Electoral College Reform vs. the EP Clause

DEMOREP1 at aol.com DEMOREP1 at aol.com
Mon Oct 28 20:12:48 PST 1996


Yet another constitutional roadblock to statutory interstate fixes to the
Electoral College may well be the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th
Amendment. 

If the popular votes within a State are weighted unequally based on the
results in some other States, then the courts may easily rule that the Equal
Protection Clause has been violated as not being one person- one vote within
that, repeat, that State.

A State is subject to the Equal Protection Clause if it elects its
presidential electors by popular vote based on another constitutional law
principle that something enacted later repeals anything enacted earlier (with
the 14th Amendment being ratified in 1868 versus Art. II, Sec. 1, Cl. 2
("appoint" for presidential electors) being ratified in 1787 and the 12th
Amendment being ratified in 1804).

If a State legislature passed a law saying that only the voters in county X
in that State could elect all of its presidential electors, then is there any
doubt that the courts would say that such law violates the Equal Protection
Clause ?

Weighting the popular votes to produce unequal ratios of presidential
electors/popular votes for different candidates is just another
unconstitutional variant.

The KIS (keep it simple) principle applies.  A constitutional amendment
having an uniform definition of elector for federal elections should be
enacted along with a single winner method with all references to the
Electoral College being explicitly repealed in Art. II, Sec. 1, Cls. 1, 2, 3,
4; 12th Amdt; 14th Amdt, Secs. 2, 3; 20th Amdt, Sec. 4; 23rd Amdt; and 24th
Amdt, Sec. 1.




More information about the Election-Methods mailing list