(June 29, 2018 at 11:51 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:(June 29, 2018 at 11:13 am)A Theist Wrote: ...and in most states aren't the electoral votes awarded to the winner on a state by state popular vote?
Some states have laws where the electoral representative must vote for the majority vote of the state.
Which is why there has been a movement called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which means that whomever wins the national popular vote gets all of a state's electors. If this policy is signed into law in enough states to equal more than 270 electoral votes then the electoral college would basically be obsolete and the US would, for all intents and purposes, become a nation that elects its presidents by popular vote.
For example, if states comprising 270 or more electoral votes had joined the NPVIC before 2016 Hillary Clinton would now be president regardless of whether Trump won the popular vote in any of those individual states.
Right now the NPVIC has passed in 12 states comprising 172 electoral votes. It has passed both houses of 2 more states (14 EVs), but in different years so it wasn't enacted into law, and passed in one house in 9 more states (75 EVs) and was approved by committee in 2 states (27 EVs).
It would have to be reintroduced, passed and enacted in ALL of the states above for the NPVIC to take effect which basically means it will never be passed because among the above states are Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, not to mention several Great Plains states and states with the minimum number of EVs who generally don't like the idea of going to a popular vote system because they would then lose their disproportionate representation in the Electoral College.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
