My hope is they won’t succeed. To have national elections decided by a couple of states and large cities would be ruinous for the country.
It is really sad to consider how stupid our “modern” country is. Majority rule is the road to back into slavery, a trip down history’s lane paved with the results of dictators and death.
Majority rule will not ‘fix’ what is the corruption of the electoral college. It will exasperate the corruption and fraud.
First and foremost question in my mind is:
States that pass this law — have they included in the law an expiration date for the requirement of gathering up enough states to meet the threshold of 270 EC?
The next questions equally important:
Can this be considered a stealth convention of States and thus the 270 EC would be considered invalid because there is only 4 ways to change the Constitution defined in the Constitution.
The Constitution, then, spells out four paths for an amendment:
Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state conventions (never used)
Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state legislatures (never used)
Proposal by Congress, ratification by state conventions (used once)
Proposal by Congress, ratification by state legislatures (used all other times)
Ref: http://www.usconstitution.net/constam.html#interpret.
Note that Item #2
“Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state legislatures (never used)”
This is exactly what they are doing, however they have changed the threshold from 3/4’s of the states legislative approval to just 270 EC. Thus instead of 38 states ratification requirement, they will attempt to do it with as little as 10 states. (an eyeball estimation of the top 10 States by EC).
However if we take item #1:
Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state conventions (never used).
It only requires 2/3 (34) to convene but still 3/4’s to adopt. So again, even the threshold of the notion to change the Constitution has not been met.
Again ref:
http://www.usconstitution.net/constam.html#interpret
Ref map: http://www.270towin.com/
To me at least it seems like the Constitution was designed to avoid such errant meddling. I cannot see how any court could interpret less than 38 states ratifying or even the 34 state requirement for proposing ratification.
Summary
Unfortunately there is precedent. Namely Winner take all EC States vs Proportional Distribution of EC states (which there are very few). (check and verify — no source).
Adopting or trying to adopt such a change will result in various conundrums for Politicians (not so to Constitutionalists because it’s pretty clear on how the Constitution is changed).
The likely path is
1. Come an election where a Popular vote doesn’t match the EC vote, there will be Lawsuits filed in every state that that cast faithless the faithless EC (speculation).
2. The SCOTUS, prohibited from interfering by Constitution unless harm is done and an appeal is presented from one of the harmed bodies (I.E Standing) will result, results in an after the fact judgement.(Check & verify, no source, speculative)
3. The election certification body (the house + the senate) will be open to challenge the election. Now, if I were an esteemed member of that body I would in no uncertain terms vote to decertify that terms election process — even if it was my party that benefited. Would your representative do the same?
This is a big giant #10 can of the foulest can of worms if I’ve ever seen one. The U.S EC system is a form of proportional representation. It was never intended to be subject to popular vote because our framers knew that a popular vote would be disastrous. It would undo our country. Perhaps that’s it’s ultimate goal.
Ancillary Item:
If you want to barf this morning read the complete page of amendment process at:
http://www.usconstitution.net/constam.html#interpret
In particular the reference to Akhil Reed Amar’s book ‘The Constitution: A Biography’ and the reference author’s take on it. You won’t be able to sleep tonight.
Don’t New York and California already combine for 110 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidential race?