It’s unconstitutional and undemocratic

In April, Maine became the newest member of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). The Maine legislature narrowly passed a bill adopting the compact on April 2, and Gov. Janet Mills endorsed the bill without signing it. Maine is the 17th state, along with the District of Columbia, to join the compact.

Why is this important? Under the NPVIC, member jurisdictions pool their electoral votes in a presidential election in favor of the candidate who wins the popular vote at the national level. Once enough states join the compact to represent at least 270 electoral votes—the number needed to elect a president—the Electoral College will be rendered irrelevant and presidents will effectively be chosen by popular vote. So far, enough states have joined to represent 209 electoral votes.

Maryland was the first state to adopt the NPVIC in 2007. Since then, every state joining the compact has been dominated by Democratic legislatures and governors. The NPVIC is nakedly partisan, a cynical ploy by the left to disrupt the Electoral College without having to follow the procedures for amending the Constitution. Progressives have long dreamed of getting rid of the Electoral College. Now, they are closer to getting their shot. Advocates of the NPVIC clearly intend to get what they want, when they want it, even if it means actively subverting the supreme law of the land.

Veteran Democratic operator Robert Reich is one of the prominent advocates for the NPVIC. In a YouTube video, he opens his wild-eyed plea by asking, “Should someone else’s vote count more than yours?” His provocative point is that, since the Electoral College favors the votes of swing states, those living in states with settled political majorities like Massachusetts or Alabama cast votes for president that carry less weight than a vote cast in toss-up states like Georgia or Pennsylvania. The point he ignores is that if future presidents are elected by popular vote, then those living outside of the most densely populated areas will have their votes rendered, not just symbolically, but literally, meaningless.

Advocates like Reich would have us believe that the Electoral College is undemocratic. That is patently false. The Electoral College is not undemocratic, it is indirectly democratic. Sovereignty ultimately rests with “We the people of the United States,” but the constitutional processes of government are a mixture between direct and indirect democracy. When it comes to the Electoral College, it is true that it is an indirectly democratic means of electing the president. Still, the operative word there is democratic. The Electoral College is democratic, because when I vote for a candidate for president, I as a citizen am telling the electors of my state for whom to cast their votes. Whether I am in a swing state or not is irrelevant to the democratic nature of the Electoral College. If the NPVIC takes effect and the Electoral College is rendered an empty shell, our federal system will be materially undermined. Reich thinks this is a great idea. He says, as if on cue, that the NPVIC “could save our democracy.”

It will do nothing of the kind. The NPVIC sabotages the Electoral College, which was instituted in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. It also overthrows the amendment process, laid down in Article V of the Constitution. Advocates like Reich are impatient to get rid of the Electoral College, and cannot bear to think what constitutional procedures would mean for their cause. Reich in his video waves off the amendment process of Article V, which would be the appropriate means by which to abolish the Electoral College. No, he says, a constitutional amendment would be “almost impossible to pull off,” whining that the process would take too long and be too hard.

Of course, he is right—the framers of the Constitution intentionally made the amendment process long and hard to prevent such mob-driven, harebrained proposals from gaining traction. Of the more than 11,000 proposed amendments laid before Congress since 1789, only twenty-seven have been adopted. The Constitution, animated by the federal principle of scattering rather than concentrating power, is the best guarantee of liberty.

Pleas to “save our democracy” ring hollow when they come from sources who would undemocratically overthrow the will of people who live in states outside the compact. I live in a state that has not adopted the NPVIC. I am personally opposed to the abolition of the Electoral College, whether by formal or informal means. But if other states continue to pass legislation, enough to render the Electoral College a dead letter, I will have never had my chance to vote against it. And if presidents are to be elected by popular vote, when I cast my ballot, my vote will be utterly meaningless, because I will have no real political connection to my state’s presidential electors as I did when the Electoral College functioned as it was designed. I fail to see anything democratic in this flagrant dismissal of constitutional procedure.

We must remember that, in America, our political system is not ruled by the majority. It is ruled by the Constitution—at least for now.