OTL yes - but TTL this election (and others since 1804) have been by direct popular vote.

You're right: you were speculating about 1860-as-OTL-except-with-this-amendment-in-place. But there is no point in trying to "game" the OTL 1860 election under different rules, when 56 years of different history would have replaced all the persons and issues leading up to it., so I didn't even consider that you were doing that.
 
You're right: you were speculating about 1860-as-OTL-except-with-this-amendment-in-place. But there is no point in trying to "game" the OTL 1860 election under different rules, when 56 years of different history would have replaced all the persons and issues leading up to it., so I didn't even consider that you were doing that.

Would they be changed as much as all that?

Except for 1824 (and even there Adams could well still emerge the winner) in every election pre-1876 the popular vote winner received an electoral college majority. So it's not inevitable that things are hugely changed.

And, more generally, even if some individual presidents are changed, it's still more than likely that at some point there'll still be a Mexican War and a resulting wrangle about slavery leading to the emergence of something like the Republican Party. I agree that many of the personalities involved may be different, but a situation analogous to 1860 remains entirely possible. Maybe the leading candidates would be, say, Seward and Cass (or some figures with totally unfamiliar names) rather than Lincoln and Douglas, but I stuck to the OTL names for simplicity's sale. And as far as I can see my basic point (that in a DPV election one of the northern candidates is a pretty sure winner, and people will be aware of that) is still just as valid even with different individuals.
 
Would they be changed as much as all that?
Yes. For one thing, with a national popular vote, the parties in each state would want to maximize voter registration and turnout, not just the vote to win the state. I.e if one party was completely dominant, which OTL would guarantee winning the EV, ITTL both parties would still want to maximize their votes. This would drive states to enact the broadest possible franchise.

Consider 1824. Virginia, which had 24 EV, cast only 15,371 popular votes. New Jersey, which had only 8 EV, cast 19,837. Obviously, Virginia had a much narrower franchise than New Jersey. In OTL, that had no effect on Virginia's political power. ITTL, it would reduce that power, and so would be discarded. However, the broader franchise would almost certainly change the outcomes of many Virginia elections. I would expect greater influence for the northwestern counties, and probably they would succeed in breaking away to form West Virginia before 1860. New Hampshire and Connecticut also had 8 EV like New Jersey, but cast only about 10,000 votes each. Rhode Island cast only 2,345 votes for 4 EV.

By 1828, many states immensely expanded their franchises. Pennsylvania tripled its popular vote. This would have happened 20 years earlier ITTL. There was still wide variation in voting participation, which continued for decades more. In 1844, Rhode Island cast 12,296 votes for 4 EV. Two EV were automatic, so that was 6,148 PV per apportioned EV. Massachusetts cast 132,037 PV for 10 apportioned EV: 13,204 PV/aEV. Even in 1860, there were wide discrepancies: New York's ratio was 22,500, while that of Massachusetts was 15,400. (Note that I have avoided comparing slave and non-slave states, or rapidly growing frontier states to long-settled states.)

During this period, popular votes sometimes increased very rapidly, again as late as 1860, when the national popular vote increased to 4,681,267 from 4,051,605 in 1856. National popular voting would have driven this increase much earlier.

The election of 1836 was fought by the Whigs on an electoral-college strategy - they would have done something radically different with a national popular vote.

A national popular vote would even generate pressure to enfranchise women. (Not just a crazy notion even then. Abe Lincoln spoke out for it in the 1830s.)
 
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Yes. For one thing, with a national popular vote, all states would want to maximize voter registration and turnoutm not just the vote to win the state.

Two points there.

Firstly, if DPV were adopted the States would almost certainly not be free to set their own franchise laws - at least not for POTUS.

The states with narrower franchises would see the point you are making, and would, at the very least, insist on a specified franchise for the presidential races, to be the same throughout the United States. As to exactly what it would be, there could be a lot of haggling over that. About the most generous option would probably be something like "all white male persons over 21 years, and able to read, write and explain a section of the Constitution of the United States", but some states might hold out for a narrower one that that. The number of eligible voters could actually go down in some places.

Secondly, even if states were allowed to do as you suggest, for many years to come there would be little incentive to do so. The decline of the Federalists meant that elections became very one-sided after 1800. It would be almost a quarter of a century before you got one whose outcome wasn't a foregone conclusion. So there's be no pressing reason to extend the franchise.



