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Comment by tsimionescu | Hacker News Reader

In a national vote, your vote is exactly as strong regardless of where you live: one person, one vote.

In the current system, some people's votes, those of the least populous states, count for far, far more than some other people's votes (those in the most populous states).

Plus, today, if you live in a state that is overwhelmingly in favor of one party, your preference for the other party doesn't count in the slightest. If you're a blue Texan or a red New Yorker, there is 0 point to you even going to the polls. In a national voting system, your votes would truly matter as well.

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That’s not being discussed here. It’s about states tossing how their citizens vote in favor of how other states have voted.

The logic is the same regardless of how it is implemented. If the majority of electors are guaranteed to vote according to the result of the national(federal) popular vote, than all voters are equal, and it also then matters if a million people voted R in California or 10 million did (whereas today that is entirely irrelevant). And this all includes the voters of the states that don't join this coalition.

It may feel nice if your state casts its votes for your preferred candidate even if they lose the general election. But it is absolutely 100% entirely irrelevant rationally. And this is the only thing lost if the law change goes through.

People who advocate a national direct democracy should work to change the constitution. States are the selection entity for the country’s executive office.

The states select the president, and in this case, the states agreed to adopt thr compact. Don't see a problem there.

Never said it wasn’t legal for states to adopt it—said it’s not real democracy and disenfranchises votes.

Whose votes get disenfranchised?

If your state participates in the compact, but votes for the loser of the overall popular vote, all of those votes are disenfranchised.

No, they are not. Not anymore than anyone else's vote who voted for a candidate who didn't win.

You are only disenfranchised if your votes can't affect the outcome in practice or in principle. Like, say, the votes for president of Republicans in California or those of Democrats in Texas in practice. Or the votes of those in Puerto Rico even in principle.

Any reasoning you care to provide for that?

Because we are constitutionally not a direct democracy?

First of all, a direct democracy is something else, it is a system where citizens vote for laws and other issues directly instead of appointing representatives such as congress or the president. France is not a direct democracy, even though they elect their president through a direct vote (like all other democratic nations that exist today except the USA).

Second of all, the constitution leaves it up to the states to decide how to appoint their electors. It follows that any system chosen by that state is as constitutional as any other system.

I would also add that a major improvement to the current rotten system would be for states to appoint their electors proportionally, instead of winner-takes-all. That would solve by far the biggest problem with the current system, which is not that Maine gets more representation per citizen than California, but that voting Republican in California is entirely useless.

Thanks for all the corrections to points that I didn’t make.

I asked you for a justification on why the states deciding to decide their electoral votes based on the national popular vote should only happen through a change to the constitution.

Your reply was that the constitution doesn't say that the USA is a direct democracy.

So, I explained that adopting the national vote wouldn't make the USA a direct democracy. I also explained that the constitution doesn't say that the states need to decide the electoral votes based on local popular votes only.

So, I refuted your argument in two different ways. I'm not sure where you feel I didn't respond to it.

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