_ to a democratic election than the indirect EC system which
has, twice in recent memory, awarded the presidency _against_ the wishes of
the majority of voters who cast votes. No more playing the EC game—you either
win the election with the most votes cast, or you don't win. The only other
options would be far heavier overhauls of the voting system—ditching SMDP, and
implementing a two-round system whereby we eventually end up with one person
who gets >50% of the vote. That's unlikely to ever happen, as it would rely on
a constitutional amendment, so the compact is leveraging the power states have
to determine how they award their electoral votes—awarding them based on who
secures the most votes nationwide so the elected president _always matches the
popular vote_. Again, since US national elections already rely on getting the
_most_ votes, and not a _true >50% majority_ of votes cast, this is likely the
closest the US can get to a purely democratic presidential election without an
amendment that removes the EC entirely and establishes a TRS election in its
place to ensure there is always an undeniable _majority_ winner.

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yellowapple
> Both elections saw the US electing someone against whom the actual majority
> of voters voted.

And with the proposal here we would still end up with the US electing someone
against whom the actual majority of voters voted. This proposal fixes nothing.
In fact, it makes things even worse, since - again - the state might very well
be actively going against its own voters.

> The only other options would be far heavier overhauls of the voting system

There are plenty of other options that are just as possible:

\- Allocating electors by congressional district (this is what Maine and
Nebraska already do)

\- Allocation electors by electoral district

\- Allocating electors proportionally (e.g. if - state-wide - 60% of voters
vote for A and 40% vote for B, then 60% of EC electors will vote for A and 40%
of EC electors will vote for B)

Proportional allocation of EC votes would be gerrymandering-resistant (since
there'd be no creatively-drawn districts involved) and would be a more
accurate representation of the will of the people of that state. It would
allow, for example, Democrats in otherwise-Republican-dominated states (e.g.
Houston v. the rest of Texas) to be represented electorally (and likewise
allow the same for Republicans in otherwise-Democrat-dominated states like
California). If an actual "fix" for our electoral system is what you seek,
then that'd be the best option by pretty much every metric.

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tdhoot
This is futile for the time being. Article I, Section 10 of the United States
Constitution provides that "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress...
enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State“

Given Trump has publicly come out against this, it seems unlikely Congress
will give assent to this anytime soon.

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webmaven
I don't think congress has much to say about how states allocate their
electoral votes.

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tdhoot
The being that states cannot enter in a compact with each other on how to
allocate their votes without Congressional approval. I guess if each state
individually decides this would be an interesting constitutional question.

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Fjolsvith
The national voter ID will make this moot. All the blue states will turn red
when the illegals won't be able to vote.

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Fjolsvith
By the downvotes, this may be an unpopular opinion. However, it still stands
unchallenged.

