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It won't ever happen -- "On February 17, 2021, the North Dakota Senate passed SB 2271,[153] "to amend and reenact sections ... relating to procedures for canvas

It won't ever happen -- "On February 17, 2021, the North Dakota Senate passed SB 2271,[153] "to amend and reenact sections ... relating to procedures for canvassing and counting votes for presidential electors"[154] in a deliberate—albeit indirect—effort to stymie the efficacy of the NPVIC by prohibiting disclosure of the state's popular vote until after the Electoral College meets." That didn't end up becoming law, but there will be a critical mass of states opposed to effort (swing states who will lose influence mostly) that will pass things like this making the NPVIC impossible to implement.

romwell 2y ago
>It won't ever happen People said the same thing about Roe vs. Wade being repealed. Never say never.
Miner49er 2y ago
I don't think this stops it. The NPVIC seems to have accounted for this. It is discussed here: https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/bill-text https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/bill-text "Popular votes can, however, only be counted from non-member states if there are popular votes available to count. As previously mentioned, Article II of the compact guarantees that each member state will produce a popular vote count because it requires member states to permit their voters to vote for President and Vice President in a “statewide popular election.” Even though all states have permitted their voters to vote for presidential electors in a “statewide popular election” since the 1880 election, non-member states are, of course, not bound by the compact. In the unlikely event that a non-member state were to take the presidential vote away from its own people, there would be no popular vote count available from such a state. Similarly, in the unlikely event that a non-member state were to remove the names of the presidential nominees and vice-presidential nominees from the ballot and present the voters only with names of candidates for presidential elector (as was the case in 1960 in Alabama as shown by the ballot in figure 2.13 and discussed in section 2.11), there would be no way to associate the vote counts of the various presidential electors with the nationwide tally being accumulated by any regular “presidential slate” running in the rest of the country. The compact addresses the above two unlikely possibilities by specifying that the popular votes that are to be aggregated to produce the “national popular vote total” are those that are “… cast for each presidential slate in each State of the United States and in the District of Columbia in which votes have been cast in a statewide popular election … .” In this way, the first clause of Article III of the compact deals with the unlikely possibility of a “one-state veto” preventing the orderly operation of the compact." I guess the bill maybe does get around this by still having a popular vote, but not reporting the results of it. However, as far as I can tell, the NPVIC doesn't specify how the "chief election officials" are to determine the popular votes in each state, so maybe they could go off of other data, like exit polls. Even if it does stop it, the end result is a catch-22. I don't think a president could then be elected, at least by normal means.
- stbenjam 2y ago
  I don't think I'd want to have a system using exit polls... they've been wrong before. Once you're using polls why have elections at all? Anyway, my point is states opposed to the NPVIC already have at least one good idea to stymie it. I think they could come up with plenty more. What if states refuse to certify their own votes until a majority of states vote to force a result equivalent to the "old" system?
jedberg 2y ago
The compact addresses that -- states that aren't part of the compact and don't produce vote counts just won't be counted. It won't matter because the compact states would have enough EC votes to ignore those other states.
- nostromo 2y ago
  "We've solved democracy! ... by disenfranchising a whole new set of voters."
  - jedberg 2y ago
    I think the point is that the EC already disenfranchises a whole bunch of voters, and maybe if this passes and the red states get totally cut out, they might come around to passing an actual popular vote ammendment.
    - anonymousiam 2y ago
      Most people should already know this, but I'll say it anyway. The EC exists to provide some balance between the most populous states and the least. Switching to a pure popular vote destroys that balance and brings us closer to a "tyranny of the majority." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
      - btreecat 2y ago
        Instead we have an inability to act due to minority propaganda. I'm not sure enabling the minority to completely lock up the machinery of governance is a preferable alternative.
        nostromo 2y ago
        The US constitution is all about protecting small groups from big groups. It’s a feature not a bug. If you want to comfortably win elections you just have to win by more than a percent or two.
alasarmas 2y ago
An interesting twist on the “swing states are against the NPVIC” narrative is currently playing out in Nevada. My read of this narrative goes as follows: swing states, including Nevada, will find their importance in Presidential elections diminished, and therefore their influence and ability to garner patronage diminished, if the NPVIC comes into effect and survives legal challenges and so on. Persuaded by this narrative (I presume), then-Governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak vetoed the NPVIC bill back in May of 2019 after it had passed both houses of the Nevada legislature. Now, five years later, after passing through the legislature a second time, accession to the NPVIC via an amendment to the state constitution of Nevada will be a ballot question in November 2026 for voters — if it passes again in the 2025-2026 legislative session for a third time. [0] 0. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state/nv https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state/nv

romwell 2y ago

>It won't ever happen People said the same thing about Roe vs. Wade being repealed. Never say never.

