WASHINGTON — A movement to give the presidency to the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide has new momentum after Democrats swept state races in the midterm elections, but it still faces major hurdles in state legislatures and in court, according to The Washington Post.
For two decades, reformers have pressed states to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement under which each member state awards its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter who wins that state. The compact takes effect only when member states together hold at least 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win the presidency. So far, 18 states and Washington, D.C., have signed on, with 222 electoral votes between them, according to the Post.
Last week, Democrats won full control of the governorships and both legislative chambers in five states that have not yet joined the compact: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Together, those states hold more than the 48 electoral votes the compact still needs. “There is no other election in this country where the person who loses can win the election, where the person who gets the most votes doesn’t actually win,” Wisconsin state Sen. Kelda Roys said, according to the Post. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said after the midterms that the national popular vote makes sense and that the will of the people should be heard and respected.
In Nevada, Governor-elect Aaron Ford said he wants his state to join and would sign a bill assigning Nevada’s electoral votes to the national popular vote winner if one reached his desk, according to local reporting. Nevada lawmakers passed such a bill in 2019, but the governor at the time vetoed it. Supporters say the plan is a neutral rule that simply ensures the candidate with the most votes becomes president, pointing to the elections of 2000 and 2016, when the winner of the presidency lost the national popular vote.
Opponents say the compact is an attempt to work around the Constitution, which sets up the Electoral College, and that changing the system should require a constitutional amendment. Daniel Lennington of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty said opponents are prepared to sue, and legal experts expect challenges under the Constitution’s Compact Clause, which may require congressional approval for such an agreement between states. Any lawsuit could reach the Supreme Court.
Why it matters: if all five newly Democratic states joined, the compact would cross the 270-vote line and the popular vote winner would be guaranteed the presidency as early as the 2028 election, without amending the Constitution. That outcome is not certain. Each state must still pass its own bill, governors must sign, and courts would then decide whether the plan can stand. The debate also cuts both ways politically: after a strong midterm, some Democrats may ask whether the current system still works against them. For now, the Post’s assessment is the careful one: the goal is within reach politically, and the legal fight would begin the moment it is reached.
Source: The Washington Post, via syndication.
