Talk Elections

Let's say it's also happening at the Congressional level - Ds have also won the House PV but failed to win the House, and also the overall Senate PV, but failed to win the Senate. It happens in 2020. And then again in 2024.

Does anything happen other than Democrats making a noise and then everyone else forgetting about it? Or does it start a real push for electoral reform?

As long as Republicans hold power and benefit from the electoral college, they won't stand for doing away with it.

I think it won't change anything in the short term, but it will make the elimination or reformation of the electoral college a major political issue. It'll be on the same level of high priority much like Obamacare is now.

if this keeps happening, every democrat-governed state is going to going to "opt out" of the EC system on the long run, imho.

This is less likely to happen, because 2020 is a reapportionment year and WI, PA and MI will be Democratic states again due to the minority vote of Latinos and Blacks.

Reapportionment will occur after the election of 2020. And I don't think that minorities will turn out again in 2020 like they did in 2008 and 2012 unless the Dems nominate a minority.

Won't happen, NM and OH are bellweathers and only 2 times did they vote incorrectly. in 2000 and 2016 when NM picked the popular vote winner and OH voted for the electoral college winner. 2020 is likely to be a Democratic lean year

Democrats would have to learn to live with it, you know, like it or lump it.

A constitutional amendment in this matter would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

So good luck.

A continued Republican electoral college advantage (which doesn't exist by the way) while losing the popular vote would actually hurt the Republican Party by creating weakened Presidencies like the Trump Administration. The Trump Administration is already so weak becausr of the popular vote loss. And that loss has shown Congress how weak the president is.

So it's not actually in the Republican Party's interests to solely focus on the electoral college. They need a President who can command 55% of the country and create a broad mandate.

Yes, eventually the situation won't hold because weak incompetent presidents like Bush and Trump will turn ever more young voters against the Republican Party. Also, long-term, more and more states will sign on to the NPVIC.

Democrats will cry foul and push for NPVIC no longer than 2028. By that time, due to midterm climate, they already have an impenetrable majority in both houses of the Parliament.

Revolt and more whining, of course. Democrats know the rules before they play, but then try to win by running up the vote in Philly, Cleveland, Detroit, and Miami and flipping off rural voters. Then, when they start losing elections, they point to the popular vote as proof they "should have won".

Lol. You know it!

They didn't even succeed in doing that. Detroit turnout plummeted in the 2016 election. And here in Philadelphia Trump gained 12k votes over Romney.


Smart move would be for the US Congress to nullify this NPV hoopla with legislation.

One of two things would happen--either moderate Republicans and/or swing voters who want a fair win would stop showing up, which would lead to the Dems eventually winning, or the Dems would simply feel disillusioned and quit showing up, leading to GOP PV wins--it wouldn't be a continuous cycle for that long.

If it happened several times in a row, there is no doubt in my mind that the Dems would create several new states (requires only the majority consent of congress and of the relevant state legislature) when they finally got back in power after economic crash or an impeachment level scandal.  See also: Nebraska being admitted as a separate state from Kansas, Colorado being admitted while severely underpopulated and the splitting of the Dakotas.

Note that the UK had a long tradition of treating its oldest 10 or so universities as local governments with special representation in Parliament.  If the left really wanted to take revenge, they could theoretically start admitting some college towns as their own states.

I don't know why, pundits think that 2016 will happen again.  Due to the very nature of the way the states are moving.  WI, PA, MI, VA, NH, NM, CO and NV will be Democratic again in 2020, due to the way 2018 will fall with the districts lines being moved once Dems take the majority and the Gov mansions will  fall.

Except for maybe WI, but Dems are numerous in WI, all the others will have Democratic Govs

The Dakotas were split due to a heated rivalry between the two regions and Nebraska and Kansas were admitted as separate states because they were separate territories organized from the Louisiana Purchase territory because the North wanted to build a railroad that didn't go through the South.

