One News Now (Link) - Chad Groening (July 20, 2010)
An author and political analyst reports an effort is afoot by well-funded liberal activists to effectively get rid of the Electoral College in its present form, without having to use the constitutional amendment process.
A group called National Popular Vote (NPV) is pushing state legislatures to enter into a compact that calls for them to allocate their electoral votes in a particular presidential election to the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide rather than to the contender who gets the most votes in their state. NPV argues that the legislation “would reform the Electoral College so that the electoral vote reflects the choice of the nation’s voters” for president.
However, Tara Ross, author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College, cautions that under such a plan, the 11 largest states -- with a total of 271 electoral votes -- could band together and elect the president.
“If you got those 11 biggest states to all agree to do that, you would be switching to a direct election system,” she explains. “By contrast, if you were to try to formally get rid of the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment, that would take 38 states, which is a much higher hurdle to climb and one they think they can’t climb, which is why they’re trying to do it through this kind of end-run around the constitutional process.”
Ross has a suggestion as to why the NPV is pushing for this change. “What I think they must think is that they have strength in the urban areas and in the heavily populated areas,” she suspects. “So therefore, if you switch to an individual election, then they can just go focus on those people and rack up votes there, and it will end up helping their cause.”
The political analyst notes that five states have already joined the compact -- Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington (a total of 61 electoral votes). Five more states (California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont) could join in the near future.
Read “Legal and Logistical Ramifications of the National Popular Vote Plan” [PDF] by Tara Ross
Steel on Steel: John Loeffler & Tara Ross
Tara Ross July 17, 2010 - “Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College”
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