From Ballotpedia: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

- Click here for the article.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an interstate compact to award member state's presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote. The NPVIC would go into effect if states representing at least 270 electoral college votes adopt the legislation.[1][2]

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives states the authority to determine how their electoral votes will be awarded: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…." This compact does not abolish the electoral college system; rather, the compacts awards all of the electoral votes from the member states to the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide.[1]

From 538: How Evan McMullin Could Win Utah And The Presidency It’s unlikely, but far from impossible.

Lot's of strange things have been predicted for this electoral cycle - brokered conventions, splintered parties - but none have happened. This might not happen either, but that's no reason to not speculate about it.

- Click here for the article.

With the election only weeks away, Hillary Clinton appears to have the lead and the momentum. As of this writing, the FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast gives her around an 87 percent chance of winning — up from around 55 percent in late September – and that may not have fully absorbed the fallout of Trump’s lewd video, debatable debate performance or the daily deluge of fresh scandal jeopardizing his candidacy.

But if Clinton doesn’t run away with this, there is another candidate who may also have seen his chances of becoming president skyrocket. The third-most likely person to be the next president of the United States: Evan McMullin.

It would take a fascinating scenario — in which much of the technical detail of how we select presidents comes into play — for McMullin to be sworn in as the 45th president, but the chances of its happening are slim, not none.

. . . According to the bio on his website, he served in the CIA for about a decade, and spent time in investment banking, as an adviser for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and as policy director for the House Republican Conference. On the issues, McMullin has taken fairly orthodox Republican positions, including supporting free trade. He has been critical of Trump on immigration, refugees, anti-Muslim rhetoric and on temperament and fitness to be president.

The idea that an independent candidate could swoop in to win has been largely dismissed, on the grounds that any conservative-leaning third-party candidate would be more likely to hurt Trump than Clinton, thus making a Clinton victory more likely. But McMullin may have one advantage that other second-tier candidates do not: Utah.

His path to the presidency basically looks like this:

1. Win Utah
2. Deadlock the Electoral College
3. Win in the House

An Update: Here’s How We’re Forecasting The 4-Way Presidential Race In Utah.

From Politico: The People Who Pick the President

This is sweet!

Background on the handful of people who will cast the actual votes for the president on the real election day: December 19.

They might not vote as expected - see this link to faithless electors.

- Click here for the complete calendar.

- Click here for the article.

Tear up your countdown calendar: The 2016 election will not end on Nov. 8. In fact, it'll carry on until mid-December, when 538 members of the Electoral College huddle in their respective state capitals and cast the only ballots with the power to formally elect the next president.

Because they have rarely deviated from the will of the voters—and never changed the outcome of an election—this constitutional process remains an obscure and anonymous relic of the Founding Fathers. But for six weeks, this assortment of party insiders, donors and, in some cases, fringe activists will be the most powerful force in American democracy. And most Americans will never know who they are.

They include people like Tim Dreste, who was convicted of inciting violence against abortion providers in the 1990s and still wants them to fear him, and Monica Acosta-Zamora, the Texas Democrat who despises Hillary Clinton but became an elector to help a jailed friend. They also include Sybrina Fulton—Trayvon Martin’s mother—and Chris Christie’s dad, Wilbur. There’s a 93-year-old granddaughter of slaves and a 19-year-old Republican activist. Others still are Bernie Sanders supporters and political trailblazers, a motorcycle lobbyist and a Powerball winner.

Though voters will cast ballots for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and several third-party candidates on Election Day, their votes will actually elect partisan slates of Electoral College members. The smallest have just three, and the largest, California, has 55. Republicans and Democrats in each state choose a set of electors—and if their candidate wins the popular vote on Election Day, their slate of electors gets picked to cast ballots in December.

These members are largely bound—by law and by oath—to uphold the will of the voters. And throughout history, few have deviated from that path.

But 2016 is an upside-down year featuring deeply unpopular candidates. A few electors have already threatened to break from Trump or Clinton and vote their conscience—even if that means bucking the will of their state's voters.

From Vox: A modest proposal to replace Trump with Pence — with or without Trump’s consent

The author is a well regarded constitutional scholar, so I'd give this some weight.

New territory here - but nothing outlandish.

- Click here for the article.

Sober Republicans understand that Donald Trump is unfit to wield the awesome power of the presidency, power that in his unsteady hands could imperil the republic and perhaps — given his cavalier discussion of nuclear weapons and generally reckless approach to foreign relations— doom the planet. But even now, at this very late date in the election season, there is one last chance for the Republican establishment to dump Trump: by flipping the ticket and putting the plodding, but at least plausible, Mike Pence in charge.

