Major campaign underway to nullify Electoral College

[Antonio the Sixth]

There is another Constitutional argument against the Compact. 
The 12th Amendment provides a Constitutional process if no single candidate gets a majority of EVs, such as could occur when three candidates split EVs.   This compact makes it impossible for the 12th Amendment to ever be used.  Thus the states in the Compact, through state laws, prevent all states (and citizens) from using a Constitutional process.   I do not think states can pass laws to get around Constitutional protections.

That's a totally fallacious argument. If passed, the NPVIC would de facto nullify the 12th Amendment, but absolutely nothing in the NPVIC is explicitely contrary to the 12th Amendment. The 12th Amentment never states that there must be cases where its provision applies. Imagine the constitution says "any flying pig shall have its wings cut". If you interpret it the same way you interpret the 12th Amendment, it would imply "flying pigs shall exist".

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Electoral College nullification Compact loses 2 EV. 
With new reapportionment, the 6 states + DC that have passed the Compact collectivley lost 2 EV: MA-1, NJ-1, IL-1, but WA +2.  So far states (+DC) .

So imagine if the compact had 270 EV and the states implement it requirment to award votes by popular vot ein 2012 and  then the compact drops back to 268, what happens?  Chaos!

Come on, do you imagine a candidate winning a block of 268 EVs and still losing the Electoral College ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, the NPVIC is on the active list for today's session of the Republican-controlled New York State Senate today, which was introduced by a Republican and unanimously passed the Elections Committee about a month ago.  It is calendar no. 398:

http://www.nysenate.gov/event/2011/jun/07/senate-session-06-07-11

I have not seen it on the active list before, but I find that generally at the beginning of the session, they go through the active list.  The session today is at 1400 EDT.  So we'll see.

It passed 47-13-2.

Really ? So it has a strong chance to pass with a democratic House and Governor.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I know politics are extremely cynical, but I like to think that people in the loser's party would be honest enough to respect the compact their State engaged in. Otherwise, well, I'd just feel sad for the country.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Even though CA and NY are both democratic States, their entry in the compact would add a lot of EVs to it, and thus hopefully help it to gain some credibility.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What is their rationale for opposing this ? "Democrats support it, so it sucks" ? Or "Electoral college will always help us in close elections" ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

What is their rationale for opposing this ? "Democrats support it, so it sucks" ? Or "Electoral college will always help us in close elections" ?

Internal party politics could play a factor as well.  The delegate allocation rules for the two parties determine bonus delegates for how the party does in Presidential Politics differently.  The Democratic rules effectively allocate a bonus based on the percentage of the PV in the State during the last three Presidential elections.  The Republican rules give a straight up bonus based on whether the Republican got a majority of the EV in the last Presidential election. (Nebraska receives its full bonus since 4 of its 5 EVs were cast for McCain) That makes some sense under the current method of electing a President, but not if we switched to PV for electing Presidents.

Can't they just change such a silly rule ?

Rhetorical question of course : the GOP is an awesome party so its rules are all perfect and shall never be changed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Candidates can win the EV with a minority in the PV, too. Actually, it happened 3 times in the last 5 elections.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Of course they could change it, but it would mean that Republicans from highly Democratic states such as California and New York would gain influence at the expense of those who currently have it in the party.  Still, I expect this factor is of less importance than the perception that the Republicans by and large have the advantage in the small population States that have a greater influence in the EV than they would in the PV.

There are many ways to measure "party strength" in a state besides the presidential vote.  It's reasonable for the GOP to grant more delegates to Florida than New York, since, despite having nearly equal populations, there are more Republicans in Florida than New York.......but there are much smarter ways of measuring that than their current formula.

Indeed. Why don't they simply apportion delegates according to the number of votes get by their presidential candidates ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Indeed. Why don't they simply apportion delegates according to the number of votes get by their presidential candidates ?

They are doing that.  They just apportion the bonus delegates for the presidential vote by the votes that count at present, the electoral votes, not the popular votes.

Well, that's moronic. It doesn't produce a proportional representation of Republican voters.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What we need is a Republican winning the popular vote and losing in the EC. With 2012 being closer, it could have happened. And it's even more likely to happen during the two elections before the next reapportionment.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think this underscores the real motivation for legislative action - which party stands to gain by NPVIC. The GOP had a clear structural advantage in the EC for a long time such that no non-Southern Dem won the presidency after Kennedy until Obama.

That's not evidence of a structural advantage: counting Gore as a southern Democrat, no non-southern Dem won the popular vote after Kennedy until Obama. No non-right-handed Republican won the presidency after Nixon until Bush Jr. - it's a structural advantage! Or, maybe, coincidence, or the way these things work.

You reversed my two clauses and their dependency. The structural advantage is measured by how the EC would go if the vote shifted to an even split between the two candidates. Until the last decade that advantage was typically for the GOP and an even race would be expected to go for the GOP. Since a big piece of that base since 1960 was in the South, a southern candidate could swing regional votes and get a win like Carter did in 1976. Gore was not really considered a Southern candidate after his 8 years as VP.

No, there wasn't. From 1960 to 2004, Republicans had the theoretical EC edge six times (1968, 1976, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2000) while Democrats had it the other six times (1960, 1964, 1972, 1980, 1996, 2004). There appears to be no consistent pattern in the EC advantage.

Indeed. FTR, here's the structural advantage (measured as the difference in winning margins between the national popular vote and the popular vote in the decisive State) from 1932 to 2012:

1932: R+0.05
1936: R+3.69
1940: R+3.06
1944: R+2.48
1948: R+3.64
1952: R+0.62
1956: D+0.86
1960: D+0.64
1964: D+2.01
1968: R+1.58
1972: D+0.88
1976: R+0.38
1980: D+1.81
1984: R+0.77
1988: R+0.17
1992: R+0.91
1996: D+0.68
2000: R+0.53
2004: D+0.35
2008: D+1.98
2012: D+1.52

No clear pattern here, except maybe that Republicans had a structural advantage in the years of the Solid South, as Democrats wasted a sh*tload of votes there (but this would require going farther back to confirm).