Miner49er 2y ago

I don't think this stops it. The NPVIC seems to have accounted for this. It is discussed here: https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/bill-text https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/bill-text "Popular votes can, however, only be counted from non-member states if there are popular votes available to count. As previously mentioned, Article II of the compact guarantees that each member state will produce a popular vote count because it requires member states to permit their voters to vote for President and Vice President in a “statewide popular election.” Even though all states have permitted their voters to vote for presidential electors in a “statewide popular election” since the 1880 election, non-member states are, of course, not bound by the compact. In the unlikely event that a non-member state were to take the presidential vote away from its own people, there would be no popular vote count available from such a state. Similarly, in the unlikely event that a non-member state were to remove the names of the presidential nominees and vice-presidential nominees from the ballot and present the voters only with names of candidates for presidential elector (as was the case in 1960 in Alabama as shown by the ballot in figure 2.13 and discussed in section 2.11), there would be no way to associate the vote counts of the various presidential electors with the nationwide tally being accumulated by any regular “presidential slate” running in the rest of the country. The compact addresses the above two unlikely possibilities by specifying that the popular votes that are to be aggregated to produce the “national popular vote total” are those that are “… cast for each presidential slate in each State of the United States and in the District of Columbia in which votes have been cast in a statewide popular election … .” In this way, the first clause of Article III of the compact deals with the unlikely possibility of a “one-state veto” preventing the orderly operation of the compact." I guess the bill maybe does get around this by still having a popular vote, but not reporting the results of it. However, as far as I can tell, the NPVIC doesn't specify how the "chief election officials" are to determine the popular votes in each state, so maybe they could go off of other data, like exit polls. Even if it does stop it, the end result is a catch-22. I don't think a president could then be elected, at least by normal means.

stbenjam 2y ago
I don't think I'd want to have a system using exit polls... they've been wrong before. Once you're using polls why have elections at all? Anyway, my point is states opposed to the NPVIC already have at least one good idea to stymie it. I think they could come up with plenty more. What if states refuse to certify their own votes until a majority of states vote to force a result equivalent to the "old" system?

jedberg 2y ago

The compact addresses that -- states that aren't part of the compact and don't produce vote counts just won't be counted. It won't matter because the compact states would have enough EC votes to ignore those other states.

nostromo 2y ago
"We've solved democracy! ... by disenfranchising a whole new set of voters."
- jedberg 2y ago
  I think the point is that the EC already disenfranchises a whole bunch of voters, and maybe if this passes and the red states get totally cut out, they might come around to passing an actual popular vote ammendment.
  - anonymousiam 2y ago
    Most people should already know this, but I'll say it anyway. The EC exists to provide some balance between the most populous states and the least. Switching to a pure popular vote destroys that balance and brings us closer to a "tyranny of the majority." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
    - btreecat 2y ago
      Instead we have an inability to act due to minority propaganda. I'm not sure enabling the minority to completely lock up the machinery of governance is a preferable alternative.
      - nostromo 2y ago
        The US constitution is all about protecting small groups from big groups. It’s a feature not a bug. If you want to comfortably win elections you just have to win by more than a percent or two.

alasarmas 2y ago

An interesting twist on the “swing states are against the NPVIC” narrative is currently playing out in Nevada. My read of this narrative goes as follows: swing states, including Nevada, will find their importance in Presidential elections diminished, and therefore their influence and ability to garner patronage diminished, if the NPVIC comes into effect and survives legal challenges and so on. Persuaded by this narrative (I presume), then-Governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak vetoed the NPVIC bill back in May of 2019 after it had passed both houses of the Nevada legislature. Now, five years later, after passing through the legislature a second time, accession to the NPVIC via an amendment to the state constitution of Nevada will be a ballot question in November 2026 for voters — if it passes again in the 2025-2026 legislative session for a third time. [0] 0. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state/nv https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state/nv