College Reunion

Back in 2020, I wrote about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact – and then reposted it here with much more information this past June.  A few things have come up recently that make it worth addressing again.

Just to quickly reiterate, the Compact says that a state will give all its Electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote – not to the candidate who wins its state.  In order to not disadvantage states who adopt the Compact early, the law doesn't kick in until enough states have passed it so that their collected Electoral votes add up together to a minimum of 270. That, of course, would then be enough to give the election to the candidate who won the national popular vote – regardless of how other states vote who haven’t signed the Compact.  After all, once a candidate receives those 270 Electoral votes from the states who have passed the Compact, that candidate is elected president.

One reason this is more in the news is because a bipartisan bill has been presented in Congress to address at least some of the problems with the current presidential election process.  It does not deal with anything about the Electoral College, which they can’t do unless it’s voting on a Constitutional Amendment.  But at least the bill recognizes there are serious problem with presidential elections that needed fixing.  Mostly, it focuses on reforming the Electoral Count Act of 1887, and reforming the process of certification.

Among some of its features, the bill makes clear that the Vice President’s role is purely ceremonial and cannot affect results. It requires 20% of each chamber to challenge a state’s certification, not just one person each as is currently the case. 

It also addresses alternate slate of electors – if a state had appointed a slate of electors before a specific deadline, that will take precedence over any electors appointed after that deadline.  The governor of a state must certify these electors – if not, the matter can be appealed to federal court and that decision is final and must be used by Congress.  There are other items in the bill, and it will not doubt go through changes.  A companion bill also helps protect poll workers.  You can read more about it in detail here.

It’s not a lot, but it’s a solid start given the problem. 

And it’s a massive problem, one I’m not only more convinced needs to be fixed, but convinced the Electoral College has to be eliminated.  It’s a wildly different world from 1776, and being the only country in the democratic world that doesn’t elect its leader by popular vote is not just crazy, but as we’ve seen, leaves the election open to massive ways to abuse it.

Which returns us to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Since I last wrote, this is where things stand –

The Compact has been enacted in 16 states who total 195 electoral votes.  Among those states are California, New York, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

Additionally, and importantly, the bill has now passed at least one chamber in nine other states that have a total of 88 additional electoral votes.  These are the House in Arizona, Arkansas House, Michigan and Minnesota.  And the Senate in Maine, North Carolina and Oklahoma.  Additionally, the Compact passed both the House and Senate in Nevada, though it was unfortunately vetoed in 2019 by Gov. Steve Sisolak -- very surprisingly (and unfortunately), he's a Democrat.  But given the changed political landscape, and him being a Democrat -- up for reelection in the mid-terms -- perhaps his view on the matter will be seeing it from a wider, now more-urgent perspective. 

But the specifics add even more encouragement.  In Michigan, for instance, an initiative petition in September, 2021 has now been signed by 340,047 Michigan voters to put the issue on the ballot.  The campaign is waiting approval from the Michigan Board of Canvassers. Yet also, a majority of Republican state senators and also a majority of Democratic state senators have sponsored National Popular Vote bill in the Michigan Senate – that’s 25 of the 38 Michigan state senators as sponsors.   The only question mark is that that was done in September, 2018, nearly four years ago, so it still has a hurdle to overcome. 

The larger point being that along with those states where the Compact has already been enacted, these states above would give 283 electoral votes, 13 more than needed.  Yes, that’s still an “if,” but it’s nonetheless states where the bill has already been at least partially passed. 

Furthermore, the bill has had unanimous approval votes in legislative committee in both Georgia and Missouri.  That's an additional 26 electoral votes.  Meaning that, right now, there are 309 electoral votes in active play.  Meaning that there is a wiggle room of 39 electoral votes to work with, above the 270 needed.

It’s clearly a slow process, but it’s made serious progress, and the potential of passage is not a pipe dream, but realistically possible. 

If you're interested in reading more, the National Popular Vote organization has a pretty good and extremely detailed website with articles, videos, updates, a breakdown state-by-state and more, which you can find here.