Why isn’t a constitutional amendment required to change the method of electing the President?
According to the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section I), state legislatures decide how to apportion their state’s electoral votes, a power that the Supreme Court has termed “plenary” (absolute). Congress cannot override this right beyond resolving certain administrative questions like the timing of when the Electoral College casts its votes and when states provide their official presidential vote totals. States have often exercised their power over how to allocate electoral votes, particularly during the lifetime of our founding generation. Most states today use the winner-take-all unit rule by which they award all electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote. Few states used the unit rule in our early elections, however, and it did not become the norm until a half-century after the approval of the Constitution. Even today, Nebraska and Maine choose to apportion their votes differently. The U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 10) also establishes that states can ent
