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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Scheme to neutralize 36 states’ votes advances

Lawmakers line up behind plan that dumps Electoral College without constitutional amendment

The National Popular Vote effort, which could see the 14 states with the largest populations decide the presidency, is more than halfway to its goal of legally bypassing the Electoral College established in the Constitution.

Last week, the Maine state Senate voted in support of the plan one week after both houses of the New York legislature overwhelmingly supported it.

Now the governors of both states will need to decide whether to formally back the National Popular Vote, or NPV.

The plan is more than halfway to its goal of electing future presidents via the popular vote, after Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an independent, signed on last July.

The NPV campaign seeks to obtain the consent of the majority of the 538 votes in the Electoral College to award its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

" Instead, once enough states agree to allot their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, the Electoral College becomes irrelevant."

The States are prohibited from doing this per the Constitution Article II, Section 1. They are required to vote using only the votes generated in their own state, and if a candidate is from their state, those votes cannot be counted.