Probably unconstitutional as the constitution mandates that each state provide to its citizens a representative form of government, meaning the state's electoral votes need to match the public's votes. It would be unconstitutional to apportion the state's representatives by vote of another state's voters.
Why? Representative forms of electing a head of state / government are the norm. For example, it's common practice in the Westminster system.
In my opinion the only thing that ought to change is we ought to elect the elector directly. That would make it easier for them to make proper deals and compromises.
But states' electoral votes don't match its public's votes. Most states are winner-take-all, which (if your constitutional understanding is correct) should be equally unconstitutional. But I think the "representative form of government" refers to state offices being elected and not hereditary/etc, and not how federal electoral votes are allocated.
The constitution requires a representative system of government. That is met with a winner take all situation because the electors are chosen in a system that only assesses the votes of the citizens of that state (you elect a whole slate of electors rather than a single one). Another representative system of choosing electors is having state senates just pick who the electors will vote for, because that is also representative of the citizens of the state (just multiple layers of representation).
Choosing electors based on another state's vote however is not representative.
I mean it kinda sorta makes sense, but it is not an argument that anyone else has advanced. I think you're seeing a non-existent conflict between that state governments be representative (Article IV, Section 4) with the right for states to appoint electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" (Article II, Section 1).
In most states, all the electoral votes are assigned to one candidate, yet it often happens that 49.9% of the state’s electorate did not vote for that person. Why is that constitutional if the state’s electoral votes need to match the public’s votes?
The constitution lets each state's legislature pick electors through whatever means it chooses. Popular vote, friends of the legislature, arm wrestling contest, winner of national popular vote, whatever.
My main concern with the NPVIC is that legislatures might change their mind between election day and elector day if their electors go to the minority party in their state.
They can set the rules however they like before the vote, but the Electoral Count Act prohibits states changing the rules around how they appoint electors once the votes have been cast.
That is correct. The legislature can pick through whatever means it chooses. It cannot however ask the people to vote and then ignore the result because that is not a republican form of government, which the federal government is constitutionally required to guarantee to all citizens of a state.
A wrestling contest between state legislators would be a perfectly legal way to choose electoral votes. Winner of a foreign vote would not be.
It's an interesting question. I'm reading article II of the constitution and I'm not finding text to directly support your claim. To the contrary, the "lazy justice" practice of textualism indicates that each State Legislature directs the manner of appointing electors. As I read it, a State Legislature could indeed appoint electors according to the national popular vote.
> Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Moreover, the constitution doesn't even tell the electors how to vote!
> The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President...
From your link, the definition of a Republican Form of Government is elaborated...
> It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it...
From this exerpt, it would seem that a popular vote compact would be more consistent with this definition than the status quo which concentrates voting power into rural populations.
Oh, but we were talking about the selection of the President of the United States. If that clause is truly about the state and not the whole of the country, then it isn't about the President.
Which is why I've been consistent in saying that the state legislatures can choose arbitrarily, but if they hold an election for electors then the electors must be selected using only votes from that state. They can avoid this by choosing not to hold an election. But if there's no election, then there's no national popular vote. Thus, in either scenario, there is no possibility of a national popular vote interstate compact.
It has always been up to the states how they apportioned their electoral votes, and it has gone through many different versions to arrive where we are now, including electors being independent of the actual popular vote, and allowing faithless electors. It was only in the late 19th century that states began apportioning all of their electors as a block to the winner, rather than by district. The constitution leaves it to the states.
I mean sure and I believe states do have a right to choose their own electors. However, the issue is running an election and then aggregating the results with the other states. An election is a legal event and the constitution requires the states to conduct elections in a representative format, which is violated if they then defer to the electoral results of another state. On the other hand if the representatives of that state decide who the electors will vote for, that is still a representative form of government in which only the citizens of that state are represented.
> An election is a legal event and the constitution requires the states to conduct elections in a representative format, which is violated if they then defer to the electoral results of another state.
The history of the Electoral College seems very much at odds with that notion. Indeed, the current state of the Electoral College is at odds with it, since the states mostly switched to winner-take-all apportionment about 100 years ago, and now we regularly get outcomes where the winner of the popular vote is not the winner of the Electoral College.
