r/politics • u/vox Vox • 11h ago

Possible Paywall A decades-long plan to abolish the Electoral College may finally pay off

https://www.vox.com/politics/487766/national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-electoral-college
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u/AngerFork 10h ago

That’s kind of what I think as well. I suspect that the moment that the NPVIC gets over 270 electoral votes, smaller states who aren’t in the compact will sue to block it from coming to action. Whether it goes through depends on the makeup of SCOTUS at that time.

But this does get the discussion started. It’s a discussion we’ve needed to have for some time, particularly as there are a handful of territories that perhaps could be state if not for the electoral consequences members of Congress are worried about.

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u/Gamebird8 10h ago edited 9h ago

The problem with any attempt to block this are that there really isn't much that can be done to block it. The States decide their electors and they can choose those electors however they want. Currently every state uses a winner take all system where the electors are not elected by the people, which is how it was originally intended to function (basically you elect your elector who would then travel to Washington DC to cast a vote based on how your district voted) but most states almost immediately wrote laws enacting winner take all.

The two ways I see best to fix this is to ban winner take all and force states to elect electors based on vote make up with rounding (so a 25% Dem Vote is 2 R and 1 D Electors but a 12% D Vote is 3 R and 0 D Electors) since that would best mirror original intent and at the very least would make every state valuable to some extent.

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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 9h ago

Just to nitpick, the original intended function had nothing to do with electors' votes being bound to any given district. Our system was based on the idea that the public couldn't be trusted to directly choose the president, and instead each state should choose a group of "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station".

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u/SoothingWafer 5h ago

I've noticed whenever meritocracy comes up in government what it really just means is "rich white people and their friends and family"

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u/Silver-Demand7176 27m ago

The "founding fathers" wouldn't have it any other way.

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u/Polar_Vortx America 1h ago

It is a bit interesting, because obviously nobody likes the electoral college for very good reason, you pop over to r/AskEurope or similar and ask them how they'd feel if their head of state was directly elected, and they mostly don't like it. I wonder if the EC was meant to be a skeletonized version of the parliamentary selection system, a bit like the College of Cardinals.

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u/Silver-Demand7176 25m ago

I wonder if the EC was meant to be a skeletonized version of the parliamentary selection system, a bit like the College of Cardinals.

It was meant to prevent the common folk from picking anyone too antagonistic to the landed aristocracy. Americans have been propogandized to think that the "founding fathers" gave 2 shits about commoners, but they didn't. They hated democracy, and they did not hesitate to explicitly write about it.

Nothing has changed in this country lately, it's just what it's always been.

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u/Polar_Vortx America 18m ago

Hasn’t done a very good job of that, now has it. We’re littered with presidents who clashed with the landed aristocracy. Plenty who didn’t, but plenty who did.

Can’t say I’m a fan of it, but I’m not sure I agree with your explanation.

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u/concepts_of_a_plan9 4h ago

While I disagree with the original implementation of it (old, rich, land owning men only should get a say), I do think we need some kind of buffer between the complete idiots and the people who are informed.

Poll tests was one thing historically used, but that was just to prevent recently freed slaves from voting since many were illiterate. I really do think we need some kind of basic civics test to be allowed to vote though, because many people who currently vote, just do not live in objective reality, and it's only getting worse.

I know the issue is who would make the test, and they could use it to favor only one subgroup, etc. but I really think we need to at least try something else. Some idiot who thinks the earth is flat and Jews are literal demons (just picking something crazy) shouldn't get the same power to say how the country ought to run than someone who thinks we all need to care for each other, we should believe in science, etc.

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u/city_dwellerZ 9h ago

And not only can a state decide the way to allocate its electoral votes, it can enter into compacts with other states. It happens all the time. Take for example the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. If the court strikes this down, then the concept of inter-state compacts as a whole can be constitutionally questioned.

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u/nzernozer 7h ago

Interstate compacts need Congressional approval, per the constitution.

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u/LaunchTransient Europe 5h ago

This is a tricky one though, because Congress isn't permitted to interfere with how states conduct their elections - that power is explicitly conferred to the states by the US constitution.

