COULD THE PRESIDENT BE CHOSEN BY POPULAR VOTE? (COMMENT).

COULD THE PRESIDENT BE CHOSEN BY POPULAR VOTE? (COMMENT). I posted here that I could not believe that the Constitution would ever be amended to provide for the election of the President by popular vote. Susan posted some long thoughtful comments at the link about the National Popular Vote bill, which seeks to achieve a popular vote for President without amending the Constitution. You can read her comments at the link, but for convenience, I am going to quote from some of her comments: “The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).” I argued in my post that small states would be unwilling to give up the extra voting weight they get in the electoral college, but Susan argues persuasively that it is only voters in battleground states that benefit from the current system. Could the effort be successful? Susan points out that: “The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.”