Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have joined in an agreement to award their Electoral College votes in a U.S. election to the winner of the national popular vote.
The National Popular Vote compact, NPV as it is called, has gained steam over the past 25 years, lead mostly by liberal leaning states eager to work around the Electoral College.
The legislation, which is identical in each state, requires the state to award its electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide. This could mean a candidate who doesn’t win a particular state could still receive the state’s electoral votes.
It is not unusual for a state to decide to allocate electoral votes differently. Two states, for example, allocate electoral votes based on the winner of their Congressional districts. Other states have a winner-take-all system.
But the NPV is problematic for several reasons. First, arguments about who won a close election would never end. Instead of being confined to one state or another based on the number of electoral votes a candidate may need, disputes would go national and parties could pick and choose areas to contest based on how many supporters they have.
Second, there are serious constitutional questions, specifically regarding whether states can create a compact such as this without Congressional approval, and perhaps more importantly, whether the NPV violates the 14th Amendment, which says:
“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
The NPV compact specifically nullifies a citizen’s vote if the state’s electoral votes are simply transferred to the winner of the national popular vote.
Analysts at the Cato Institute have noticed another trend now appearing in more conservative states to counteract any implementation of the NPV compact:
“In North Dakota, the Republican controlled state senate passed a bill saying their state will withhold its popular vote totals for president until after the Electoral College has voted in December. Instead, the state would only publish the rough percentages. This is deliberately aimed at making it impossible to properly calculate the national popular vote total in time to award electors on that basis. Similar bills have been introduced in other states.”
As of 2024, Washington state has joined the NPV compact, but Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have not. To protect the legitimacy of elections and to preserve a voice in the Electoral College, they should avoid doing so.
— Chris Cargill is the CEO of the Mountain State Policy Center. Email him at [email protected].
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