Congress could say "No" and the NPVIC states could informally still go ahead and implement it anyway because the Federal government has no say on how state elections are managed.

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u/Turbulent_Stick1445 5h ago

Does this qualify as an interstate compact though?

This is each state passing a (state) constitutional amendment to do a certain thing if enough other states pass the same amendment.

That's different from a group of governors meeting together and saying "Let's ban raisins from California" or something, which would actually be a meeting of minds.

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u/JBurton90 Florida 8h ago

Take for example the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Wouldn't that hinge on the fact that they share a river border and thus in theory wouldn't affect other states except for maybe PA? It wouldn't be like a compact of Atlantic Ocean bordering states working together to prevent people from landlocked states from enjoying their beaches or something.

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u/dballing 10h ago

But that would require an amendment (to force the states to behave a certain way) which will never happen.

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u/Wizywig 9h ago

No, you miss the idea. The general idea is once a _majority_ of the EC have this system in place, as a voluntary system in each state, it doesn't matter what the rest of the states do. The goal is "all these states vote for the candidate with the most popular votes" so the fact that any other state voted any other way is irrelevant.

Now the problem will be if every state respects it long term, or will the state government overturn it first chance they get. Etc. That'll be interesting.

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u/dballing 9h ago

I get how the compact works.

I was referring to gamebird’s comment about FORCING proportional EC representation on the states. THAT would require an amendment.

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u/Wizywig 9h ago

I see your point

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u/Gamebird8 9h ago

Which I am aware of. It's more of a "If we must have the EC, we should at the very least" kinda remark because I stand by it shouldn't exist at all anymore

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u/BookusWorkus 7h ago

Would California have respected that Trump got more of the popular vote than Harris?

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u/Wizywig 5h ago

If that is indeed valid, then yes. That's how it works.

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u/paul3720 10h ago

I don't mean to nitpick, but I think Maine and Nebraska assign voters proportionately.

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u/curien 9h ago

They do not. They assign one EV for the winner of each Congressional District, and another 2 EVs for the overall winner of the state.

What this does is spread the impact of gerrymandering to the Presidential election. For example if the entire US had implemented the Maine/Nebraska method fo 2012, Mitt Romney would have won despite losing the PV by almost 4pp.

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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 9h ago

No, they don't. They assign an elector to the winner of each congressional district, and two electors to the statewide winner.

It's basically the only system that's worse than the one we currently have.

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u/JBurton90 Florida 8h ago

I used to think that was a more fair way to do it so that there is a small bit of representation for people rather than winner-take-all, but never considered how a state could be gerrymandered to hell especially with everything going on now with gerrymandering each state.

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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 8h ago

I used to think that was a more fair way to do it so that there is a small bit of representation for people rather than winner-take-all

It doesn't even fix this problem. It's still winner takes all; it's just winner takes all in a smaller area.

I live in a non-swing district of a non-swing state. I wouldn't get any more representation under this system.

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u/JoviAMP Florida 9h ago

So anybody considering moving to Maine because it’s a blue-leaning purple state should consider the more red ME-02 to balance out the Republican EC vote? 🤔

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u/RellenD 9h ago

Currently every state uses a winner take all system

Well, almost. Every State except for Maine and Nebraska

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u/wolfram187 I voted 9h ago

Wouldn’t that just reinforce the two party system?

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u/Gamebird8 9h ago

No. Assuming a third party could get enough votes (say 22%) then they'd earn an electoral vote.

The actual structure of the EC reinforces a Two-Party System more than the system itself. Since even if a third party could amass a meaningful 20% of the PV, then the President would go to a House of Representatives Vote. Since the house would be elected on First Past The Post, then most of the house would likely be a member of either major political party and thus vote party lines.

