[EL] Will Republicans embrace the National Vote Planin 2012?

[Douglas Johnson]

I believe that is very doubtful. While there is considerable partisan divide
on National Vote Plan, my own concerns (as an independent-registered voter),
and I suspect the concerns of many other people, are two-fold: (1)
constitutional change is better done as constitutional amendment, rather
than as an end-around; and (2) the National Vote Plan is unenforceable. 

Imagine if NVP were in place this year and Romney wins the popular vote but
loses the electoral college. How many people believe that the Secretaries of
State in California and New York (for example) will actually seat the Romney
electors to deliver the election to Romney, even though Obama has his
virtually certain major victories in each state?

I know there's language in NVP that claims to lock states in, but it would
be a huge surprise to me if there is anyone who doesn't think lawsuits will
be filed within seconds of such a situation, and who doesn't think that
there's at least a significant chance a judge will overturn NVP in that
situation. Certainly overwhelming majorities of voters in CA and NY (in this
scenario) would call for ignoring NVP and seating the electors that those
voters voted for in their states, leading each Secretary of State to side
"with the voters" in rejecting NVP.

- Doug

Douglas Johnson
Fellow
Rose Institute of State and Local Government
m 310-200-2058
o 909-621-8159
douglas.johnson at cmc.edu





-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Michael
McDonald
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 11:04 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Will Republicans embrace the National Vote Planin 2012?

There is an interesting early dynamic emerging in the polling this cycle.
Romney is neck and neck with Obama nationally, but Obama is leading in key
states for the race for the Electoral College. 

Some reasons why this may be true is that the economy is doing better in key
battleground states, while Romney hurt himself with his auto-bailout
position in states like Ohio. The economy is doing the worst in some urban
Democratic strongholds, so Obama may be able to lose support in these areas
while still winning these states by a comfortable margin. And Obama does
very poorly in deep red states. In other words, there does not appear to be
a uniform national  vote swing from the 2008 to 2012 election.

This raises interesting questions: if Obama beats Romney in the Electoral
College but loses in the popular vote, will Republicans change their tune
about the National Vote Plan? Could we see strategic Republican state
governments sign on to the NPV in the waning days of the general election if
the dynamic I note persists?

============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor, George Mason University Non-Resident Senior Fellow,
Brookings Institution

                             Mailing address:
(o) 703-993-4191             George Mason University
(f) 703-993-1399             Dept. of Public and International Affairs
mmcdon at gmu.edu               4400 University Drive - 3F4
http://elections.gmu.edu     Fairfax, VA 22030-4444



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