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US edges closer to popular vote deciding winner of presidential elections (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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Virginia signs national popular vote bill into law, joining interstate compact with 17 other states and District of Columbia

A national majority vote for president is one step closer to reality after the Virginia governor, Abigail Spanberger, signed the national popular vote bill into law, joining an interstate compact with 17 other states and the District of Columbia.

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 has 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.

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[–] 1 point 7 months ago (8 children)

It can't enable anything without federal oversight via a constitutional amendment. Voting is within the purview of each individual state, so the states in this compact have no oversight on their peers (let alone the powers to demand a recount or rerun the election).

For example, let's say 20 states make up exactly 270 EC votes. The popular vote within those states (if allocated proportional to votes) ends up as 136/270 to candidate X. The other 30 states report universal support for candidate Y.

By rights, Y should win with 402 EC votes and 74% of the popular vote. But if the compact chooses to ignore those states as fraudulent then candidate X wins with a mere 26%.

Similar fuckery can happen with late reporting of votes or a state in the compact reneging on the agreement and voting against the rest. There's absolutely nothing binding about this, it's just a pinky promise among these states.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    You're a touch off. If the state passes a law backing the compact, it is now law in their state. The feds don't have much of a say unless they make a case for discrimination. It's true the other states have no power to enforce it, but they don't have to. Someone from an offending state can sue their state for ignoring a law they passed. And there would be no shortage of such someones.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Unless they strongly protect the compact (such as putting it in the state constitution) they can just as easily repeal it. And honestly it would be downright negligent to not add an escape hatch.

    Someone from an offending state can sue their state for ignoring a law they passed.

    I'd also expect a bunch of lawsuits the first time a candidate wins a state but the compact flips the result.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I don't expect there to be lawsuits from the compact "flipping results" as you put it, partly because that's entirely the wrong framing for how it works but mostly because all those lawsuits would be gotten out of the way when the laws first come into effect. The reason flipping a state's results is the wrong framing is simple, the compact only comes into effect when there are enough electoral college votes participating to be able decide the election on their own. At that point it is meaningless to say someone "won" any individual state, because the only number that matters is the national vote.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    I think maybe you misunderstood the compact.

    I'm your example, the states who signed the compact would all put their votes to candidate Y, assuming they had more popular votes in all states.

    It's not "join us or be punished", it's "we will implement the will of the majority, not matter what".

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

    So, as in my original comment, you would expect the blue states to graciously allow Texas + Florida + a few other deep red states to unilaterally declare the winner by leveraging the compact's EC votes? When push comes to shove this compact will either be kingmakers or fall apart.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    The 17th Amendement requires the direct election of Senators. Blue state accept red states' votes for those.

    If you're going to make an argument based on bad faith of states, then the US basically ceases to exist as a republic, regardless of whether you have the compact.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    What about recent American politics gives you the impression that states will act in good faith? Hell, look back even farther at the slave state collusion for Mexican territory, secession, Reconstruction fuckery, Jim crow, etc...

    The only limit to states acting in bad faith has historically been the federal government. When states start fucking around too much, laws like the Voting Rights Act get drawn up to claw more power away from them.

    IMO the state-federation experiment has all but failed and the majority of good faith states need a proper convention to build a modern government. Choosing now of all times to put your faith in those anti-democratic, Christo-fascist slave states is the dumbest option possible.

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