[EL] Interesting National Popular Vote effect on GOP delegates to national conventions

[John Koza]

Responding to Sean Parnell's posting.

If the National Popular Vote compact is going to govern the 2020
presidential election, this fact will be known at the time when the
Republican National Convention meets in the summer of 2020 to update the
party's formula for allocating delegates to its 2024 convention.  

At that time, the 2020 convention could easily change the wording of Rule
14(5) (giving a delegate bonus in 2024 to states carried by the 2020
Republican nominee) from "each state having cast its electoral votes, or a
majority thereof, for the Republican nominee for President of the United
States in the last preceding election" to "each state carried by the
Republican nominee for President of the United States in the last preceding
election."   

Rule 14(5) already reflects careful and farsighted draftsmanship.  For
example, it already contains a special clause handling the contingency of
Puerto Rico being admitted to the Union between conventions.  

Accordingly, we can safely assume that this expert committee will not be in
a coma in the summer of 2020, and that the committee will have taken due
notice of the fact that the National Popular Vote compact is going to govern
the upcoming 2020 presidential election -- thereby rendering obsolete
Governor Scott Walker's lament about the 2016 election: 

"The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president.  Twelve
states are."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0rOKo9BWEU 

 

Dr. John R. Koza, Chair

National Popular Vote

Box 1441

Los Altos Hills, California 94023 USA

Phone: 650-941-0336

Fax: 650-941-9430

Email:  <mailto:john at johnkoza.com> john at johnkoza.com

URL:  <http://www.johnkoza.com/> www.johnkoza.com

URL:  <http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/> www.NationalPopularVote.com

 

 

 

 

From: Sean Parnell [mailto:sean at impactpolicymanagement.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 3:18 PM
To: law-election at UCI.EDU
Subject: [EL] Interesting National Popular Vote effect on GOP delegates to
national conventions

 

This morning I stumbled across an interesting little factoid regarding the
National Popular Vote and its impact on the number of delegates each state
sends to the Republican National Convention. I suspect everyone on the list
understands that under NPV, a state's electoral votes wouldn't necessarily
be cast for the candidate receiving the most votes in a given state, and
most are also probably aware that under the way the RNC awards delegates,
states get "bonus" delegates for things like having a Republican governor or
having a majority in either or both of the state's legislative chambers. And
of course a state also gets bonus delegates if the party's nominee wins the
state.

 

Here's the rub, though - the way the Republican rules are written, the bonus
delegates go to states whose electoral votes go to the party's nominee (you
can read the rule here:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod-static-ngop-pbl/docs/Rules_of_the_Republican+P
arty_FINAL_S14090314.pdf, it's Rule 14 (5) ). Obviously, even if a state
votes for the Republican, but its electoral votes go to the Democrat under
NVP, they don't get the bonus delegates.

 

RNC rules can be changed, of course, but apparently not easily. Meaning
that, in all likelihood, a Republican state legislator in a reliably* "red"
state voting for NPV would be voting to reduce his or her state's delegation
to the national convention in the event the national vote was determined to
have gone for the Democrat. For example, if South Carolina were to be a
member of the compact, and the Democrat was determined to be the NPV winner
while the Republican candidate won the state, if I've done my math correctly
there delegation would be cut from 50 to 41, using 2016 numbers, while
Tennessee would go from 58 to 43.

 

Best,

 

Sean Parnell

President, Impact Policy Management LLC

Alexandria, Virginia

571-289-1374

sean at impactpolicymanagement.com

 

*In a year when polls suggest Clinton could beat Trump in Utah, it's
probably worth re-considering the entire notion of whether states are really
reliable for one party or the other, but that's for another time.

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