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Posted on 4/16/26 at 1:27 pm to wackatimesthree
quote:
See the court's ruling on that a few posts up from this one.
How is what you wrote even close to dispositive of the idea that what Virginia and others are doing is constitutional?
The case you cited said Congress did consent to the boundary agreement made between Tennessee and Virginia . How do you go from that to saying there is no constitutional issue in this Electoral Vote Compact? I am not saying that the decision in Virginia v. Tennessee makes the current Compact unconstitutional in that respect - but if the Court's decision rests, in part, on the fact that a boundary dispute between states did receive congressional approval then I have no idea how that means there are no Constitutional issues with respect to the Electoral Vote Compact.
If it is an issue of State vs. Federal power - we are talking about the election of the Chief Executive of the United States. Seems more than a decent argument that the Electoral Vote Compact usurps the election framework for the Chief Executive found in Article II of the Constitution. Essentially the States forming this compact are creating an election scheme not found in the Constitution. The Constitution explicitly rejects a "popular vote" model for electing the President. This State compact is an end run around the Constitution, and thus "federal power" in that respect. I am not even sure congressional approval could save the Compact from constitutional scrutiny on these grounds.
This post was edited on 4/16/26 at 1:30 pm
Posted on 4/16/26 at 1:32 pm to wackatimesthree
quote:
?? States have full authority to bind electors to their chosen candidate
?? This strengthens the idea that electors are agents of the state, not free actors
And if the state's popular vote is to one candidate, but that same candidate loses the national popular vote? Isn't the will of the states voters based on their vote, not what other individuals decide?
Forgive me if i'm not understanding your argument.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 1:38 pm to JimEverett
quote:
How is what you wrote even close to dispositive of the idea that what Virginia and others are doing in constitutional?
The case you cited said Congress did consent to the boundary agreement made between Tennessee and Virginia . How do you go from that to saying there is no constitutional issue in this Electoral Vote Compact? I am not saying that the decision in Virginia v. Tennessee makes the current Compact unconstitutional in that respect - but if the Court's decision rests, in part, on the fact that a boundary dispute between states did receive congressional approval then I have no idea how that means there are no Constitutional issues with respect to the Electoral Vote Compact.
Yeah, good question, it's because in that case the resulting criteria emerged as being whether the compact increased state power relative to federal power.
quote:
the election framework for the Chief Executive found in Article II of the Constitution.
Well the election framework in Article II is that the state legislatures decide unilaterally how to choose electors. And as I have posted several times now,
in both Chiafalo v. Washington and Colorado Department of State v. Baca (decided on the same day in 2020), the court upheld the state's full authority to bind electors to the state's chosen candidate.
So the Constitution gives them full authority to choose electors and those court cases clarify that they also have full authority to compel them to cast their electoral votes for the candidate that the state decides they should, using whatever criteria they want.
quote:
we are talking about the election of the Chief Executive of the United States.
Nothing about that increases state power over federal power. States have always been given the right to decide their own electoral processes. Remember, the Framers originally wanted the state legislatures to elect the POTUS directly. The electoral college was a compromise.
The way it looks to me, the state legislature in Alabama could choose to award their electoral votes with a coin toss, based on who wins the Iron Bowl, who wins the state popular vote, who wins the national popular vote, they could vote to just always award them to whoever the Republican candiate is regardless of any vote, or they could not have an election at all.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 1:38 pm to Floyd Dawg
quote:
I would argue there is no national popular vote tally.
It would be easy to define as the total of the votes certified by the various governing bodies.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 1:41 pm to Uncommon Idea
quote:
Is the will of the voters being followed? The state made a law that did that; but what if the voters didn't vote for electors for a candidate that won the NATIONWIDE popular vote?
Sounds like this would become a major issue in the next statewide elections
Posted on 4/16/26 at 1:47 pm to BugAC
quote:
Forgive me if i'm not understanding your argument.
No problem.
The argument is that states can ostensibly choose electors by any criteria they want according to the Constitution and two recent court cases have upheld the idea that they have full authority to compel those electors to cast their electoral votes for whomever they tell them to cast them for using whatever decision making mechanism they want.