During this period, popular votes sometimes increased very rapidly, again as late as 1860, when the national popular vote increased to 4,681,267 from 4,051,605 in 1856.

Not sure what you're driving at here.

Voter turnout in 1860 did indeed rise from 1856 - but only from 78.9% to 81.2%. The absolute numbers were up but this was presumably due to population increase rather than to any changes in franchise laws - if indeed, there were any such changes between 1856 and 1860.

The 1856 turnout was only a recovery to the level of 1844 (it dropped off during the intervening decade) and even 1860s was only one percent above the 80.2% of 1840. This figure has been surpassed only once - 81.8% in 1876, a record which stands to this day.
 
The states with narrower franchises would see the point you are making, and would, at the very least, insist on a specified franchise for the presidential races, to be the same throughout the United States. As to exactly what it would be, there could be a lot of haggling over that. About the most generous option would probably be something like "all white male persons over 21 years, and able to read, write and explain a section of the Constitution of the United States"

That would be a very strict franchise, and would never be accepted.

The number of eligible voters could actually go down in some places.
Right bleeping out. There is no way an egalitarian frontier state like Kentucky or Ohio is going to allow East Coast dudes to deny the vote to any of their citizens. And who is going to compose and administer these tests?

Secondly, even if states were allowed to do as you suggest, for many years to come there would be little incentive to do so. The decline of the Federalists meant that elections became very one-sided after 1800. It would be almost a quarter of a century before you got one whose outcome wasn't a foregone conclusion.

There were five elections in the next almost-a-quarter-of-a-century: 1804, 1808, 1812, 1816, and 1820. 1820 was, uniquely, uncontested. 1804 and 1816 might be considered to fall into the category of "foregone conclusion". But the elections of 1808 and 1812 were both strongly contested, especially 1812.

We have no popular vote numbers, but the electoral vote splits (ignoring some faithless and non-voting electors) were 129-47 (74%-26%) in 1808 and 129-89 (59%-41%) in 1812. The 1808 EV result was closer than the EV results in 1832, 1840*, 1852*, 1864*, 1872, 1920, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940*, 1944*, 1952, 1956, 1964, 1980*, 1984, and 1988*, which includes five results where the popular vote difference was less than 10%. (Marked with *)

The 1812 result was closer than all those, and also 1828, 1844*, 1868*, 1892*, 1896*, 1900*, 1904, 1908*, 1948*, 1972, 2008*, and 2012*, including another nine <10% PV difference results.

Again, we don't have popular vote data for those elections. But the electoral vote data strongly suggests that popular support was not extremely lopsided throughout this period. Thus, even in a state where one party was dominant, that party would want to maximize the popular vote there, while in any state where neither party was dominant, both would seek to maximize voting by their supporters.

Voter turnout in 1860 did indeed rise from 1856 - but only from 78.9% to 81.2%.

"78.9% to 81.2%" of what? Male adult citizens? Registered voters?

The absolute numbers were up but this was presumably due to population increase rather than to any changes in franchise laws - if indeed, there were any such changes between 1856 and 1860.

4,051,605 is 78.9% of 5,135,114

4,681,267 is 81.2% of 5,765,107

That's an increase of 12.2%. Which would be fairly close to general population growth for four years of that decade. I had forgotten how rapidly the US population was growing in that era: over 3%/year from 1840 to 1860.
 
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That would be a very strict franchise, and would never be accepted.

Right bleeping out. There is no way an egalitarian frontier state like Kentucky or Ohio is going to allow East Coast dudes to deny the vote to any of their citizens.

Could those states by themselves prevent an Amendment being ratified?

And what's the alternative? If it allows each state to augment its political clout, the Amendment hasn't a prayer of ratification. So the whole WI falls to the ground.
 
And what's the alternative? If it allows each state to augment its political clout, the Amendment hasn't a prayer of ratification.

Do you think there was ever a time in US history when the EC could realistically have been abolished? There was bipartisan support for this in the 20th Century. Truman's VP supported it, while Nixon wanted to replace it with a national popular vote system. Obviously an in-depth discussion on those examples belong in post-1900, but I'm interested in hearing some thoughts on that question....
 
Actually wait-are we assuming that it’s straight plurality and not some kind of runoff system?

Funnnyhat assumed that in message #13. after I raised the point. I agree it is far from certain, but then this whole WI is extremely low probability, so who knows?
 
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