My state for an example is allotted fifteeen EVs. In 2016 the results were razor-thin where the Republican outpolled the Democrat. In 2008 it did the opposite, the D outpolled the R. In both cases our electors went to Congress and lied through their teeth, declaring "wow, it's incredible, literally everybody in our state voted for Rump/O'bama". Which has literally never happened anywhere in any election ever. Neither this state nor any other alloted 8 votes to the winner of 51 percent and seven votes to the winner of 49 --- they just dumped them all into one corner, despite the vote count.
That means everybody up to 49.999 percent of the votes in our state got flushed down the toilet and ignored. And the same thing went on in 48 other states, and it's been going on since James Madison was still around calling for that practice to be banned by Constitutional Amendment. He said it would lead to factionalism and division --- et voilà , here we sit with so-called "red" and "blue" states so he was spot-on correct about that.
This multistate pact is a plan to counter the effects of that system. Simple as that.
Okay, maybe I’m not understanding it then.
As I understand it, if the voters of CT vote for John Doe who is a D and then the national popular vote is won by Jane Doe who is an R, the electors of CT would vote for Jane Doe. Please enlighten me if that is not the case.
Correct, that's what they would do. Looked at from the state's perspective
only, that state's electoral vote would not in this case represent how the people of Connecticut voted. On the other hand if the majority in Connecticut voted the other way --
for the same candy who won nationally, it STILL would not represent how the state's voters voted, since there is always a significant portion who want the other candy. So either way people are getting cut out. No difference.
That's not the fault of this pact ---
it's the fault of WTA. Every time a state goes to Congress and lies that their state vote was unanimous --- that's what happens. And unless some state's electorate some day actually votes unanimously, it will
always happen.
So this pact would not change that --- in fact it depends on keeping the WTA system to work. It simply means that those blue voters in Idaho and those red voters in Massachusetts would finally have a reason to go vote, since their vote WOULD be counted in the national PV count that would determine how the states in this pact cast their electoral votes.
In the current scheme, once your vote is shit-canned
within the state because not enough voters in your state voted the same way -- you're done, you lost and you have no voice. In the proposed plan you still have a chance for your vote to count since it would affect the overall national vote, even if it was a minority in your state.
That alone could and should improve turnout above the pathetic 55%. It would also creak the door open just a bit for third party candies, since as it is now the EC-WTA system shuts them out.
It's clearly not the best fix but it's seems to be the most practical band-aid that can be easily applied without amending the Constitution.