You're still electing representatives, but the scope of the election has changed (statewide rather than district wide). That's not the issue. The states can choose to elect electors statewide if they want to. The issue is choosing electors based on foreign voters.
Here's another way to think about it. Is it legal for the American president to be chosen by worldwide vote? As far as the states are concerned, other states are a foreign sovereignty
>Probably unconstitutional as the constitution mandates that each state provide to its citizens a representative form of government, meaning the state's electoral votes need to match the public's votes. It would be unconstitutional to apportion the state's representatives by vote of another state's voters
Umm, sorry, but if Faithless Electors are constitutional, then so is this.
The Constitution doesn't regulate the choice the electors make.
The electors can go by another state's voters, the phase of the moon, or what their pet frog is saying, as far as the Constitution is concerned.
Faithless electors are constitutional but illegal, and most states ignore their votes.
> The electors can go by another state's voters, the phase of the moon, or what their pet frog is saying, as far as the Constitution is concerned.
Sure, but not as far as the law is concerned and the moment the states mandate an elector vote in accordance with a national interstate compact is the moment there's a constitutional issue, because the federal government guarantees to all citizens of states a representative form of government, which means their vote needs to choose a representative that represents them, not citizens of a foreign state.
> This country was not built as a democracy.
That's right, which is why we have representatives elect the president.
>Faithless electors are constitutional but illegal
In some states, by the laws of those states, which is absolutely irrelevant when we're discussing the legality of the National Popular Vote compact (which is, obviously, kosher on the level of states that opted into it).
>which means their vote needs to choose a representative that represents them, not citizens of a foreign state.
By that logic, the Electoral College itself is unconstitutional.
Or any election. "I didn't vote for X, so X doesn't represent me".
Your interpretation of the word "represent" is not aligned with any real-world elections (including elections in the US).
Also, let me remind you that the Congress exists, and provides two other ways that the states are represented.
>which means their vote needs to choose a representative that represents them, not citizens of a foreign state.
The electors in the electoral college represent citizens that voted for them.
Whoever is decided to be the president by them is assumed to represent the people because it was a choice made by elected representatives.
They can all, collectively, decide to appoint the person that Russia thinks is the best choice, and it will be constitutional.
> which is why we have representatives elect the president.
Which is why there isn't a problem in any criteria those representatives use to elect the president - including the National Vote.
The problem is that what you think representation means and what the constitution codifies are two different things - which is exactly the problem that the National Vote is trying to address.
> By that logic, the Electoral College itself is unconstitutional.
How so... the electors from each state are chosen only by voters from that state using whatever selection mechanism (based on votes) that the legislature came up with.
> Or any election. "I didn't vote for X, so X doesn't represent me".
In what way have I said this. It's not about whether you individually voted for X. You can be outvoted by your fellow citizens. However, it must be fellow citizens of your state. When it comes to elections and politics, each state is separate. States cannot allow non-state-citizen voters a say in state policies. That's what it means to be a sovereign independent state which the constitution says the states are.
> Also, let me remind you that the Congress exists, and provides two other ways that the states are represented.
Congress has nothing to do with electors.
> The electors in the electoral college represent citizens that voted for them.
That's right. The citizens of the state who they represent. Thus the electors of Oregon represent Oregon voters only. If the electors from Oregon are chosen by national popular vote, then they are inherently representing non-Oregon-citizens, which is illegal, because now oregon citizens have lost representation.
> Which is why there isn't a problem in any criteria those representatives use to elect the president - including the National Vote.
There are major problems with it. It's the same as if the state their governor will be chosen by national vote. Illegal. The government of a state must represent solely those state's citizens, not the citizens of a foreign state.
>That's right. The citizens of the state who they represent. Thus the electors of Oregon represent Oregon voters only. If the electors from Oregon are chosen by national popular vote, then they are inherently representing non-Oregon-citizens, which is illegal, because now oregon citizens have lost representation.
The electors aren't chosen by the National Popular Vote.
They are chosen by the citizens of the state.
Then these electors go and vote for the winner of National Popular Vote at the convention, according to the wishes of the people that elected them.
You seem to somehow ignore the fact that electors are actual people, and say that something is illegal without a basis.
>Right now they're not, but if this compact were to be in force they would.