I actually agree that this situation would likely see Democrats start pushing for some various things to game the system, like splitting up California or trying to admit Puerto Rico as a state, for transparently partisan reasons.

At this point, I'm all for Democrats admitting Puerto Rico, and I'd hope, DC, for transparently partisan reasons, not necessarily for the political benefits but rather for the fact that partisan hackery is the best chance these regions have at getting proper representation. I'm not sure if I can say this for PR, but at least for DC the resistance to statehood or at least 2 Senators/1 Rep are themselves transparently partisan, so I feel no shame in my position.

I'm not sure about California - I do think it should probably be at least 2 states, but that's really up to them. I'd have to think that, regardless of what Democrats want to do in a shameless reach for power, something like splitting up CA wouldn't be possible without significant popular support.

Yes, however you cut it, there would be a growing movement to "gerrymander" the states at the left's next opportunity.  During a Dem wave midterm year, they could also propose state constitutional amendments by initiative to bind state electors to the NPV winner in any R-leaning swing states that have the initiative (MI, AZ, OH, and FL do, which would have been enough EV to flip the 2016 result).  The constitutional issues only come into play when multiple states enter a binding compact with each other.  An individual state can assign its electors however it likes.

I suppose the most obvious strategy would be to mass-admit all of the offshore US territories as states the next time they have a trifecta.  All except American Samoa (as Mormon as Idaho) should reliably elect Dems.

Nothing will change.

What would a real push for electoral reform look like?

Probably a combination of proportional representation in the House and a requirement that all states with more than 5-10X the population of Wyoming must be split into smaller parts at the next census.  The latter would require a constitutional amendment though.  Or maybe a future activist SCOTUS could find a way to apply the logic of Reynolds v. Sims to put a legal limit on population disparities between states?

Yeah, those loudmouth Democrats and their... democracy...

Once PR becomes a state and add 5 electors when Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker again, this will be null and void because 265+5=270 and hopefully it will come in 2019

They will continue to win the presidency.

An interesting twist on this came up during a luncheon in colonial Williamsburg last week. The program had some very well versed reenactors who field questions after their presentation. One question was whether the Constitution was flawed if it allowed a president to win without the support of the majority of the voters.

"George Washington" gave a lengthy answer. In short he argued that each branch of the government had a fundamentally different way to be selected. The legislature was selected popularly, either directly in the case of the House, or indirectly by the popularly elected members of the state legislatures. The judiciary was selected for life by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate to be as far removed from popular vote as possible. The executive was selected by the states through electors that could not be their elected representatives to Congress. He thought it important that the direct public not have sway over more than one branch so that checks on power be maintained.

This is the very reason why PR needs to become a state, so that this doesn't occur. Only way to happen is to make Pelosi Speaker and a divided Senate allows PR into statehood. 

I don't think that's a likely scenario. Trump may win the 2020 election - and if he does, with a popular vote shortfall again - but in 2024 the Democrats will have enough support to bounce back. Keep in mind that the Democrats so far have won greater victories in the electoral college in the past 30 years. After 1988, they had four victories, and even the "smallest" win in the electoral college, Obama's 332 in 2012, outnumber Donald Trump's 306; so far the biggest Republican win.

Democrats become very cynical.

I don't see why people keep bringing up splitting up California. What would that achieve? It would impact the Senate, but have no impact on the presidency. Besides, Republicans could just split up Nebraska. It's pretty silly as a solution.

In my view, an undemocratic system is illegitimate. You can have a PV/outcome split once in a while, as in the UK and Australia, but when there are systemic factors affecting this and it is chronic, the system is no longer supported by popular sovereignty. The best thing states like California could do in situations like that is to simply declare independence.

Yes, there's now way Republican legislatures touches this, provided it'll ever pass in Congress in the first place.