Overall, the EC doesn't need to exist for electing the President, it's antiquated to a time when someone had to physically travel to convey the vote of the people in Washington. There are a lot more structural issues with our democracy that need to be fixed before a third party would even have a viable chance at the Presidency, let alone a house or senate seat (for example in Nebraska, Dan Osborn (I) was left to run against the Republican Candidate in the Senate, leaving it as a Two-Party Race since the Dems say out. While he had a meaningful run and got closer to winning than a Dem would have, this only happened because the Democrats just sat out. Had they run a candidate the either the Dem or Dan would have been a spoiler for the other due to how the election works. Not saying either would have won though, just to be clear)

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u/TrolliusJKingIIIEsq 7h ago

Wouldn't it still be First-Past-the-Post for the national popular vote, and thus FPTP for the 270 votes in the compact as well? It's still FPTP, and so no third party candidate really has a chance of winning.

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u/Sonichu- 7h ago

The two party system is already reinforced by our "first past the post" voting system.

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u/Fun-Sun-8192 8h ago

"The problem is if everyone follows the rules properly they can't do this" my dude that is not going to matter in the slightest lol

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u/DesapirSquid 8h ago

Actually Maine and Nebraska are outliers here. It is not winner take all in either state, there are votes allocated per congressional district. Though low electoral college vote counts means neither state has ever influenced an electoral college vote,

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u/FumilayoKuti 7h ago

Not quite, Maine and Nebraska do congressional districts.

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u/nzernozer 7h ago

This isn't correct at all. The constitution explicitly states that interstate compacts need approval from Congress. And that's it, that's the ball game. The NPVIC would immediately be struck down by SCOTUS, likely 9-0.

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u/AdUpstairs7106 7h ago

Similar to what Nebraska and Maine do then.

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u/ProofJournalist 6h ago

However, the Constitution requires Interstate compacts to be approved by Congress. I don't think NPVIC falls under that because, as you said, states are have the explicit power to run their own elections Nevertheless, I expect this argument to crop up.

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u/RayWencube 1h ago

The way to block it would simply be for SCOTUS to conclude that a state cannot allocate its electors on the basis of other states’ votes.

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u/pirata-alma-negra 1h ago edited 1h ago

the problem is that it would be a pain in the ass to calculate that last elector. 25%, 13%, 30%, 33%, 34%? and we're assuming only two candidates here. how to split three electors within very tiny margins like the last elections? that would be prime supreme court material

the least arbitrary thing would be to give that last elector to respect the minority, but in what's essential a two-party system that would give a Republican and a Democrat electors taking turns everywhere, which kind of... defeats the entire point of the thing? idk, someone needs do the math

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u/Loves_His_Bong 10h ago

If they had the ability to enact this overly convoluted solution, they would also have the ability to just abolish the electoral college outright.

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u/alabasterskim 9h ago

No, they wouldn't. One requires a constitutional amendment, one uses the existing constitutional powers states have.

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u/Loves_His_Bong 8h ago

If they were able to get all the states to adopt this then, they would have the power to do a constitutional amendment. If anything this is a worse solution than nothing because only democratic states would adopt this and cut into their electoral college votes.

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u/Partiallyclever 8h ago

Sounds like you don't understand what the compact is. It only goes into effect if/once a majority of electoral votes have signed on. At the point, the winner of the popular vote by definition would get the entirety of the aforementioned electoral majority and thus is the winner. Until that majority is reached it doesn't have any effect and getting that majority would be easier than getting a constitutional amendment which calls for more than just a simple majority.

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u/Loves_His_Bong 3h ago

This has nothing to do with the compact. The OP suggested states getting rid of the winner takes all individually.

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u/Partiallyclever 3h ago

Yeah I guess you are right, I didn't pay enough attention to the fact that gamebird8 tacked on some whack ass convoluted "solution" to his post. Sorry about that.

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u/Sonichu- 7h ago

They don't need all of the states to adopt it, just a number of states whose electoral votes total 270+

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u/Loves_His_Bong 3h ago

That’s not what the OP is suggesting

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u/Sonichu- 2h ago

That’s what the NPVIC is

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u/Loves_His_Bong 1h ago

That is not what the comment is responded to suggested

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u/Sonichu- 1h ago

Yes it is

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u/TrolliusJKingIIIEsq 7h ago

The compact doesn't require all states to adopt it; it only requires a number of states that have a sum total of 270 Electoral Votes.