OK, looks like I was incorrect on that: according to the current plan, they indeed would be[1].
However, that choice is still up to the state. The state may send a pool of any people as electors and require them by law to vote a certain way - under the same principle that outlaws faithless electors in some states.
In the end, whatever choice the elected government of a state makes is the choice of the people. The constitution[2] specifically says that:
>Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
The Constitution specifically leaves this choice to the Legislature, not to the people of the state.
The Supreme Court has reasoned that the word appoint in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, confers on state legislatures the broadest power of determination[3], so your argument that NPV yields a government that isn't "representative" doesn't hold any water, and has specifically been refuted by the Supreme Court already.
In particular, the legislature specifically has the right to choose the electors.
Input of people other than the state legislature is not required by the Constitution.
This is a clever idea but if it gets over the line I am very pessimistic about the supreme court allowing it.
I feel like it could go okay if it's in place for a presidential election, and that election has a majority of popular and electoral votes. But if it came into effect and the next election was ambiguous based on whether this compact stands or not, the result would be chaotic at best.
As mentioned in the article, getting congressional approval, and then letting that process go through the courts before enactment, might at least make the deployment reasonable, even if congressional approval may not be strictly required.
>This is a clever idea but if it gets over the line I am very pessimistic about the supreme court allowing it.
You could've stopped at "I'm pessimistic about the Supreme Court". It's completely dysfunctional now.
We need a Supreme Court reform if we want to keep the nation.
> the result would be chaotic at best.
As it already was in the past (Bush vs. Gore), and as I can absolutely assure it will be in 2024 regardless of anything else going on.
>As mentioned in the article, getting congressional approval, and then letting that process go through the courts before enactment, might at least make the deployment reasonable, even if congressional approval may not be strictly required.
Out of the two major parties in the US, one is pushing for National Popular Vote, and the other is famous for sticking for states rights, which is what National Popular Vote Compact is all about (not having the Congress dictate it from the top).
> We need a Supreme Court reform if we want to keep the nation.
More like you need the US house and senate to legislate and coming to stupid party deadlocks, gamesmanship, and worrying what an unpopular vote means to future electability.
The supreme court of the US gained so much power because the legislature stopped legislating.
A few more conservative states have signed onto the compact. I think most Republicans (individuals) would support it, the leadership is all realpolitik but normal folk do believe in the basic idea of democracy, especially something simple to explain like this. Republicans won the legislature in Florida the same year people voted to give felons voting rights... the electorate is more principled on these things than the parties. (I suppose that makes sense, it doesn't actually affect the electorate nearly as much as it affects elected officials.)
It won't ever happen -- "On February 17, 2021, the North Dakota Senate passed SB 2271,[153] "to amend and reenact sections ... relating to procedures for canvassing and counting votes for presidential electors"[154] in a deliberate—albeit indirect—effort to stymie the efficacy of the NPVIC by prohibiting disclosure of the state's popular vote until after the Electoral College meets."
That didn't end up becoming law, but there will be a critical mass of states opposed to effort (swing states who will lose influence mostly) that will pass things like this making the NPVIC impossible to implement.
"Popular votes can, however, only be counted from non-member states if there are popular votes available to count. As previously mentioned, Article II of the compact guarantees that each member state will produce a popular vote count because it requires member states to permit their voters to vote for President and Vice President in a “statewide popular election.” Even though all states have permitted their voters to vote for presidential electors in a “statewide popular election” since the 1880 election, non-member states are, of course, not bound by the compact. In the unlikely event that a non-member state were to take the presidential vote away from its own people, there would be no popular vote count available from such a state.
Similarly, in the unlikely event that a non-member state were to remove the names of the presidential nominees and vice-presidential nominees from the ballot and present the voters only with names of candidates for presidential elector (as was the case in 1960 in Alabama as shown by the ballot in figure 2.13 and discussed in section 2.11), there would be no way to associate the vote counts of the various presidential electors with the nationwide tally being accumulated by any regular “presidential slate” running in the rest of the country.
The compact addresses the above two unlikely possibilities by specifying that the popular votes that are to be aggregated to produce the “national popular vote total” are those that are
“… cast for each presidential slate in each State of the United States and in the District of Columbia in which votes have been cast in a statewide popular election … .”