This is the important part that keeps y'all confused...there's no explicit requirement that the state be responsible to its voters in any way. You are assuming that there is, but there's not. Not by way of state popular vote, national popular vote, or any vote at all. A state could decide to award electoral votes on a coin toss, or let the legislature only vote, or even not participate in the election at all.
This seems to be one of the last vestiges of state's rights that hasn't been chased out of the system (yet). And remember, that's what the framers wanted. They wanted strong states and weak federal government.
It's possible that a court could put limits on this, but two things about that:
1. They'd have to go against very recent precedent in order to do it.
2. It would be an activist ruling. The things y'all are assuming are in the Constitution—these assumptions you're making—simply aren't in there. And I think the framers didn't put them in there on purpose.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 2:05 pm to L.A.
So in the last election they would have had to award the Electorial College votes to Trump even though Kamala won the State. Talk about fricking over your voters.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 2:09 pm to wackatimesthree
quote:
Yeah, good question, it's because in that case the resulting criteria emerged as being whether the compact increased state power relative to federal power.
And part of the reasoning in its holding was that Congress consented - although in that case the consent was implied. That, in and of itself, strikes me as murkying the water on whether the EV Compact is Constitutional as it stands now. Congress has not explicitly consented - and the EV Compact on its face seems to imply a greater infringement on national power than a state boundary dispute. Regardless -has Congress implicitly consented? What would implicit consent look like? There aseems to be some pretty basic constitutional questions that are not cleared up just by looking at Virginia v. Tennessee.
quote:
Well the election framework in Article II is that the state legislatures decide unilaterally how to choose electors. And as I have posted several times now,
Sure - but the nature of the Compact itself makes a good argument that legislators in Virginia are not just legislating how electors in Virginia are awarded but how electors in various other states are awarded. Virginia would be on firmer Constitutional ground if its legislature just said our electors go to a "national vote winner" (however they define that term) then entering into a compact with other states which in effect makes the Virginia legislature a sort of inter-state legislature. That seems problematic in and of itself - but especially so when you consider possible Equal Protection claims. if a legislature decides to have a popular vote for President there are federal rules that must be followed (the legislature is, of course, free not to have popular vote elections for electors). If they do so and at the same time tie their state's electors to what legislators in other states do then there seems to be a whole host of potential Equal Protection claims.
It may well be Constitutional, but it is very far from obviously Constitutional.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 2:18 pm to DyeHardDylan
quote:
So essentially, Virginia voters’ votes don’t matter, but the votes of all other 49 states do. Seems backwards.
No. Virginian votes still matter as they help determine who wins the national vote, they just don’t matter as much.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 2:19 pm to L.A.
They join several states who have the very same compact.
Interestingly, I do not believe any of them gave their electorial votes to the winner of the popular vote this last cycle.
If I am wrong, someone please correct me.
California, Oregon, Colorado and Washington are the four I know have laws to do this, but there are others. All generally go blue.
Interestingly, I do not believe any of them gave their electorial votes to the winner of the popular vote this last cycle.
If I am wrong, someone please correct me.
California, Oregon, Colorado and Washington are the four I know have laws to do this, but there are others. All generally go blue.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 2:22 pm to L.A.
Just to give one of many potential Equal Protection claims Consider:
Suppose the Virginia Legislature passed a bill that said Virginia would hold elections for Presidential electors but that the electors would be chosen based on who the Governor of California picked.
Constitutional? If not, then how do you differentiate it from the EV Compact? Both seem to me to violate basic concepts of free elections.
Suppose the Virginia Legislature passed a bill that said Virginia would hold elections for Presidential electors but that the electors would be chosen based on who the Governor of California picked.
Constitutional? If not, then how do you differentiate it from the EV Compact? Both seem to me to violate basic concepts of free elections.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 2:34 pm to UtahCajun
quote:
They join several states who have the very same compact.
Interestingly, I do not believe any of them gave their electorial votes to the winner of the popular vote this last cycle.
It's suspensive until the interstate compact encompasses enough electoral votes to elect a presidential candidate. Which begs the question on if they're trying to keep the compact from being ripe for court review.
