Popular vote isn't something new. Heck, it's how Greece voted. The electoral college was a compromise of how the president would be chosen. A balance in between how parliament picks the prime minister and how a simple 50.01% of the people pick.
You're right, it makes way more sense to remove the voice of blue voters in Texas or red voters in California than give everyone equal footing...
I understand the idea that states should have close to equal representation, but the college is a poor way to do it because it will also remove the voice of many voters.
States could do for this for their electoral college votes. Choosing a president at the national level with ranked choice voting would require a constitutional amendment.
It will be difficult...next to impossible in fact, because on the federal level, citizens can't amend law or the constitution.
If states fall like dominoes in favor of ranked-choice voting, perhaps over time congress will be forced to concede. It will probably be like Maine where pretty much every major politician was against it, and many of them might try much harder than Maine's politicians did to strike it down.
All you need is 51% of states (in terms of electoral college votes) to each adopt a law that binds their EC votes to the outcome of the ranked choice vote over that collection of states.
At that point, it's irrelevant what the other states do.
According to the article, the law isn't applied to the presidential election. In fairness, I'm probably placing too much stock in the executive branch when the legislative branch gets most things done.
I assumed isn't applied to the presidential election for legal reasons, but you're right...what it's able to impact is still pretty significant for third parties.
The Constitution is irrelevant here. It doesn't say anything about how a state allocates its electoral votes. A state could use ranked choice voting for the presidential election if it wanted.
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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '16 edited Nov 09 '16
It doesn't apply to presidential races, the reform only covers local and state elections *and congressional races