[Repeal The 17th]

“... Voting for electors is not required.
State Legislatures have complete authority over how electors are chosen ...”
-
You are correct, sir,
and that may provide for a counter measure to the “National Popular Vote” foolishness.

Supposing that the legislatures from several States
(Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and others...)
were to decide to create a compact of their own,
wherein the legislatures would directly appoint their presidential electors
(as is within their authority under the Constitution),
then no national popular vote tally would exist for the NPV states to relate to.

[Jim Noble]

One of the major problems, should the compact be concluded AND should it be approved by Congress would be defining the "national popular vote" and deciding who would validate the enumeration.

I mean, we're not going to ask ABC News who won.

Are we?

[mvymvy]

Proposals to abolish popular voting for President are parlor games devoid of any connection to political reality. In fact, the public overwhelmingly supports a nationwide vote for President in every state for which state-level polling data are available.

The proposal assumes that there would be a Governor and state legislature that is fanatically opposed to a nationwide vote for President and that public opinion in their state would permit them to disenfranchise their own state’s voters in order to protest a national popular vote. However, the political reality is that public opinion surveys show high levels of public support for a national popular vote for President in every state for which state-level polls are available, including battleground states, small states, Southern states, border states, and other states. Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls: AK – 70%, AR – 80%, AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CO – 68%, CT – 74%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, FL – 78%, IA —75%, ID – 77%, KY- 80%, MA – 73%, ME – 77%, MI – 73%, MN – 75%, MO – 70%, MS – 77%, MT – 72%, NC – 74%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NM– 76%, NV – 72%, NY – 79%, OH – 70%, OK – 81%, OR – 76%, PA – 78%, RI – 74%, SC – 71%, SD – 71%, TN – 83%, UT – 70%, VA – 74%, VT – 75%, WA – 77%, WI – 71%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%.

“Is it really politically plausible to think a state legislature could try, in the twenty-first century, to eliminate the statewide vote for presidential electors? And if it is, why are we not worried about the equally troubling possibilities for similar subversion under the current regime? …
“[is it really politically plausible to think] a state legislature could claim the ‘plenary’ power that Professor Williams discusses to override a state popular vote?
“The reason these things do not happen is not that the current system lacks loopholes, but rather that the legitimacy of majority rule is so entrenched that any politician who blatantly tried to subvert the vote would be pilloried. And given the national polling data in support of a move towards direct national election, it is almost certain that the nonlegal ‘democracy norm’ would prevent the most blatant of the shenanigans . . .”
- Vikram David Amar - professor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UC Davis School of Law. Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry Blackmun at the Supreme Court of the United States.