Civil rights activists are challenging the legality of four states’ winner-take-all method of allocating U.S. presidential electoral college votes, claiming the practice magnifies some votes at the expense of others and violates voters’ constitutional rights. The lawsuits were filed Wednesday in Texas and South Carolina, two states seen as “solidly red,” or Republican, and Massachusetts and California, two states seen as “solidly blue,” or Democratic, according to a statement from the activists’ lawyers. Veteran U.S. Supreme Court litigator David Boies, of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, and the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, are spearheading the “non-partisan” challenges.
“Under the winner-take-all system, U.S. citizens have been denied their constitutional right to an equal vote in presidential elections,” Boies said in an emailed statement. “This is a clear violation of the principle of one person, one vote.”
The lawsuits don’t challenge the electoral college system established by the Constitution, according to the statement. Instead, they question the way most states allocate all their presidential electors to the candidate who polls the most popular votes in that state. The four states account for 113 out of the nations’s 538 electoral college votes.
Full Article: Winner-Take-All Electoral Practice Faces Voter-Rights Challenge – Bloomberg.