Watching the vice presidential debate, quite a few Republicans surely wished they inhabited the alternate universe in which Pence, an experienced politician with apparent steadiness and self-discipline, was their nominee. That does not have to be an idle thought; there’s a way to make it happen.

True, early voting has already begun in some places, and almost everywhere it is too late to revise ballots. But a flipped ticket does not require any formal ballot change.

The first step of The Flip must begin very soon — ideally, this week or next. At a joint press conference, Pence and Trump should with fanfare announce that, if they win in November, Pence will be in charge, thanks to the rules laid down by the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which was ratified in 1967 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

At the press conference, Trump would solemnly pledge that on Inauguration Day, January 20, he will, only minutes after taking his oath of office, step aside by invoking the presidential disability provisions of Section Three of the Amendment — much as he might step aside if he were undergoing a scheduled coronary bypass that day. He will give notice on Inauguration Day to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the house that he is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."

Once Trump does step aside on Inauguration Day, Pence would automatically become acting president of the United States under Section Three, entitled to all the powers of the office until Trump seeks to reassert his rights — which Trump at the press conference must promise he will never do. Trump, however, would technically retain the title of president.

For more:

- This Is How Republicans Could Force Trump Off the Ballot.
- There’s no longer any way for Republicans to boot Donald Trump from the ballot.
- Replacing Trump would mean mayhem for GOP: experts.
- Constitutional scholar offers plan to replace Trump.
- How Republicans Could Replace Trump Even if He Stays In.

From the Green Papers: HOW DID WE GET HERE, ANYWAY? an historical analysis of the Presidential Nominating Process.

A manageable, but thorough look at the process.

- Click here for it.

Here's a bit of it:

In the original Constitutional framework, the Electoral College itself was to be the presidential nominating body- the equivalent of today's National Conventions. Each Elector was to choose two men for President without having any idea as to how his individual ballot would affect the ultimate cumulative vote of the Electors as a whole. With the proviso that no more than one of the Elector's two choices could be from the same State as the Elector himself, the assumption was that the Elector's first choice would, most likely, be some "favorite son" from the Elector's own home state while his second choice would be forced to be some other notable from perhaps the same region but, by constitutional edict, from a different state. Clearly, the Framers considered it more than likely that the second choices of various Electors would ultimately determine the five "nominees" for the office from whom the House of Representatives, voting by State not as individuals, would pick the next President (for it is doubtful any of them entertained the notion that- except in the case of George Washington- the Electoral College would ever produce a majority of the electoral vote for any of the Electors' choices for President); it is equally as clear that the Framers also believed that they had come up with a system that would keep faction/party from becoming a factor in the election of a President. They, of course, were very wrong.

Do Democrats have an electoral advantage in the electoral college?

There's an argument that they do. It's roughly based on the idea that Republicans are concentrated in a smaller number of large states and Democrats are more spread out across the nation. Democrats are therefore more competitive in more states than Republicans. The Democratic presidential candidate is therefor more likely to win the necessary electoral college votes. It doesn't matter if you win the state by 1 vote or if you win it unanimously. Every state except two allocate their vote in a winner take all.

Click on these for detail:

- In 2016 race, an electoral college edge for Democrats.
- A big Electoral College advantage for the Democrats is looming.
- Do Democrats have a permanent Electoral College advantage?
- Democrats Shouldn’t Count on an Electoral College Edge in 2016.
- The Electoral College challenge facing the Republicans in 2016.
- Democrats' Electoral College Edge.
- Democrats have a built-in edge in the Electoral College. But it guarantees them nothing for 2016

Here's an image that looks forward to 2016. We of course have no idea who the nominees will be or what might transpire between now and then to change the landscape - bit its a start:

Changes proposed in electoral college

The Virginia House passed a bill that would change how electoral college votes would be allocated in the state - the Pennsylvania legislature attempted a similar change in 2011.

Here's a description from a VA TV station:

The bill would apportion electors by congressional district to the candidate who wins each of the state's 11 districts. The candidate who carries a majority of the districts would also win the two electors not tied to congressional districts.
    
Sen. Charles W. "Bill" Carrico, R-Grayson, said the change is necessary because Virginia's populous, urbanized areas such as the Washington, D.C., suburbs and Hampton Roads can outvote rural regions such as his, rendering their will irrelevant.
    
Last fall, President Barack Obama carried Virginia for the second election in a row, making him the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win Virginia in back-to-back presidential elections. For his victories, he received all 13 of the state's electoral votes.
    
Under Carrico's revision, Obama would have received only four Virginia electoral votes last year while Republican Mitt Romney would have received nine. Romney carried conservative rural areas while Obama dominated Virginia's cities and fast-growing suburbs.
    