In this way, the first clause of Article III of the compact deals with the unlikely possibility of a “one-state veto” preventing the orderly operation of the compact."
I guess the bill maybe does get around this by still having a popular vote, but not reporting the results of it. However, as far as I can tell, the NPVIC doesn't specify how the "chief election officials" are to determine the popular votes in each state, so maybe they could go off of other data, like exit polls.
Even if it does stop it, the end result is a catch-22. I don't think a president could then be elected, at least by normal means.
I don't think I'd want to have a system using exit polls... they've been wrong before. Once you're using polls why have elections at all?
Anyway, my point is states opposed to the NPVIC already have at least one good idea to stymie it. I think they could come up with plenty more. What if states refuse to certify their own votes until a majority of states vote to force a result equivalent to the "old" system?
The compact addresses that -- states that aren't part of the compact and don't produce vote counts just won't be counted. It won't matter because the compact states would have enough EC votes to ignore those other states.
I think the point is that the EC already disenfranchises a whole bunch of voters, and maybe if this passes and the red states get totally cut out, they might come around to passing an actual popular vote ammendment.
Most people should already know this, but I'll say it anyway. The EC exists to provide some balance between the most populous states and the least. Switching to a pure popular vote destroys that balance and brings us closer to a "tyranny of the majority."
The EC was created to protect slave states, not small states. It just so happened that those states had smaller populations because they only counted slaves as 3/5 of a person.
And furthermore, because the House is capped at 435, it throws everything off. If we kept following the original algorithm outlined in the constitution, which was very similar to the square root rule, the house would have 1600 members and the EC would still match the popular vote every time.
This is all broken because of the artificial cap on the house that makes each member represent far too many people.
"Slave states" and "Free states" did not exist at the time of the constitution's ratification - slavery was legal and practiced in all 13 of them. And while south Carolina and Georgia were amongst the bottom half of the stack population wise, they weren't significantly smaller than the other small states. The EC was Explicitly laid out in the federalist papers (68 to be specific) to exist for the purpose of protecting the smaller states from those like Massachusetts and Virginia.
The EC doesn’t provide balance. It provides a layer of indirection which can be used to game elections. And all of the EC delegates are political hacks, not honest brokers with the country’s best interests at the center of their duties. The “tyranny of the majority” talk about elections is just FUD — direct elections of representatives make the government more responsive to the desires of voters.
The EC is a fossil from a time when representatives didn’t trust the average person to vote, but they sure as hell wanted the benefit of the average person in their state counting towards their census tally.
Your view, while an accurate representation of the original result of the negotiations of the Founding Fathers, disenfranchises more Republicans in California than there are Republicans in any other state.
State lines were mostly arbitrarily chosen and should not matter when choosing the leader who represents all of the states. For the same reason we use the popular vote of the entire jurisdiction to choose the elected officials for Senate and House, the NPVIC is a good compromise to improve the responsiveness of the government to the voters.
The US is a federation of states, ultimately. They have a right to form treaties among themselves. The same conceptual backing that gives all states representation via US Senators gives them the backing to do this. I'm all for more federalism, and I'm fine with the Senator system and the Electoral College.
An interesting twist on the “swing states are against the NPVIC” narrative is currently playing out in Nevada. My read of this narrative goes as follows: swing states, including Nevada, will find their importance in Presidential elections diminished, and therefore their influence and ability to garner patronage diminished, if the NPVIC comes into effect and survives legal challenges and so on.
Persuaded by this narrative (I presume), then-Governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak vetoed the NPVIC bill back in May of 2019 after it had passed both houses of the Nevada legislature.
Now, five years later, after passing through the legislature a second time, accession to the NPVIC via an amendment to the state constitution of Nevada will be a ballot question in November 2026 for voters — if it passes again in the 2025-2026 legislative session for a third time. [0]
The website [0] is a pretty good resource if you want to learn more. My understanding is that the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact was modeled on previous interstate compacts that were used to set up lotteries such as the Powerball lottery.
Unlikely unless the Republican Party starts winning the popular vote once in a while. Ronald Reagan was the last Republican president to win the popular vote.
