Ok, I thought, and still feel, that the topic needed some airing.
With the EC, and without NPV, each state can do their own thing for
deciding what instruction to give their EC members - and could do
better than Plurality if they choose.
With NPV there is need for more thought:
Make all do Plurality? Simple. but more and more realize that
voters need more control - and there is need for recognizing that this
is a national election with more variety of voter opinions as they
prepare to vote.
Make all do an agreed better method, such as Condorcet? Worth
thought - likely needs a C. Amendment.
Each state select from an agreed set of methods? Worth thought,
but this could inspire 14th Amendment complaints.
Dave Ketchum
On Jul 2, 2009, at 5:43 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
On Jul 2, 2009, at 2:23 PM, Paul Kislanko wrote:
Without going into detail, if all states do not use the same
collection
method, applying a national counting method that isn't the "lowest
common
denominator" method, there would be a violation of the "equal
process"
clause of the 14th Amendment. In order to use a ranked-ballot
method, every
state would have to provide ranked BALLOTS to be counted.
What we have now is we can "roll up" from precinct to district to
state to
national only SUMS, because everybody counts ballots the same way.
If state
X counts ballots differently than state Y, we can't just "add" X
and Y in
the national total without running afoul of the 14th Amendment.
Even though "I am not a lawyer", I know some who would bring that up.
The attraction of NPV, in large part (it seems to me) is its
simplicity. A simple unilateral action on the part of enough states
yields precisely a national plurality election for president, neatly
making the Electoral College a dead letter, without the need for a
constitutional amendment. (Ignoring the possibility of a challenge
to NPV on state compact grounds, or whatever--I think the language
could have been written a little better so as to avoid the
appearance of a compact, but them I'm not a lawyer either.)
NPV is making slow enough progress as it is that I can't imagine
that a competing (more complex) proposal would have any chance at all.
And (sadly, in my view) a straightforward constitutional amendment
to establish direct presidential election by any means other than
plurality would be doomed to failure by IRV vs Condorcet vs range vs
approval infighting. So it's not as if there's another path that
would get us something better than NPV. In my opinion.
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