National Popular Vote

[MajorRewrite]

18 states have now joined the National Popular Vote compact, which has the goal of making the Electoral College irrelevant.

US edges closer to popular vote determining winner of presidential elections

Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state. The compact takes effect when states representing a majority of electoral votes – 270 of 538 – pass the legislation and thus would determine the winner of the presidential contest. With Virginia, the compact now has 222 electors.

Every state that has so far enacted the compact have Democratic electoral majorities, including California, New York and Illinois. But legislation has been introduced in enough states to reach the 270 elector threshold, including swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Just need additional states with 48 electoral votes. Not impossible.

 

[Wilson23]

Is there any downside?

 

[DeluxAuto]

We outgrew the Electoral College decades ago.

 

[Wilson23]

We outgrew the Electoral College decades ago.

CENTURIES ago. The Framers' original plan was that the College of Electors would choose a president the way the College of Cardinals elects a Pope -- the electors would assemble with no prior commitments, look around at the leading statemen of the day, and pick one. The public would be involved only in voting for electors, who presumably would not campaign in terms of "Vote for John Smith -- he'll vote for Thomas Jefferson" but "Vote for John Smith -- he has good sound judgment."

But no POTUS after Washington ever was elected that way.

It's starting to look more and more like a parlamentary system would be better -- let CONGRESS elect the president.

 

[eric_erosfan]

I don't know if this is the way to do it. You are basically saying if a state voted for Candidate A but Candidate B had the plurality of the national popular vote, the state would award Candidate B all its electoral votes? You realize if that applied to the 2024 election Trump would have gotten all the electoral votes? Even California's?

 

[Wilson23]

I don't know if this is the way to do it. You are basically saying if a state voted for Candidate A but Candidate B had the plurality of the national popular vote, the state would award Candidate B all its electoral votes? You realize if that applied to the 2024 election Trump would have gotten all the electoral votes? Even California's?

Yes -- but if it applied to the 2016 election Trump would have won none.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

18 states have now joined the National Popular Vote compact, which has the goal of making the Electoral College irrelevant.

US edges closer to popular vote determining winner of presidential elections





Just need additional states with 48 electoral votes. Not impossible.

This encourages the red states to cheat by padding their popular vote totals. The current electoral college sucks but this is worse.

 

[MajorRewrite]

Yes -- but if it applied to the 2016 election Trump would have won none.

Exactly. With the National Popular Vote compact, the candidate that wins the popular vote always wins the election. As it should be.

 

[Lazaran]

This encourages the red states to cheat by padding their popular vote totals. The current electoral college sucks but this is worse.

The perpetrators would be risking MASSIVE prison sentences (and I would support the death penalty if such occurrences materialized.



Also:

Similar concerns already exist with the current electoral system (and
the concerns are even worse / more legitimate, imho). I would actually argue that it is far easier to cheat in the current electoral college system.



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

The perpetrators would be risking MASSIVE prison sentences (and I would support the death penalty if such occurrences materialized.



Also:

Similar concerns already exist with the current electoral system (and
the concerns are even worse / more legitimate, imho). I would actually argue that it is far easier to cheat in the current electoral college system.



We. Told. Them. So.

States run elections. Under the current system there’s a limit to how much damage a corrupt governor can do. No matter how much Wyoming cheats they still only have 3 electoral votes.

But if corruption is widespread in a state, there won’t be much risk to changing the popular vote by a few %. Not enough to be obvious, but significant if a lot of states do it. If the state has a corrupt AG it might not even be risky at all. There won’t be any massive prison sentences if the AG looks the other way and never brings the perps to trial.

 

[Wilson23]

Voting figures are not easy to inflate. Every voter is NAMED ON A LIST. In the old political-machine days the dead voted -- but the machine operatives at least made sure to go to cemeteries and take down real names.

 

[Lazaran]

States run elections. If a state is run by a corrupt administration, there’s a limit to how much damage they can do under the current system. No matter how much Wyoming cheats they still only have 3 electoral votes.

But if corruption is widespread in a state, there might not be much risk to changing the popular vote by a few %. Not enough to be obvious but significant if a lot of states do it. If the state has a corrupt AG it might not even be that risky. There won’t be any massive prison sentences if the AG looks the other way and never brings the perps to trial.

I’m talking federal charges.

The numbers needed to swing the national popular vote would likely stick out like a sore thumb vs the relatively minor vote totals that can swing a state to a candidate under the current system.

I’m not saying there would be zero concerns if the popular vote was used to decide presidential elections, but I honestly feel concerns already exist and are more troubling under the current system.

JMTCW