Bush 2 won it at his re-election, but Regan was the last Republican to win his initial term with a popular vote (and no incumbent advantage).
Also of note is that of the five times the popular vote winner did not win, four of those times it was the Republican who won and once it was the more conservative of the two parties (before the Republicans existed).
So yeah, the EC so far has only ever benefited the Conservative Party.
And Trumpism ensures they will never win the popular vote again.
A Lincoln Party or some other new, reformed, conservative party of integrity would stand a chance however—something I welcome, though I would not vote that way.
I think it's easy to say that as someone who wouldn't vote for them, but the Republican party faces the same problem as the Democratic party there. Many Republican and Democratic voters only choose their party because they think it's slightly better than the alternative. As someone who sits firmly on the left side of the aisle I'm strongly motivated to vote, not because the Democrats offer meaningful progress but because they're holding the line against political actions I see as abhorrent.
What a nicely desguised way for DNC strongholds to effectively kill off the republican party. By the time a supreme court would be called upon it wouldn't even lift a finger in protest because by then all Wikipedia articles about what Federalism means will be rewritten. Scotus will be told to "not risk democracy" and will recieve the message.
It would be less ironic if this compact wasn't put forward by the same camp that constantly laments gentrification. But when gentrification happens on a intra-state level and states attract so many upper class people that the rural class is effectively nixed out of political representation (eg CA, NY) its not just good, it should directly translate into who gets to decide whos going to be president. Only the urbanites.
That sounds like you’re only considering strict city limits but there are three major categories: urban, suburban and rural with urban outnumbering rural two to one but suburban far outnumbering both so it really comes down to how you slice suburban. While suburbanites don’t live within cities proper they could be fairly categorized between those who reside in the suburbs but live their lives in the city and those who spend most of their time outside of the city.
Depends how you define "a lot" - rural areas make up 20% of the population of the US, so you might need some rural voters but not necessarily a lot (percentage of actual voters may vary, but I don't have those numbers handy).
I'm not totally sure that your numbers are correct, at least for presidential elections. Philadelphia's split in 2020 was 81% for Biden and 18% for Trump.
This seems like a really bad idea, because it will allow areas with large amounts of corruption to use corruption to manipulate the vote. Any state could add thousands of votes to the total and change the vote, whereas limiting that to a few battleground states means that people can clearly figure out where they need to investigate and spot fraud, and this will be restricted to battleground states not areas that are extreme in a spicefic direction where fraud is most likely to happen.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadIn my opinion the only thing that ought to change is we ought to elect the elector directly. That would make it easier for them to make proper deals and compromises.
There are a lot of questions about its constitutionality, though. The Wikipedia page is quite good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionality_of_the_Natio...
Choosing electors based on another state's vote however is not representative.
My main concern with the NPVIC is that legislatures might change their mind between election day and elector day if their electors go to the minority party in their state.
A wrestling contest between state legislators would be a perfectly legal way to choose electoral votes. Winner of a foreign vote would not be.
> Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Moreover, the constitution doesn't even tell the electors how to vote!
> The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President...
The question of faithless electors has been delegated to state law as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
> The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
I personally interpret that to mean that the feds will intervene should a state not provide a representative form of government.
The Supreme Court kinda agrees. It's not a common clause that's ruled on, but in 1874, they did rule on it:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIV-S4-3/AL...']
> the Court stated that the Guarantee Clause leaves room for states to structure their governments in various ways yet remain republican.
Which I take to mean that the Court will intervene should a state do something that is clearly not republican.
> It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it...
From this exerpt, it would seem that a popular vote compact would be more consistent with this definition than the status quo which concentrates voting power into rural populations.
The history of the Electoral College seems very much at odds with that notion. Indeed, the current state of the Electoral College is at odds with it, since the states mostly switched to winner-take-all apportionment about 100 years ago, and now we regularly get outcomes where the winner of the popular vote is not the winner of the Electoral College.
Here's another way to think about it. Is it legal for the American president to be chosen by worldwide vote? As far as the states are concerned, other states are a foreign sovereignty
Your version would probably work just fine. They might find a different one. It doesn't really matter.
Umm, sorry, but if Faithless Electors are constitutional, then so is this.
The Constitution doesn't regulate the choice the electors make.
