Aiken '08

the states are free to decide how to choose presidential electors, the US constitution does not even mention popular votes in each state to choose electors. In 1812, only half the states had popular votes for President, the other half had their legislatures choose their electors. By 1824, one fourth of the legislatures still chose the electors, and the last holdout was South Carolina which did not have a popular vote to choose electors until after the Civil War.

No worries. I would be surprised if it didn't have to pass muster with the U.S. Supreme Court as well because of the constitutional issues it raises.

— RTB

You are quite right. I was imprecise.

Abolishing the EC, or eliminating it as a factor able to circumvent the will of the majority of voters, is long overdue. Small states west of the Mississippi River have far too much clout. A small number of landowners of cornfields, oilfields, and grazing range shouldn't be able to dictate the outcome of elections moreso than hundreds of thousands of voters in the big cities. And North Carolina is a top-10 population state now, not some rural small state that needs to protect its power position.

Maintaining the Electoral College is best for North Carolinians. There are numerous arguments debating the feasibility of direct election of the president. Linked below is a memorandum devoted to the effects this compact will have on North Carolinians. While the Electoral College voting system may not be perfect (i.e. unit rule), North Carolina is in a stronger position to influence national policies when we assign our presidential electors according to the will of our state's voters.

Na zdraví (cheers)

http://www.jwpcivitasinstitute.org/keylinks/PolicyBrief/PresidentialElectors.pdf

My point was simply that it would not have to pass smaller states like Wyoming in order to take effect, hence not "standard across the country."

— RTB 

Do the actual math though. So far the only state to pass it is Maryland, which has 10 EVs. If this passes the house and is signed then it will jump to 25. That will still leave us at minimum 10 states away from it taking effect, and to do that you would have to have states as disparate as Michigan and Pennsylvania vote for along with Texas and Florida and California.

So it would have to be both Republican and Democratic legislatures passing it. If you add up the EVs for every state where Democrats control both the State House and the State Senate you only get to 232 EVs, short of the requirement. So this exact bill would have to be agreed to by Republican Governors and by Republican legislatures.

Less doomsday and more research please.

So North Carolina would not be doing this unilaterally (to the benefit of the Democratic party in recent history), but would only be doing it if it became the standard across the country.

To be clear, it wouldn't be the "standard across the country" but the standard among the states representing the majority of voters. 

— RTB 

Are they actually trying to make the case that having this rule in place would be bad for the country? Having this rule in place would have prevented the WORST PRESIDENT EVER from destroying the integrity of our once-great nation.

A vote against electoral college reform is ringing endorsement of George Bush. Are there actually any "informed" people who publicly stand behind the naked emperor?

It is important to note what the bill says: "This agreement [between states] shall take effect when states cumulatively possessing a majority of the electoral votes have enacted this agreement in substantially the same form, and the enactments by such states have taken effect in each state."

So North Carolina would not be doing this unilaterally (to the benefit of the Democratic party in recent history), but would only be doing it if it became the standard across the country.

Also, this is a state's rights issue: the states have the right to appoint electors in any way they choose, under the constitution.