Republicans don't always benefit from the electoral college. While they did win the presidency because of it in 2000 and 2016, remember that in 2012, some polls were showing Obama could lose the popular vote, but losing the electoral vote was never really in the realm of possibilities. This was because Obama won a lot of swing states by a low margin, but lost by a big margin in many of the midwestern + Texas states.

I would prefer the electoral college system be changed to a proportional electoral college system (e.g if you get 50% of the voters vs your opponent's 49% of voters in California, you get the 2 votes from the senate, +50% of the remaining votes.)

This is pretty possible, and the answer is it would work for a while until eventually the floodgates break open in a Queensland '89-style, large Democratic victory. At this point you would either see outright constitutional reform if the landslide is big enough, or, more likely, various fixes, such as breaking apart large Democratic states (especially California; 7.5 times the size of the median state, and 66 times the size of the smallest), and the drawing of new ones would not be covered by the VRA (and would only take bare majorities in the respective state legislature and Congress to enact) or shifting House elections to a national party-list system (states get to pick presidential election methods, but since Congress is the judge of its own elections, it de facto has the right to set standards, so it can mandate some form of NPV for the House).

Our last large-scale reform of the election process (the introduction of presidential primaries in the early 1970s) was done entirely not just extra-constitutionally but extra-legislatively. Once there is demand change of this type will come.

It would have an impact on the Presidency: CA currently has 55 EVs, 53 from House seats and 2 from Senators. A split CA would have 57 total EVs: 53 from House seats and 4 from Senators. This would also bring the total electoral college up from 538 to 540.

Democratic-controlled legislatures could start passing this thing. (http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation)

The Democrat's best bet is to win an election while losing the PV. The Republicans will collectively lose their sh!t and demand an immediate abolition of the EC.

Too bad we're too popular for that...

I don't care about splitting up California or New York. As long as states with one or two congressional districts have to join each other or bigger states. The two extra senatorial votes keep messing up the whole Electoral College..

Well, there's nothing that can be done by Democrats alone. An abolition of the EC would require a constitutional amendment, as would any other possibility to fix this problem. Awarding 50 or 100 EVs for the national PV for example.

Are there enough states that could pass the NPVIC by referendum, even if the Dems can't pass it through the legislature?

You would see a very real and very strong secessionist movement begin.

Which leads CA to secede, and Republicans win the PV again (without the mass CA Dem votes). Problem solves itself.

Yeah. If DC and PR were admitted and California split up into 5 states with almost equal population, and house seats were still apportioned at 435, then California would go from having 9.8% of the EV in 2020 to having 10.9%. If California split up into those 5 states but without DC and PR being admitted, then California would instead go to having 11.9% of the EVs (DC and PR would have 5 House votes, and by apportionment, those 5 states that used to be California would actually get all of the next 5 seats).

I agree. CA's problems will solve themselves, and everyone else will be screwed. Though I don't support this, CA will be hurt way less than the other 49 states.

Does anything significant happen if the Democrats win the House PV in 2018 by a *lot* (5+ points and over 50%), yet still fail to take the House?

Obviously, there'd be an initial burst of complaints that don't lead to anything. But does it produce significant effects on grassroots support for electoral reform?
 

It may add fuel to gerrymandering reform efforts in states with ballot initiatives. Michigan, Missouri and Arkansas could see one, although I think Michigan is going to get one either way. Florida also needs redistricting commission amendments for the 2020 ballot, as the 2010 FD amendments require a state judiciary that will actually enforce them, and Rick Scott is already claiming he has the power to replace the 3 retiring Democratic state supreme court justices (re: he doesn't, which is why the GOP tried to pass an amendment allowing it, but failed).

I do wonder, are there any judicial limits that would prevent this being used indiscriminately? Like, could one party create 1,000 rotten borough "states" of 1 person each, who vote to guarantee one-party rule forever?

Obviously, it'd be seen widely as effectively a coup d'etat and protested against for the reason. But it there anything constitutionally prohibiting it?