quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
A State agreeing to the popular vote process would have no reason to even put the Presidential election on its ballots, since the voting of the Electors would not be tied to the wishes of state voters. If even one State did this, there would be no valid popular voter count. Some States could allocate their Electors by the Party held by its Representatives and Senators--again, no need for the President to be on the ballot.

All it would take to put a kink in this plan would be for a couple of fairly large States (Texas and Florida, for example) to vote to align their Electors all to the Party with a majority of Congresscritters and leave that race off the ballot. In a sense they'd still be doing something like the "winner take all" most States do use, because those people are elected by the voters, but with varying degrees of majority. Without valid voter numbers from those States, any attempt to base Electoral votes based on the popular vote would be invalid.

flashguy

quote:

The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, §1. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 28—33....
The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 (“There is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).