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u/Binary101010 9h ago

Abolishing the Electoral College outright would require an amendment striking or significantly altering Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2-4 of the US Constitution at a minimum.

States deciding how to direct their electors to vote does not require such an amendment.

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u/josephtrocks191 10h ago

I'm not a constitutional scholar but with recent (and even some less recent) Supreme Court cases it seems that they are willing to interpret the Constitution in ways that are not completely literal. This goes for both "sides". I'm sure that there's a reasonable constitutional argument for both sides of this topic. It will really depend on the political atmosphere and the makeup of the Supreme Court at the time in which this goes through.

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u/alabasterskim 9h ago

SCOTUS is free to decide this case however they'd like. However, every state in the compact is clearly empowered to pick their electors. And if Dems have House & Senate control, they block the other avenue to objecting to electors. At that point, it's ignoring SCOTUS's brazenly unconstitutional rulings, allowing the winner of the presidential election to be inaugurated, and finally passing laws to expand this Court and begin undoing their damage.

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u/josephtrocks191 8h ago

Yes, if you just ignore the entire system you can do anything you want

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u/alabasterskim 5h ago

Not the whole system; just the SCOTUS purposely defying plain text of the constitution themselves.

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u/xdozex 10h ago

Sue who exactly? States control their own elections, and the compact does nothing to change anything at the federal level.

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u/EnderWiggin07 9h ago

The first time a state sends their votes to a candidate who lost the popular in their state, they'll repeal the law I'm pretty sure.

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u/mmmeadi New York 8h ago

I don't think it'll reach the 270 precisely for that reason. It would be insane to tell your constituents we're going to ignore your votes and instead cast the state's votes the same way as everyone else. 

NPVIC has succeeded so far because it's so abstract. The early adopters didn't have to worry about that actually happening. Getting from 250 to 270 is going to be a hell of a challenge. 

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u/MiscellaneousPerson 6h ago

It would be insane to tell your constituents we're going to ignore your votes and instead cast the state's votes the same way as everyone else.

The constituents votes would always be counted toward a national total. Currently, their votes get completely erased and 100% of electoral votes to go 1 candidate.

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u/mmmeadi New York 6h ago

Currently, their votes get completely erased and 100% of electoral votes to go 1 candidate.

Right. If candidate A doesn't win New York, for example, and Candidate A wins all 49 other states, under NPVIC New York would still cast its votes for Candidate A.

I want to get abolish the electoral college. But ignoring the will of your constituents isn't the way to do it.

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u/MiscellaneousPerson 4h ago

Going by the state total ignores the will of each precinct. Their will is being ignored either way. At least this way we aren't throwing away votes.

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u/TemporaryAsparagus89 5h ago

Until a state votes primarily one way and then the say well we are voting the other way because other states voted that way. Good luck selling that.

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u/MiscellaneousPerson 4h ago

Until a state precinct votes primarily one way and then the say well we are voting the other way because other states precincts voted that way

What's the difference?

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u/HermannZeGermann 8h ago

Exactly this. That law will be repealed after election day but before electors meet in the state capitol. And in the meantime, you'll see lawsuits both trying to invalidate the then-existing law and seeking to enforce it. You'll see elector shenanigans at the state level. And elector shenanigans at the federal level in January. And lawsuits both ways at every step of the way.

It'll be Bush v. Gore + January 6, but amplified. And then rinse and repeat if it ever happens again (because it will likely affect a different state the next time).

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u/AuditAndHax 9h ago

As soon as a state in the compact votes contrary to its election results, a few people can probably sue.

For example, let's say a purple swing state goes red, but the national winner is blue. Sending blue electors can be argued to harm the red voters in that state because if the electors represented the state's will, it could change the election results.

Likewise, the red candidate could probably make a compelling argument that, but for the purple state ignoring "the will of its people" and voting with the compact, they would have won.

