I'm unsure that the current conservative SCOTUS would actually uphold the constitutionality of the NPVIC due to it *substantively* (not *formally*) removing small states' disproportionate say in determining the US President. For instance, if we had a NPVIC, but based on the New York state popular vote rather than based on the US popular vote, would it be constitutional? I can't unequivocally say Yes because *substantively* it would reduce the say of all non-New York US states to zero in electing the US President. But I can't unequivocally say No either. It's thus an open question.
Ranked-choice voting is excellent! It should absolutely be done with a national popular vote, and nationwide, to boot, because I don't want someone winning the US Presidency with just 40% of the national popular vote if his opponents combined would have gotten 60% and would have allied with each other against the 40% guy in the second round. But also recounts are going to be very problematic with a national popular vote system because *Bush v. Gore* says that recounts have to be uniform, and it would be rather difficult to create an enforcement mechanism to do this nationwide, no?
If it was just New York in the NIRVIC, then all the other states’ electoral votes would be chosen by the old system.
Of course there could be a compromise with NIRVIC in that it weights votes from small states slightly larger. (or it could use a different voting system such as STAR instead of IRV).
No, I meant that US states making up 270+ electoral votes would all be in the NIRVIC, but they’d simply all base their electoral vote award on New York’s popular vote, not on the nation’s popular vote at large. Hypothetically speaking, I mean. Zero chance of actually happening but meant as a hypothetical scenario.
I think that weighing votes from small states slightly larger would be an unconstitutional form of vote dilution, no? Though maybe SCOTUS could excuse it if it would be modeled on the Electoral College itself?
I also like Ranked Robin: every voter ranks each candidate 1 (worse) to 5 (best), the candidate that wins the most pairwise comparisons wins, if there's a tie, then among the candidates winning the most comparisons, their average score is used as a tie-breaker.
I think that France was severely hurt by the lack of any instant runoff voting system in 2002, when clearly most voters preferred both Jospin and Chirac to Le Pen but the latter two advanced to the second round because other Leftists absolutely cannibalized Jospin's base of support in the first round, thus allowing Le Pen to barely triumph over him.
There’s of course another idea: Having the US Supreme Court use the 14th Amendment and/or the Guarantee Clause to declare winner-take-all unconstitutional so that US states would be forced to award their electoral votes either by Congressional district or proportionally (based on their popular vote) instead.
I think that'd be a huge stretch of the Fourteenth Amendment, but not much more than how the Court already used it to demand all houses of the state legislature be districted based on population.
Yeah, IMHO, Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims should have been decided based on the Guarantee Clause instead. The Equal Protection Clause is a much worse fit for these cases.
That would've been less of a stretch, but still bad. The Guarantee Clause hasn't changed since 1789, when most of the states had unequal legislative districts, let alone how many of them restricted the vote to property-owning men! So whatever "a republican form of government" is, it needs to be broad enough to allow for that!
I like this system much more than first-past-the-post! I think it'd be very good for any state, even one state, to adopt it. Or, if many states do it, each state can use its internal Secondary Phase results to determine the winner of its electoral votes even without an interstate compact.
Also, a nitpick: Maine and Nebraska split their electoral college votes by the majority in each Congressional district, plus two more to the statewide winner. That's still bad, but not as bad as the way the other 48 states do it.
I'm unsure that the current conservative SCOTUS would actually uphold the constitutionality of the NPVIC due to it *substantively* (not *formally*) removing small states' disproportionate say in determining the US President. For instance, if we had a NPVIC, but based on the New York state popular vote rather than based on the US popular vote, would it be constitutional? I can't unequivocally say Yes because *substantively* it would reduce the say of all non-New York US states to zero in electing the US President. But I can't unequivocally say No either. It's thus an open question.
Ranked-choice voting is excellent! It should absolutely be done with a national popular vote, and nationwide, to boot, because I don't want someone winning the US Presidency with just 40% of the national popular vote if his opponents combined would have gotten 60% and would have allied with each other against the 40% guy in the second round. But also recounts are going to be very problematic with a national popular vote system because *Bush v. Gore* says that recounts have to be uniform, and it would be rather difficult to create an enforcement mechanism to do this nationwide, no?
If it was just New York in the NIRVIC, then all the other states’ electoral votes would be chosen by the old system.
Of course there could be a compromise with NIRVIC in that it weights votes from small states slightly larger. (or it could use a different voting system such as STAR instead of IRV).
No, I meant that US states making up 270+ electoral votes would all be in the NIRVIC, but they’d simply all base their electoral vote award on New York’s popular vote, not on the nation’s popular vote at large. Hypothetically speaking, I mean. Zero chance of actually happening but meant as a hypothetical scenario.
I think that weighing votes from small states slightly larger would be an unconstitutional form of vote dilution, no? Though maybe SCOTUS could excuse it if it would be modeled on the Electoral College itself?
But no state would every agree to that.
Agree to the former or to the latter paragraph here?
The former
What is STAR, BTW?
Score than automatic runoff.
Every voter gives each candidate a score between 1 (lowest) and 5 (highest).
The 2 candidates with the highest scores go to runoff.
The one of them who wins the most pairwise comparisons between the 2 wins.
Interesting. That could work, I think? But with a national popular vote, it would need to be done nationwide.
I also like Ranked Robin: every voter ranks each candidate 1 (worse) to 5 (best), the candidate that wins the most pairwise comparisons wins, if there's a tie, then among the candidates winning the most comparisons, their average score is used as a tie-breaker.
https://www.equal.vote/ranked_robin
Once states with >=270 electoral votes join NIRVIC, the others would have to join, otherwise their votes would be meaningless.
I think that France was severely hurt by the lack of any instant runoff voting system in 2002, when clearly most voters preferred both Jospin and Chirac to Le Pen but the latter two advanced to the second round because other Leftists absolutely cannibalized Jospin's base of support in the first round, thus allowing Le Pen to barely triumph over him.
That's entirely possible.
There’s of course another idea: Having the US Supreme Court use the 14th Amendment and/or the Guarantee Clause to declare winner-take-all unconstitutional so that US states would be forced to award their electoral votes either by Congressional district or proportionally (based on their popular vote) instead.
I think that'd be a huge stretch of the Fourteenth Amendment, but not much more than how the Court already used it to demand all houses of the state legislature be districted based on population.
Yeah, IMHO, Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims should have been decided based on the Guarantee Clause instead. The Equal Protection Clause is a much worse fit for these cases.
That would've been less of a stretch, but still bad. The Guarantee Clause hasn't changed since 1789, when most of the states had unequal legislative districts, let alone how many of them restricted the vote to property-owning men! So whatever "a republican form of government" is, it needs to be broad enough to allow for that!
But one can view the definition of a "republican form of government" as being *evolving*!
Agreed. Both are massive stretches.
I like this system much more than first-past-the-post! I think it'd be very good for any state, even one state, to adopt it. Or, if many states do it, each state can use its internal Secondary Phase results to determine the winner of its electoral votes even without an interstate compact.
Also, a nitpick: Maine and Nebraska split their electoral college votes by the majority in each Congressional district, plus two more to the statewide winner. That's still bad, but not as bad as the way the other 48 states do it.