Really, I have three issues with the NPVIC:
The first and most minor is that it decompartmentalizes the vote; problems or irregularities in one state affect the voters of other states, and the pressure for recounts in party strongholds would be increased.
This is just for President and the election results would be collected and tabulated in the exact same way as before. It's actually harder to influence the outcome of an NPV election than an EC election because in an EC election if you can flip a major state like California you're going to change the outcome greatly and that's by about how many extra votes you'd need to get if you wanted to alter the popular vote if not more. In 2008 for instance we had California with approx 7.5 mil to 4.5 mil Obama to McCain votes, you'd need to net + 2 million votes to flip the state. National Popular vote was approximately 67 mil to 58 mil Obama to McCain. To change an NPV election you'd need to change nine million votes.
Whereas in 2004, the difference in the votes would have required a shift of 1.5 million voters nationwide from Bush to Kerry to swing the popular vote or about 1.2%. You really thing there wouldn't have been recounts all over the CA coast, and New England to at least attempt to get that?
This does sound like a compelling argument, except when you consider that under the EC system you only had to change fewer than 58,000 votes to reverse the outcome of the 2004 election. And there were no recounts in New Mexico, Iowa, and Colorado in an attempt to do so. To argue that this would happen to try to change a million and a half votes is ridiculous. That's an insurmountable obstacle.
The difference between Bush and Gore in the 2000 election was TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE votes. The popular vote has never approached that.
What you and fallout keep ignoring is that the raw votes in one case are not the same as the raw votes in another. Yes, there are fewer votes needed to be flipped or gained in a recount under the EC; there is also a far smaller pool of votes to get them from. You may only have needed to flip 58,000 votes to flip the EC election, but that includes 50,000 votes from Colorado, which as a percentage of the votes cast is roughly double what it would have taken to flip the NPV.
Also, I think the legal experts working on the compact would know if it would work constitutionally, and would not have bothered if they thought it didn't.
Just like the legal experts that came up with mandatory health care, AZ SB-1070 and CA Prop 8?
Did you even read the website that I linked to? The actual percentage of votes that needed to be changed in each case (EV, NPV) was essentially the same. In 2000, it isn't even close - the percentage under EV was WAY SMALLER than under NPV.
Not to mention the fact that your argument is that NPV will make recounts more frequent - people will be recounting all the time because you just do recounts everywhere! What we're saying is that under the current system you have to change fewer votes and basically a similar percentage of votes and recounts do not happen. The doomsday predictions about NPV are wrong.
Resurrecting this because the Pennsylvania GOP has a plan to make a popular vote/electorate vote mismatch even more likely. And possibly with a huge popular vote majority, especially if the Ohio/Michigan/Wisconsin GOP picks it up.
Wheeeeee!
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
States that are closely divided would rather be winner-take-all than proportional because it means that candidates commit a lot of resources there.
A closely divided state that assigned electors proportionally would probably get little attention from national campaigns, since they'd know they can only swing one or perhaps two electors.
Since the senators would swing with the state as a whole, it would mean a minimum of 3.
And neither states that are closely divided nor states that are solidly blue or red would want to switch to that system: it makes the close states less relevant, and it helps the other side in the states that are solid.
Which probably means it's a good idea, in some form. Though I think the NPV is a bandaid on a gunshot wound at this point, it's a step.
By proportional I assume you guys mean the Congressional District method? Like Maine/Nebraska?
This would actually be far more beneficial to Republicans than Democrats.
At the moment, but the House swings pretty often so any advantage would be temporary. If you can get all the states to do that, though, you may as well try for a Constitutional convention to switch to a parliamentary system.
Actually it's beneficial to the GOP regardless of how the House goes. Basically, the GOP currently gets more smaller states than the Dems; in those states the districts are either not up for grabs (if they only have 3 EVs) and in the other states with less than 7 votes the districts are more likely to be uniform in terms of political makeup. Compare that to states with 20+ EVs: CA, NY, IL, OH, PA, FL, TX; these states all have districts that have wildly disparate political makeups and would be most likely to have EVs get traded under the congressional district method. Three of those are Dem states, three are swing states, and ONE is a GOP state.
For example, with the congressional district method, Bush wins the 2000 election 302-236 (271-266 was the actual total and Bush lost the popular vote by half a percent). He also wins the 2004 election 321-217 (286-251 was the real total). Obama would still win but by 299-239 (365-173 was the actual total). That's all the data I can find (not paying $95 for data back to 1984).
I'm just gonna quote the analysis I did earlier just in case anyone wants to come in and try and argue this is fair. GOP gains 30-60 EVs if the entire country had these rules.
Ohio's unlikely, since the GOP seems to need to win it outright to get to the White House. Frankly, I don't see this getting through Pennsylvania either - too many marginal Republicans would see campaigning in their districts for them to be happy, and even with that attention would fall overall because the prize just got much smaller.
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Did you even read the website that I linked to? The actual percentage of votes that needed to be changed in each case (EV, NPV) was essentially the same. In 2000, it isn't even close - the percentage under EV was WAY SMALLER than under NPV.
Not to mention the fact that your argument is that NPV will make recounts more frequent - people will be recounting all the time because you just do recounts everywhere! What we're saying is that under the current system you have to change fewer votes and basically a similar percentage of votes and recounts do not happen. The doomsday predictions about NPV are wrong.
Wheeeeee!
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I'm just gonna quote the analysis I did earlier just in case anyone wants to come in and try and argue this is fair. GOP gains 30-60 EVs if the entire country had these rules.
They'd get some from Wisconsin, too. This thing is really scary.