[EM] piling on against IRV

[Raph Frank]

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 8:05 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
<km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:
> Warren thinks, and I would be inclined to agree, that the compact would have
> had a greater chance if it had specified "the popular vote within the states
> that are part of the compact". Then states would want to join to balance out
> the result from the states already in it.

It might have been better not to actually call it a compact.

If it is a compact, then they need Congress to approve it.  Ofc, if
they tried to create an agreement any other way, the SC might declare
it a compact anyway.

Another problem is that it must remain balanced.

For example, if the compact was 30% republican and 70% democrat, then
a state with only 5% of the population has no reason to join the
compact.  If they are mainly democrat, then it doesn't matter if they
join, as the votes will go democrat anyway.  If the new state is
mainly republican, then joining is just throwing their votes away, as
their 5% isn't going to swing it.

Maybe they could have a rule that only states which voted for the
party that the compact voted against at the more recent Presidential
election, including votes cast in members that weren't members at the
time, are allowed to join.

If the total votes in compact states was

Dem: 60,000,000
Rep: 50,000,000

and a state which voted

Dem: 5,000,000
Rep: 7,000,000

applied to join, it would be allowed, as it increases the votes of the
weaker party.

Once they join, the totals are updated.

Dem: 65,000,000
Rep: 57,000,000

Eventually, as more Rep-leaning states join, the Rep's would have a
majority and then Democrat states could join.

Also, the 270 threshold is probably not that important.  A compact
which cast 200 votes for the NPV winner would likely swing the
election.

I wonder what the reaction of the SC would be if states representing
300 votes created a compact which only uses votes within the compact,
and then refused to allow new members.

It would be reasonable for Congress to block the compact unless the
rules allowed any state to join.

> but it was really about the mechanics of election integrity

I think re-scaling the votes in each State so that they are
proportional to population is reasonable.

The votes for each candidate would be:

(votes cast for the candidate)*[ (population of the state)/(number of
votes cast in the state) ]

This eliminates the incentive for states to pad their vote counts.

Another issue is how to handle the senate bonus.  If the large states
start the compact, they could leave that provision out.

Since there are 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, each state
effectively has a boost of population equal to two 435ths of the total
population of the US (0.46%).  The effective population of each State
for re-scaling could be defined as actual population plus 0.5% of the
population of the US.