[EL] ELB News and Commentary 7/15/19

[Sean Parnell]

Justin asks why different rules/procedures in different states would be an
issue under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Briefly, and it
appears this didn't come through well enough in the piece.


The reason is that these differences will spark widespread litigation -
Florida 2000 on a much bigger scale. As I noted, "it becomes the rationale
for serious legal challenges when votes from different states are all
tallied together." 


It's no big deal for Oregon to determine Oregon's electors based on Oregon's
laws (which, for example, require that a mailed-in ballot be received by the
elections office by election day in order to count) and Oregon voters, but
now that Oregon's electors are also going to be decided by Washington's
voters as well (which only requires the ballot be postmarked by election
day), you've got no shortage of legal claims about disenfranchisement and
the like. Now do this for every state.


This is hardly the listserve that needs to be reminded that elections often
spur litigation, much of it on election day and int the days following. My
point is that NPV would dramatically expand this litigation and offer new
avenues for litigation based on the fact that voters in different states are
treated very differently. I had one election attorney describe NPV as the
"Election Lawyers Full Employment Act" for this reason.


Also, the fact that the fourth most populous state in the union seems to be
unable to put the right vote tally on the piece of paper that NPV says will
be the official source of vote totals seems problematic.


Best,


Sean Parnell




 


 <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106301> "Presidential popular vote compact
would lead to chaos"


Posted on  <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106301> July 15, 2019 11:01 am by
<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=4> Justin Levitt

Sean Parnell, over at
<https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/452467-presidential-popular-vote-compa
ct-would-lead-to-chaos> The Hill, notes some concerns about the National
Popular Vote compact.

Some of these concerns have to do with the fact that different states have
different rules for administering elections.  I've got mixed emotions about
NPV myself, but I'm not sure why the simple fact of different rules in each
state necessarily implies more trouble in ascertaining the total.  Or why a
vote with consequences calibrated to the national total necessarily implies
a perfectly uniform set of national rules.

 
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp
%3D106301&title=%E2%80%9CPresidential%20popular%20vote%20compact%20would%20l
ead%20to%20chaos%E2%80%9D> 

Posted in  <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44> electoral college

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