The electors can go by another state's voters, the phase of the moon, or what their pet frog is saying, as far as the Constitution is concerned.
This country was not built as a democracy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
> The electors can go by another state's voters, the phase of the moon, or what their pet frog is saying, as far as the Constitution is concerned.
Sure, but not as far as the law is concerned and the moment the states mandate an elector vote in accordance with a national interstate compact is the moment there's a constitutional issue, because the federal government guarantees to all citizens of states a representative form of government, which means their vote needs to choose a representative that represents them, not citizens of a foreign state.
> This country was not built as a democracy.
That's right, which is why we have representatives elect the president.
In some states, by the laws of those states, which is absolutely irrelevant when we're discussing the legality of the National Popular Vote compact (which is, obviously, kosher on the level of states that opted into it).
>which means their vote needs to choose a representative that represents them, not citizens of a foreign state.
By that logic, the Electoral College itself is unconstitutional.
Or any election. "I didn't vote for X, so X doesn't represent me".
Your interpretation of the word "represent" is not aligned with any real-world elections (including elections in the US).
Also, let me remind you that the Congress exists, and provides two other ways that the states are represented.
>which means their vote needs to choose a representative that represents them, not citizens of a foreign state.
The electors in the electoral college represent citizens that voted for them.
Whoever is decided to be the president by them is assumed to represent the people because it was a choice made by elected representatives.
They can all, collectively, decide to appoint the person that Russia thinks is the best choice, and it will be constitutional.
> which is why we have representatives elect the president.
Which is why there isn't a problem in any criteria those representatives use to elect the president - including the National Vote.
The problem is that what you think representation means and what the constitution codifies are two different things - which is exactly the problem that the National Vote is trying to address.
How so... the electors from each state are chosen only by voters from that state using whatever selection mechanism (based on votes) that the legislature came up with.
> Or any election. "I didn't vote for X, so X doesn't represent me".
In what way have I said this. It's not about whether you individually voted for X. You can be outvoted by your fellow citizens. However, it must be fellow citizens of your state. When it comes to elections and politics, each state is separate. States cannot allow non-state-citizen voters a say in state policies. That's what it means to be a sovereign independent state which the constitution says the states are.
> Also, let me remind you that the Congress exists, and provides two other ways that the states are represented.
Congress has nothing to do with electors.
> The electors in the electoral college represent citizens that voted for them.
That's right. The citizens of the state who they represent. Thus the electors of Oregon represent Oregon voters only. If the electors from Oregon are chosen by national popular vote, then they are inherently representing non-Oregon-citizens, which is illegal, because now oregon citizens have lost representation.
> Which is why there isn't a problem in any criteria those representatives use to elect the president - including the National Vote.
There are major problems with it. It's the same as if the state their governor will be chosen by national vote. Illegal. The government of a state must represent solely those state's citizens, not the citizens of a foreign state.
The electors aren't chosen by the National Popular Vote.
They are chosen by the citizens of the state.
Then these electors go and vote for the winner of National Popular Vote at the convention, according to the wishes of the people that elected them.
You seem to somehow ignore the fact that electors are actual people, and say that something is illegal without a basis.
Right now they're not, but if this compact were to be in force they would.
OK, looks like I was incorrect on that: according to the current plan, they indeed would be[1].
However, that choice is still up to the state. The state may send a pool of any people as electors and require them by law to vote a certain way - under the same principle that outlaws faithless electors in some states.
In the end, whatever choice the elected government of a state makes is the choice of the people. The constitution[2] specifically says that:
>Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
The Constitution specifically leaves this choice to the Legislature, not to the people of the state.
The Supreme Court has reasoned that the word appoint in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, confers on state legislatures the broadest power of determination[3], so your argument that NPV yields a government that isn't "representative" doesn't hold any water, and has specifically been refuted by the Supreme Court already.
In particular, the legislature specifically has the right to choose the electors.
Input of people other than the state legislature is not required by the Constitution.
[1] https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.10
[2] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/
[3] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S1-C2-3...
I feel like it could go okay if it's in place for a presidential election, and that election has a majority of popular and electoral votes. But if it came into effect and the next election was ambiguous based on whether this compact stands or not, the result would be chaotic at best.
