Virginia Joins the Popular Vote Compact

The Democrats’ attempt to evade the Electoral College is getting new momentum. That’s the upshot of the Old Dominion joining this week an interstate compact that would award each member state’s electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote. Never mind if a majority of voters in a state like, say, Virginia, opt for another candidate. Virginia’s electors would then be bound to vote in the electoral college against its own citizens.That’s the logic of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which has been rounding up members — Democratic states — in recent years. Virginia’s accession brings membership in the compact to states accounting for 222 electoral votes. If the electoral votes controlled by states in the compact reach 270, the compact requires the member states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote, creating the potential for bizarre election results.Feature, say, New York in 2004. It had 31 electoral votes. In 2004, its voters went for the Democrat, John Kerry, by something like 18 percentage points. Had the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact been in effect at the time, the Empire State’s electoral college electors would have been bound to cast the state’s votes for president for George W. Bush, who won the nationwide popular vote in 2004 by a margin of some 3 million. These columns have covered this story for years. Virginia’s decision is a warning to keep alert to this issue, which is a de facto end-run around the Constitution. To be sure, the national charter directs that “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” Backers of the compact suggest there’s nothing stopping states from appointing electors based on the national popular vote winner.Yet the Constitution forbids any state to “enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State,” unless Congress approves it. It’s hard to anticipate the federal legislature opting to endorse the popular vote compact scheme, barring a significant change in the Democrats’ fortunes. Nor is it clear how the compact would fare in the federal courts, especially if the Supreme Court retains any kind of originalist majority on the high bench.The Electoral College, after all, is a safeguard of state sovereignty, along with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal representation for each state in the Senate. The Framers could have arranged for the presidents to be chosen by popular vote, but opted against it. The need to cobble together a nationwide coalition in the Electoral College is one of the reasons why America’s democracy has endured. Tampering with this tradition would, in our view, be folly.Yet the advocates of the popular vote compact are crowing that Virginia’s decision puts them within sight of the finish line. As it stands, the compact only “needs an additional 48 electoral votes,” its backers assert, “to be activated.” The compact’s supporters reckon that six states, comprising 65 electoral votes, are “especially promising places for obtaining the 48 electoral votes needed” before the next presidential election.These prospects are Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Among these states, lawmakers in Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada have already approved the compact in at least one house of the legislature. So it’s not outlandish to imagine that the compact’s backers will reach their goal. It’s hard to see that as a boon for America. The compact may not be a violation of the Constitution, but it is an evasion of its intended purpose.

Virginia Joins the Popular Vote Compact

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