tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7354786999298607934.post8813469937041308960..comments2023-06-13T06:25:21.844-04:00Comments on Tenacious Muse: "Faithless Electors" - the Legitimacy DilemmaR. William Ayreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01228717107253041752noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7354786999298607934.post-56901337866920511122016-12-16T14:19:38.726-05:002016-12-16T14:19:38.726-05:00It's true that you can change the allocation o...It's true that you can change the allocation of electors in a number of ways without amending the Federal Constitution. What you can't do is abolish it altogether, which is what some folks have been talking about doing. But there are certainly other options - although none seems to have gotten much traction.<br />R. William Ayreshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01228717107253041752noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7354786999298607934.post-17318147316709348712016-12-16T13:01:41.395-05:002016-12-16T13:01:41.395-05:00Thanks for the post Bill - interesting stuff. Jus...Thanks for the post Bill - interesting stuff. Just a point of order from a fellow political science nerd, changing the electoral college does not necessarily require a constitutional amendment. The states are free to apportion their share of electors however they see fit (Maine and Nebraska, for example, allocate on the basis of which candidate wins thew vote in congressional districts). It would, therefore, be possible for California, say, to pass a law allocating its electoral college votes entirely proportionally (i.e. Clinton's 60% of the vote gets here 60% of the EC votes; Trump gets that remaining 40%). Of course this is not likely to happen because proportional allocation by CA would give "free" votes to the Republican candidate, so it is unlikely that CA would choose to do this unilaterally. However, there is a more plausible route currently being taken by several states (11 and counting), which is to allocate all the states EC votes to whoever wins the popular vote across the US as a whole. Hence, CA, which has signed on to this initiative, would allocate all 55 of its votes to the US popular vote winner, regardless of who won the vote in CA. Critically, the initiative does not take effect until enough states have signed up to reach the 270 threshold. At that point, whoever wins the popular vote in the US has a guaranteed EC majority and wins, regardless of what the other states do. This initiative is called the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" (NPVIC)<br />http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ <br />I think this is a good way to go because it can be achieved by state law and does not require a constitutional amendment (which is not going to happen) <br /> <br /> Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13437039109936174504noreply@blogger.com