Granted, the date for determination is 6 months before the election. That is the deadline for when it determines if the compact is in effect. In fact, arguably, if a state leaves the compact within the 6 months before a presidential election, the states would still have to allocate their electoral votes according to the compact.
Posted on 4/16/26 at 4:52 pm to JimEverett
quote:
but the nature of the Compact itself makes a good argument that legislators in Virginia are not just legislating how electors in Virginia are awarded but how electors in various other states are awarded.
As long as those other states accept that criteria, though, it doesn't matter.
The way it looks to me, my state could decide to award electoral votes based on whether a groundhog saw his shadow that spring, whether Shaggy said "Far out" an odd or even number of times on any given episode of Scooby Doo, or whether the governor of Illinois drank Coke or Pepsi at Wrigley field last time he was there.
Could someone say that that last one constitutes letting another state determine the electoral votes for my state? Sure. And then I would simply say, "But it's my prerogative to allow another state to determine who gets my electoral votes. My legislature voted to allow it. Therefore, my state decided that that was our criteria."
Again, this is one of those instances in which I think y'all are assuming that states have voting obligations to the citizens of that state that they don't actually seem to have. Where in the Constitution does it say that one state can't play "Follow the Leader" with another state with regard to electoral votes?
If the compact violates the Constitution (and I don't think it does based on the court rulings and their justifications), it's not really all that relevant. They could just disband the compact and each state still just vote independently to award electoral votes based on national majority. Or anything else they chose.
The way to get the courts to stop this IMO is to get Georgia (which I believe is the only swing state with a Republican legislature and governor) to vote to always award all electoral votes to whoever the Republican candidate is no matter what.
The courts would be tripping over themselves to intervene on an activist level to limit state's plenary electoral power if Georgia did that!
Posted on 4/16/26 at 5:51 pm to wackatimesthree
quote:
The way it looks to me, my state could decide to award electoral votes based on whether a groundhog saw his shadow that spring, whether Shaggy said "Far out" an odd or even number of times on any given episode of Scooby Doo, or whether the governor of Illinois drank Coke or Pepsi at Wrigley field last time he was there.
Could someone say that that last one constitutes letting another state determine the electoral votes for my state? Sure. And then I would simply say, "But it's my prerogative to allow another state to determine who gets my electoral votes. My legislature voted to allow it. Therefore, my state decided that that was our criteria."
The problem is that once the legislature allows a popular vote certain rights - namely equal protection rights come into play.
So yeah - the legislature could say our electors will go to the candidate whose last name is first in alphabetical order, or any number of things. But once you have an election, the scheme must protect the rights of voters.
Right now, when you vote in Virginia you are voting for a slate of electors that come from Virginia. If I vote for a slate that is pledged to Candidate A and that slate wins a majority (or plurality) of the vote in Virginia but that slate is not the slate Virginia uses to vote for in the Electoral College then I have a very strong Equal Protection argument. What the hell was I voting for? The voters chose Candidate A but the State sends electors pledged to Candidate B - as clear an equal protection violation as you can get.
Likewise if Virginia and/or others changed the details of what you were voting for and said it was presidential preference poll as opposed to a slate of electors then the question still remains. What the hell am I voting for? There is no national vote in the Unted States. So not only would there be an equal protection problem if Virginia's preference is candidate A but the slate of electors is the one pledged to candidate B - but also given that my vote in Virginia is being pooled with voters outside my State whose requirements for voting and how those votes are counted, and all sorts of other regulations are different than the rules and regs Virginia uses.
You cannot treat voters differently - so unless all these states have the exact same rules and regs for voting there will be an equal potection violation.
Posted on 4/17/26 at 9:43 am to SlowFlowPro
quote:
How else would you get a national vote tally?
in the scenario proposed it would not make any difference.
Stupid idea warrants no further analysis
Posted on 4/17/26 at 9:47 am to ChineseBandit58
quote:
in the scenario proposed it would not make any difference.
If 2 VA Democrats failed to vote for the DEM, and the GOP won the national vote by 1, it would make quite the difference.
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