As mentioned in the article, getting congressional approval, and then letting that process go through the courts before enactment, might at least make the deployment reasonable, even if congressional approval may not be strictly required.
You could've stopped at "I'm pessimistic about the Supreme Court". It's completely dysfunctional now.
We need a Supreme Court reform if we want to keep the nation.
> the result would be chaotic at best.
As it already was in the past (Bush vs. Gore), and as I can absolutely assure it will be in 2024 regardless of anything else going on.
>As mentioned in the article, getting congressional approval, and then letting that process go through the courts before enactment, might at least make the deployment reasonable, even if congressional approval may not be strictly required.
Out of the two major parties in the US, one is pushing for National Popular Vote, and the other is famous for sticking for states rights, which is what National Popular Vote Compact is all about (not having the Congress dictate it from the top).
Surely they would support it... right?
More like you need the US house and senate to legislate and coming to stupid party deadlocks, gamesmanship, and worrying what an unpopular vote means to future electability.
The supreme court of the US gained so much power because the legislature stopped legislating.
Source: studied American civics in school
That didn't end up becoming law, but there will be a critical mass of states opposed to effort (swing states who will lose influence mostly) that will pass things like this making the NPVIC impossible to implement.
People said the same thing about Roe vs. Wade being repealed.
Never say never.
It is discussed here: https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/bill-text
I guess the bill maybe does get around this by still having a popular vote, but not reporting the results of it. However, as far as I can tell, the NPVIC doesn't specify how the "chief election officials" are to determine the popular votes in each state, so maybe they could go off of other data, like exit polls.Even if it does stop it, the end result is a catch-22. I don't think a president could then be elected, at least by normal means.
Anyway, my point is states opposed to the NPVIC already have at least one good idea to stymie it. I think they could come up with plenty more. What if states refuse to certify their own votes until a majority of states vote to force a result equivalent to the "old" system?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
I'm not sure enabling the minority to completely lock up the machinery of governance is a preferable alternative.
If you want to comfortably win elections you just have to win by more than a percent or two.
And furthermore, because the House is capped at 435, it throws everything off. If we kept following the original algorithm outlined in the constitution, which was very similar to the square root rule, the house would have 1600 members and the EC would still match the popular vote every time.
This is all broken because of the artificial cap on the house that makes each member represent far too many people.
The EC is a fossil from a time when representatives didn’t trust the average person to vote, but they sure as hell wanted the benefit of the average person in their state counting towards their census tally.
Your view, while an accurate representation of the original result of the negotiations of the Founding Fathers, disenfranchises more Republicans in California than there are Republicans in any other state.
State lines were mostly arbitrarily chosen and should not matter when choosing the leader who represents all of the states. For the same reason we use the popular vote of the entire jurisdiction to choose the elected officials for Senate and House, the NPVIC is a good compromise to improve the responsiveness of the government to the voters.
Persuaded by this narrative (I presume), then-Governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak vetoed the NPVIC bill back in May of 2019 after it had passed both houses of the Nevada legislature.
Now, five years later, after passing through the legislature a second time, accession to the NPVIC via an amendment to the state constitution of Nevada will be a ballot question in November 2026 for voters — if it passes again in the 2025-2026 legislative session for a third time. [0]
0. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state/nv
0. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/
Also of note is that of the five times the popular vote winner did not win, four of those times it was the Republican who won and once it was the more conservative of the two parties (before the Republicans existed).
So yeah, the EC so far has only ever benefited the Conservative Party.
A Lincoln Party or some other new, reformed, conservative party of integrity would stand a chance however—something I welcome, though I would not vote that way.
It would be less ironic if this compact wasn't put forward by the same camp that constantly laments gentrification. But when gentrification happens on a intra-state level and states attract so many upper class people that the rural class is effectively nixed out of political representation (eg CA, NY) its not just good, it should directly translate into who gets to decide whos going to be president. Only the urbanites.
Cities are big, but they aren't that big. The 10 biggest cities only have 7% of the population, and then they get a lot smaller from there.
The point is the only way to win the popular vote is by capturing a lot of rural America no matter which party you're part of.
I'm not totally sure that your numbers are correct, at least for presidential elections. Philadelphia's split in 2020 was 81% for Biden and 18% for Trump.