re: #34 Anymouse

That brings up the idea that Constitutional Amendments are darn near impossible to pass now.

It also brings up again the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement being ushered into law in several states. (Interstate compacts are constitutional). The law as written and proposed to various states says that when 270 electoral votes worth of states enter the compact, they will all instruct their electors to vote the same way (for the person who wins the popular vote).

This makes small states (such as Wyoming or Nebraska) just as important as large states (such as California or New York) if the compact comes into force. All votes then become equal, and the states that are marginalised are the ones which are not in the compact. (Becoming an incentive to join it.)

Campaigning would then be across all states rather than just a few swing states. It would also render the Electoral College moot, since compact members would vote as a bloc for the popular vote winner.

Small and large states, Republican and Democratic controlled have joined the Compact, with more states considering the legislation.

Some minor points:

1) The states that have passed this compact all appear to be blue states, some large and some small.

2) If the compact comes into effect, there would be no marginalization of the non-compact states.

3) Since the electoral college would remain as an institution, the faithless elector issue would remain, although it would become negligible in practice with a sufficiently large block of states in the compact. E.g., if the block were exactly 270 votes, a single faithless elector in the block could make a decisive difference, and that temptation would be acted on. If the block is 300+ EV, no problem.