Virginia would be only the third state after Maine and Nebraska to apportion electors according to congressional districts, and by far the largest. Maine has only two U.S. House districts, and Nebraska has three.
    
Unlike the other two states, however, Virginia is covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, passed during the civil rights era. The act seeks to ensure that states with a history of racial discrimination - mostly in the South - do not dilute the voting power of minorities. That means Carrico's bill would face scrutiny by the Obama's Justice Department should it become law.

So the shift is not unprecedented since the method is used in two states already, but the fact that the district in Virginia are heavily gerrymandered means that the results will be heavily skewed. This has raised concerns in some quarters. The electoral college may become a tool that can be manipulated to achieve whatever outcome a powerful faction may wish to engineer.

Wonkblog has a great overview of the issues involved in this shift.

Are we headed for a repeat of 2000?

Nate Silver points out that while a handful of polls show Romney ahead in the popular vote, Obama is leading in many swing states, enough to give him a lead in the Electoral College. This would be a repeat of 2000, except that the Democrat would win the race, not the Republican.

The bad news for President Obama: it’s been almost a week since the second presidential debate, in Hempstead, N.Y., one that instant-reaction polls said was a narrow victory for him. But there is little sign that this has translated into a bounce for Mr. Obama in his head-to-head polls against Mitt Romney. Instead, the presidential race may have settled into a period of relative stability.

There is bad news for Mr. Romney as well, however. The “new normal” of the presidential campaign is considerably more favorable for him than the environment before the first debate, in Denver. However, it is one in which he still seems to be trailing, by perhaps 2 percentage points, in the states that are most vital in the Electoral College. 

From the Diane Rehm Show: How the electoral college works

A terrific interview with some experts on the electoral college. They do a much better job than I do outlining the history and purpose of the electoral college, in addition to the changes that have been made to it over history.

Give this a listen.

From NPR: Pa. Republicans Weigh New Electoral College Plan

A debate rages about whether this is an appropriate strategy.

Adjusting the Electoral College

The New York Senate has voted to alter how it allocates its electoral college vote. They will all be assigned to the candidate that wins the national popular vote.

I Love the Electoral College

Or at least I would if it worked the way it was supposed to.

More on that later, but I find it interesting that the nature of the electoral college is being cited by some of you as a reason why you don't care about politics and don't see the point in voting. Nothing unique there. Arguments against the electoral college are regular staples of election commentary. New arguments are tough to find, though certainly the election of 2000 was a wake up call for those who thought it unlikely that the popular vote winner would ever lose the electoral vote again.

Over time I've become a big fan of separated powers, which includes fully distinct elections, and I think it would be beneficial to revert to the system originally envisioned by the country's founders, including a return to state legislative selection for the Senate.

I went over this in class briefly, and will spend more time Monday on it, but the genius of our institutional arrangements begins with the complete autonomy of each, including a completely distinct selection process for each institution. Each ultimately can be traced back to a decision by the general population, which makes it democratic, but the course of each varies, which makes tyranny of the majority difficult to establish. I may be wrong, give me an argument if so, but the introduction of a barrier between popular opinion and the public policy does not make a process undemocratic. It simply alters the nature of the democratic process.

I'd have no problem with a system where candidates run for the electoral college, are elected by us based on the type of president they might seek, and are given full discretion regarding who they give the four year presidential term to. We have a direct popular vote for members of the House, who could control the president by oversight, legislation, and the threat of impeachment. So that's how you have direct democratic control over the president.

I'm not sure how a president (a chief executive remember) could truly, democratically represent the interests of a country of 3 million square miles and 300 million people. There are too many interests and passions in a country that large for one person to represent. That's what the 435 member House of Representatives is for, they are more capable of doing it well. This means that the president would be reduced to an actual executive rather than a leader/savior/knight on a white horse. An electoral college, whose only function is to make this selection then step down from power may well be able to select from various, perhaps unlikely, candidates who would be less likely to fall in love with the power of the office.

Is it possible that we have become skeptical of democracy in the United States because we have grown accustomed to looking to the wrong office for evidence of democracy? That's what the House is for.

Perhaps this is naive, but the current system guarantees that only the excessively ambitious apply. It seems to me that when people complain about something being undemocratic it doesn't necessarly mean that the will of the people is not being heard by elected officials, but that there personal preferences are not carrying the day. It's not undemocratic simply because you lose. In addition, democracy tends to be a rarified mythical concept that is half illusion, like "peace, love and happiness," and "the Texans win." It's one thing to think about what a hypothetical democracy might look like, it another to actually create one.

Just a few thoughts to keep the pot stirred.

By the way, why should the electoral college cause people to not vote for other offices?

Keep the comments coming.