US edges closer to popular vote deciding winner of presidential elections
A national majority vote moved one step closer to reality when Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger signed the national popular vote bill into law, joining an interstate agreement with 17 other states and the District of Columbia.
Under the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact, states will assign presidential electors to the popular vote winner, regardless of within-state results. The convention will come into force if states representing a majority of the electoral votes (270 out of 538 votes) pass the law, thereby determining the winner of the presidential race. With Virginia, the compact now has 222 voters.
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Democrats have an electoral majority in every state that has enacted the convention so far, including California, New York and Illinois. But enough states have passed legislation to reach the 270-voter threshold, including swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The legislation is based on two provisions of the US constitution that would be subject to intense legal scrutiny if the agreement goes into effect. II of the Constitution Section 1 gives each state the power to appoint electors “in such manner as the legislature may direct.” The Constitution doesn’t even require states to vote for the president; let alone transferring these electors at the discretion of voters in the state.
The second provision of the US constitution, article 1, section 10, clause 3, governs interstate compacts. The text authorizes states to enter into legally binding agreements governing their relations with each other. The text requires states to get Congressional approval to enact a treaty. But longstanding U.S. supreme court precedent holds that states only need congressional approval for the agreement if the agreement violates federal authority. Supporters of the National Popular Vote Interstate Convention argue that the electoral college is a state power, not a federal one.
A Pew Research Center questionnaire It showed that starting in 2024, 63% of Americans would replace the electoral college with a national popular vote for president, and 35% would oppose the change.
“We will continue our work on a state-by-state basis until the candidate with the most votes is elected president and every voter is treated equally in every presidential election,” said John Koza, president of the National Popular Vote, which spearheaded the legislation.
Stand Up America, which also advocates for the national popular vote, noted that two of the four U.S. presidents of the 21st century (George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016) lost the popular vote and still won the White House via the electoral college. Of the 60 presidential elections in US history 10 others were near misses where small numbers of votes in a few states could sway the electoral college towards the candidate who lost the popular vote.
“The presidency should be won by the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide, not just the right combination of battleground states,” said Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America. “This brings us one step closer to a system where Americans’ votes for president and vice president count equally no matter where they live.”
