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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

> National Popular Vote (NPV) would reward states with lax election laws - the higher the turnout, legal or not, the more power for that state.

Illegal voting is already illegal, and states can already in theory do shady things in their elections (and some probably already do). The courts should absolutely go after this, and I don't see NPV really changing this.

> The NPV system focus the most energy on states with a high population in this condition.

Perhaps so, but the one of the main points of NPV is for state boundaries to be meaningless for campaigning. Maybe politicians should spend more time in densely populated areas because, well, there are more people there.

> What would happen when there are charges of skullduggery? Would states really trust, with no power to verify, other state’s returns?

Do states currently trust that other states hold fair elections to determine how their electors vote? I don't see any change here.

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> Do states currently trust that other states hold fair elections to determine how their electors vote? I don't see any change here.

Currently the effects of any illegal voting are contained to the state that the illegal voting happened in; North Dakota's electors aren't going to vote differently even if there are 6 million illegal votes in California. With an NPV that isn't the case.

Why would there be 6 million illegal votes in California? That's a pretty far-fetched premise to base your voting system arguments on.

There are those on the right that think over a million of illegal votes happen (based on estimates of number of illegal aliens, surveys of if they vote, lack of voter ID in certain states, etc.)

The current system is resistant to these concerns, so the lack of a nation-wide voter ID is less important than it would be with a national popular vote.

Illegal voting is extremely rare. A bigger problem is election fraud.

The reason the United States are United is because there was a uniform consideration. You'll be seeing states secede as there will be no benefit for them to remain.

No state will ever actually secede from the US. Period.

It would be unfortunate if states felt they wanted to secede because their citizens were given the same political influence over presidential election as citizens of other states.

It would be California and New York deciding the fate of all other states. You would definitely see a mass succession.

> It would be California and New York deciding the fate of all other states.

No, it wouldn't.

California and New York, even voting as a 100% block, don't represent a national majority. Heck, they aren't even the two largest states (#2 is Texas.)

It wouldn't be states representing a relatively small fraction of the population dictating control of the Senate while be overly powerful in choosing the President—but they'd still control the Senate, and hereby have a veto on federal law. So why would they secede?

> You would definitely see a mass succession.

(1) you mean secession, and

(2) if the low-population, mostly low-GDP states secede and thereby sacrifice their disproportionate control over be rest of the country, that they otherwise retain as long as the Senate exists with or without also having extra Presidential vote weighting (the small, high-GDP states have largely signed on to the national popular vote, so aren't likely to secede over it), whose loss is that?

The first state to secede will be California, and rightfully so, when the Trump wave of 2020 gives the Repubs control of 37 state legislatures, and the first ridiculous Constitutional amendment focuses on who and who is not allowed to use particular public restrooms. They might be joined by other west-coast states...

It would be all voters across the country electing the president, regardless of which state they live in. Right now, you have state electors directly electing the President, and certain states have extremely disproportionately low influence, and those states don't even secede.

It seems unlikely to me, but perhaps some states would try to secede if the system changed such that their voters receives the same influence as every other voter in the country. I would not support that decision.

Low-population states seceding from the union would fuck themselves over hard, since they are overwhelmingly the beneficiaries of federal aid. In fact, I suspect many of them would cease to be viable entities altogether.

California and New York only have about 25% of Americans. Check my math, but i think that's less than a majority.

The Electoral College is apportioned by population already (with a slight bias). If California and New York had a mojority of the voters, they would already have a majority of EC votes.

California and New York also aren't monolithic. Remember: the electoral college is a lie. People in states don't actually all have the same opinions. Californians supported Trump by 40%.

States already (and I believe always have) had different numbers of electoral votes, no?

Honest question: how realistic is it for small states like Wyoming to secede from US if this system changes. I strongly suspect the probability is close to impossible.

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