By my math 189/14 = 13 (rounded down). That’s an average of about 13 electoral votes per the state compact to get an average. That means about 6 states to go if the other states follow that average. I don’t know when the deadline would be though for putting this into effect. I don’t know if it goes into effect retroactively (my understanding is it’s retroactive) and/or if there’s a deadline by the FEC.
Do we have a list of states considering?
I would presume none with a lot of votes or solid constituencies.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia have also joined the compact.
Here’s hoping PA is the next inductee.
Yeah, the blue states are for it and the red states are against it. The voting rules that are wired into the Constitution are set up intentionally to make sure that the cities have to win by a landslide in order to exert any authority over the hinterland, while the hinterland can come to power with a quite weak minority.
The swing states of Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin would be enough to push it over, and all but Florida have at least entertained bills to support the compact.
As reasonable as such a plan is, it’s unconstitutional, through another clause that the Framers in to ensure that the hinterland controls: Article I Section X of the Constitution: “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, […] enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State”. The Roberts court would surely not bless such a thing, and the consent of Congress would require Senate approval - and constitutionally, the Senate has even more of a hinterland bias wired in.
Moreover, it’s likely that the Court would find that the compact is unconstitutional because there are scenarios in which there is a clear winner of the popular vote, but in the Electoral College system the vote would devolve to the House of Representatives - vitiating the 12th Amendment.
There’s broad enough support (about three-fourths of Democrats, two-thirds of Republicans) that it’s conceivable that a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College would pass - but only at an Article V constitutional convention, because there’s no way otherwise to get it in front of the states. (McConnell would have to bless it, and 2/3 of the Senate would have to approve. As mentioned above, the Senate has an extreme bias in favor of the hinterland wired into its makeup.)
Thank heaven for the last blue wave flipping several state legislatures. The R’s had nearly taken 38 states, which is enough to call a constitutional convention and start slam-dunking right-wing amendments, with or without congressional approval. (The map of the 28 states that have called for a convention already is quite similar to the one above.)
In short, the system is broken in exactly the way the founding fathers intended. They were no less interested than modern politicians in protecting their own power.
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