Opinion of the National Popular vote interstate compact?

[NOT gonna be banned soon]

Complete and total HIC. Claims to be "democratic" when in reality the most un-democratic thing I have ever seen in my life. If you don't know, the NPVIC goal is to give all of the electoral votes of a state to the winner of the nation wide popular vote, even if the winner of the popular vote didn't win in that state. That means that candidate #1 can gain all of California's 55 electoral vote even though candidate #2 may have got the popular vote of California.

[This account no longer in use.]

Some parts are good, some are bad.

[Goldwater]

It can only work if all states adopt it at the same time, effective replacing the electoral college with a national popular vote.

[Virginiá]

It can only work if all states adopt it at the same time, effective replacing the electoral college with a national popular vote.

The idea is that once enough states adopt it whose combined electoral votes add up to 270+, then it goes into effect and the only way to win is by winning the popular vote. It's a crafty workaround for the electoral college.

[Mr. Morden]

It seems to have lost all its previous momentum, as it became more of a partisan issue.

If there's no NPVIC, then how about states making smaller compacts amongst themselves, to pool their electoral votes?  For example, CA, TX, and GA all agree to allocate all of their electoral votes to the winner of the combined popular vote from all three states.  You'd have a swing "super-state" with over 100 electoral votes, and it would basically be impossible for anyone to win the presidency without winning it, so candidates would end up spending most of their time campaigning in CA/TX/GA.  Then other states would counter with their own deal, in order to create their own super-states, to keep up.

[Virginiá]

ssshhh Morden! You're going to start an electoral Cold War!

[Vosem]

The problem with NPV on the scale of a country like America is that if a result is very, very close then it's totally impractical to conduct any sort of recount or dispute it in any way, which makes the Electoral College a very useful intercession (along with reaffirming the federalist nature of the nation). It would probably be a lot better, and a lot more democratic, if the states were to use a proportional method to divide their Electoral College votes (would also have the advantage of giving more states occasional turns at being swing states, and ensuring large states always receive some attention from presidential candidates).

[Joe Republic]

Complete and total HIC. Claims to be "democratic" when in reality the most un-democratic thing I have ever seen in my life. If you don't know, the NPVIC goal is to give all of the electoral votes of a state to the winner of the nation wide popular vote, even if the winner of the popular vote didn't win in that state. That means that candidate #1 can gain all of California's 55 electoral vote even though candidate #2 may have got the popular vote of California.

Yes, so then the national popular vote winner would win the election.  How is that "un-democratic", exactly?

[SteveRogers]

Complete and total HIC. Claims to be "democratic" when in reality the most un-democratic thing I have ever seen in my life. If you don't know, the NPVIC goal is to give all of the electoral votes of a state to the winner of the nation wide popular vote, even if the winner of the popular vote didn't win in that state. That means that candidate #1 can gain all of California's 55 electoral vote even though candidate #2 may have got the popular vote of California.

Yes, so then the national popular vote winner would win the election.  How is that "un-democratic", exactly?

Well, it's undemocratic for an entirely different reason than what the OP states. It's undemocratic because you would potentially have a minority of states effectively repealing the electoral college. I support repealing the electoral college and switching to a national popular vote, but if we're going to make such a sweeping change to the electoral system then we should debate it and decide it as a country through the proper process, i.e. a constitutional amendment

[beaver2.0]

HIC (proponent of electoral college).

[Orser67]

I've slowly started to like the electoral college system in that it encourages two broad-based parties to compete in different regions of the country. The potential for a nationwide recount in a popular vote system is also an issue.

With that said, I think the NPVIC is a clever idea, and certainly not undemocratic.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

No strong opinion, but it's not going to happen until they get red states on board.

[kohler]

No strong opinion, but it's not going to happen until they get red states on board.

On February 4, 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
 Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the National Popular Vote bill.
 In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the National Popular Vote bill.

On February 12, 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill by a 28–18 margin.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 34 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9). The bill has been enacted by 11 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

[kohler]

I've slowly started to like the electoral college system in that it encourages two broad-based parties to compete in different regions of the country.  .. . .

The indefensible reality is that more than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states in 2012.

Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).

38 states had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.

There are only expected to be 7 remaining swing states in 2016 - Florida (29 electoral votes), Ohio (18), Virginia (13), Colorado (9), Nevada (6), Iowa (6) and New Hampshire (4) is not a foregone conclusion.

One analyst is predicting two million voters in seven counties are going to determine who wins the presidency in 2016. 

Since March, ASSUMING a Clinton vs. Trump campaign, some analysts believe there will be no swing states.  States with 347 electoral votes are leaning, likely, or safe Democratic, and 191 Republican.
      
The predictability of the winner of the state you live in, not where it is, determines how much, if at all, your vote matters.

If the National Popular Vote bill is not in effect, less than a handful of states will continue to dominate and determine the presidential general election.   

[kohler]

. . . The potential for a nationwide recount in a popular vote system is also an issue.

. . . .

No recount, much less a nationwide recount, would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 57  presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the  nationwide count.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
“It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg

The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the minuscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida.

Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state by-state winner-take-all methods.

The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.

The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.

We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount.

Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.

The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.

The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination" six days before the Electoral College meets.

[kohler]

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The U.S. Constitution says "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The normal way of changing the method of electing the President is not a federal constitutional amendment, but changes in state law.

Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation's first election in 1789. However, now, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.

In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state's electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all method is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.

In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state.

In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.

The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.

[kohler]

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The National Popular Vote would not effectively repeal the Electoral College. 
We would continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states.
Non-enacting states would use whatever method for allocating their electors as they choose.

The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.       

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!
      
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.
            
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.

Based on the current mix of states that have enacted the National Popular Vote compact, it could take about 25 states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the compact.

[kohler]

. . . the Electoral College a very useful intercession (along with reaffirming the federalist nature of the nation).. . ..

With the Electoral College and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interests within the confines of the Constitution. National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.

During the course of campaigns, candidates are educated and campaign about the local, regional, and state issues most important to the handful of battleground states they need to win.  They take this knowledge and prioritization with them once they are elected.  Candidates need to be educated and care about all of our states.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state, ensures that the candidates, after the conventions, in 2012 did not reach out to about 38+ states and their voters.  10 of the original 13 states are ignored now. 80% of  states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party  in the states, and  ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. Candidates had no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they were safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
   
In 2012, 38+ states and people were just spectators to the presidential election. That's more than 85 million voters, more than 200 million Americans.
   
In 2012, more than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the then only ten competitive states. Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
38 states were politically irrelevant.
There are only expected to be 7 remaining swing states in 2016.

Issues of importance to non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them.

Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections
    
Policies important to the citizens of non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.

“Battleground” states receive 7% more federal grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions.

The National Popular Vote bill retains the Electoral College and state control of elections.  It again changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College. 

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter  in the state counts and national count. When states with a combined total of at least 270 electoral votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ Electoral College votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes.

States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.
   
Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ."   The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
      
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government.  The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government.  The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).

[kohler]

. . . It would probably be a lot better, and a lot more democratic, if the states were to use a proportional method to divide their Electoral College votes (would also have the advantage of giving more states occasional turns at being swing states, and ensuring large states always receive some attention from presidential candidates).

Although the whole-number proportional approach might initially seem to offer the possibility of making every voter in every state relevant in presidential elections, it would not do this in practice.
It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;
It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant), and
It would not make every vote equal.
It would not guarantee the Presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country.
   
Any state that enacts the proportional approach on its own would reduce its own influence. This was the most telling argument that caused Colorado voters to agree with Republican Governor Owens and to reject this proposal in November 2004 by a two-to-one margin. 

The political reality is that campaign strategies in ordinary elections are based on trying to change a reasonably achievable small percentage of the votes—1%, 2%, or 3%.  As a matter of practical politics, only one electoral vote would be in play in almost all states. A system that requires even a 9% share of the popular vote in order to win one electoral vote is fundamentally out of sync with the small-percentage vote shifts that are involved in real-world presidential campaigns.

If a current battleground state, like Colorado, were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.

If states were to ever start adopting the whole-number proportional approach on a piecemeal basis, each additional state adopting the approach would increase the influence of the remaining states and thereby would decrease the incentive of the remaining states to adopt it. Thus, a state-by-state process of adopting the whole-number proportional approach would quickly bring itself to a halt, leaving the states that adopted it with only minimal influence in presidential elections.
   
The proportional method also easily could result in no candidate winning the needed majority of 270 electoral votes.  That would throw the process into Congress to decide the election, regardless of the popular vote in any state or throughout the country.

If the whole-number proportional approach had been in use throughout the country in the nation’s closest recent presidential election (2000), it would not have awarded the most electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide.  Instead, the result would have been a tie of 269–269 in the electoral vote, even though Al Gore led by 537,179 popular votes across the nation.  The presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide and resulted in the election of the second-place candidate in terms of the national popular vote. 

Awarding electoral votes by a proportional method fails to promote majority rule, greater competitiveness or voter equality. If done nationally,  the whole number proportional system sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives.

In a situation in which no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes, with the current system,  the election of the President would be thrown into the U.S. House (with each state casting one vote) and the election of the Vice President would be thrown into the U.S. Senate.  Congress would decide the election, regardless of the popular vote in any state or throughout the country.

A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every voter equal. 

It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census.  It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon). 
   
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach, which would require a constitutional amendment, does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote.  In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate. 
   
A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.

[kohler]

It seems to have lost all its previous momentum, as it became more of a partisan issue. . . .

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
   
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently.  In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range -  in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Most Americans, regardless of party, believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.   

On February 4, 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
 Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the National Popular Vote bill.
 In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the National Popular Vote bill.

On February 12, 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill by a 28–18 margin.

[kohler]

. . candidate #1 can gain all of California's 55 electoral vote even though candidate #2 may have got the popular vote of California.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate.  Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

In state polls of voters each with a second  question that specifically emphasized that their state's electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states, not necessarily their state's winner, there was only a 4-8% decrease of support.
   
 Question 1: "How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current Electoral College system?"

Question 2: "Do you think it more important that a state's electoral votes be cast for the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state, or is it more important to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states becomes president?"

Support for a National Popular Vote
South Dakota -- 75% for Question 1, 67% for Question 2.
Connecticut -- 74% for Question 1, 68% for Question 2,
Utah -- 70% for Question 1, 66% for Question 2,

NationalPopularVote.com