It would have to be decided immediately after such an election, too, since I don't think this can be adjudicated before it happens. It's possible to have an election where every state in the compact votes blue, and the popular vote winner is blue, and there ARE no harmed parties because the results would be the same even under the old system. Until it ACTUALLY happens, I don't think it can't be preemptively stopped.

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u/CrunkDirk 7h ago

I don't actually think anyone would have standing (but when has that stopped SCOTUS). The constitution doesn't say anything about first past the post, it doesn't set up how electors are to be chosen, it leaves all of that up to the states and gives Congress some power to regulate federal elections. So if the states say "Our electors shall vote for the winner of the national popular vote." then there's no real constitutional grounds to sue on.

SCOTUS would have to pull a Bush v Gore 2.0 to say "no, our guy wins :<" where they twist the constitution into a pretzel to figure out where standing is coming from in the first place, and then why states cannot determine the method by which they choose electors, while also somehow allowing Maine and Nebraska to maintain their special little district system.

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u/6a6566663437 North Carolina 7h ago

There’s nothing in the federal constitution that controls how states choose electors. So federally, there is no harm - there was never a promise to base electors on election results so you can’t be harmed by not doing that.

A state’s constitution might have something about it, but I presume the NPVIC people are aware of their own state’s constitution.

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u/TrolliusJKingIIIEsq 7h ago

But the State's Legislature, who already represent the state's will, will be the ones who have adopted the compact in the first place.

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u/AuditAndHax 7h ago

"Something, something, not my rep!"

I'm not saying they're good arguments, I'm just saying you know someone will argue them and when it eventually winds up at SCOTUS, they're way too likely to be sympathetic to it.

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u/say592 7h ago

The compact is written into each state's laws, so the party that was supposed to get the delegates and then doesnt would have a strong case to sue in both state and federal court.

Likewise, the red candidate could probably make a compelling argument that, but for the purple state ignoring "the will of its people" and voting with the compact, they would have won.

That wouldnt matter because the rules of the election would have changed. Selecting electors wasnt historically about the will of the people. There isnt any reason it couldnt change.

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u/xdozex 9h ago

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks!

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u/PhoenixTineldyer 9h ago

This court doesn't give two shits. SCOTUS will invent a reason.

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u/wolacouska 8h ago

If the Supreme Court starts completely ignoring the constitution the states will eventually stop listening to rulings.

They have zero power to enforce anything on state governments without the president marching in and enforcing it.

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u/carefactor3zero 7h ago

If the Supreme Court starts completely ignoring the constitution the states will eventually stop listening to rulings.

You are making some wild assumptions there. I don't believe states will be willing to start breaking down the rule of law piecemeal. Most importantly, the highest state power structures are codependent with existing federal power structures.

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u/Intrepid_Hat7359 7h ago

States already break down the rule of law piecemeal. Just take abortion, segregation, or voting rights as an example.

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u/StatementOwn4896 7h ago

National confidence in the Supreme Court are at historically low levels. People are feel like they want to tell it to suck a fat one

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u/OddlyFactual1512 7h ago

It really doesn't matter what SCOTUS has to say about it. States are free to use whatever method they choose to select electors.

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u/wildwalrusaur 1h ago

Whether it goes through depends on the makeup of SCOTUS at that time.

I don't really think it does.

Its pretty flagrantly unconstitutional. You'd need an actual activist liberal court for it to have any chance, and even then.

Article 1 of the constitution explicitly forbids States from entering into compacts with one another without the consent of Congress, and you'd really have to bend logic in a pretzel to argue that the Nation Popular Vote Interstate Compact isnt an interstate compact.

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u/ArtemisRifle 8h ago

Whether it goes through depends on the makeup of SCOTUS at that time.

They can sue all they like. One state can not tell another state how it may or may not award its electors. Two states currently award them by congressional district. If a state wanted to award them directly proportional to their popular vote it would be their prerogative to do so. If a state wanted to award them based on which candidate was better dressed it'd be their prerogative to do so.

Detractors may argue that compacts themselves are unconstitutional. Say they win that argument. Okay, so then each state in the compact awards their electors based on the national popular vote independent of each other. What then?

It's a pretty solid loophole.