National Popular Vote Compact
By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
The left hates the Electoral College. An MSNBC commentator said that it is “just a wildly dangerous institution that undermines democracy but also creates all manner of Rube Goldberg machinery to be attacked by bad actors.” Congressman Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland who was on the Jan. 6 inquisition committee, said that the Electoral College was an “obsolete system from the 18th century that is deadly for Americans.” He said that the Electoral College “can get you killed.” I presume he was referring to the death of Ashli Babbitt, shot by a Capitol policeman on January 6, 2021.
In April, Maine passed the National Popular Vote Compact. In case you had this one slip by you, the NPV is an agreement that a state will award all its electoral votes to the candidate for president who wins the popular vote regardless of who won the state. This would effectively put an end to the Electoral College. In the Electoral College, the winner needs 270 votes. To date, the NPV has garnered 209 votes and won’t go into effect until enough states join that will make the total 270. Maryland was the first state to pass the NPV and not surprisingly only those states with the Democrat majorities in their legislatures and the governorship have passed it.
It is not clear whether the NPV is constitutional. Certainly, there will be lawsuits and residents in a state carried by the losing candidate but whose electoral votes are awarded to the one with the most votes would have standing. Currently, there are 27 Republican governors and it is highly likely that all would veto any NPV bill that reached their desk – unless it is someone like Larry Hogan who did nothing about the NPV while he was Maryland’s governor. As to the government trifecta where one party has both the governorship and both legislatures, 23 are Republican and 15 are Democrat with 12 states with divided government.
Look at the map. The green states have enacted the NPV. It is pending in the yellow states and not being considered in the gray states. It is surprising that the NPV has not been passed in Michigan where the Democrats control both legislatures and the governor’s office. North Carolina has a Republican legislature and a Democrat governor. Virginia has a Republican governor and a Democrat legislature. Nevada has a Republican governor and a Democrat legislature. Michigan’s 15 electoral votes would bring the NPV total to 224. Although there is a mathematical chance that the NPV might reach 270, the odds are slim.
Not surprisingly Hillary Clinton has called for the elimination of the Electoral College. However, although she got more votes than Trump, she only won 48% of the popular vote. To date, I have heard no one on the left saying that to be elected president a candidate must have 50 plus 1 percent of the popular vote. But that is an important issue. Neither Bill or Hillary Clinton got 50% of the popular vote, nor did George W. Bush when he ran against Al Gore. Nixon only got 43% when he ran against Humphrey due to Ross Perot. So if there were a third-party candidate, the popular vote leader could get under 40% of the popular vote. The NPV agreement would give that person at least 270 electoral votes. Wouldn’t that qualify as a “threat to democracy?” George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore but won it when he ran for re-election against John Kerry. Can you imagine Al Gore as president? Or Hillary Clinton for that matter. That alone makes some of us thankful for the existence of the Electoral College.
What is ironic is that Donald Trump, to the surprise of us all, won the popular vote. Do you think the voters of California and New York would now favor their electoral votes going to Trump? So maybe Trump’s landslide will cause this National Popular Vote Compact nonsense to fade away.
