# The proposed National Popular Vote Interstate Compact **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 3, 2018, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797 "2018-01-03T14:23:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/161 "2018-01-05T14:39:27Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s a good angle that I hadn’t thought of, but it would seem to me that it only means the parliamentary system might be unjust in a different way. Or, one can argue that if you voted for a minority party that ends up not being part of the government that gets formed, you get no vote at all towards picking the PM. > > But primarily I’m interested in **iiandyiiii’s** reasoning that straying from the popular vote puts you in less just territory. Is this always the case, or is there something about the presidency that makes it particularly prone to this problem. I don’t know if it’s always the case – maybe in a parliamentary system there are other factors that make up for this particular “less just” characteristic. For example: a hypothetical system in which everyone gets an equal vote, but the candidates must be a certain ethnicity and gender, would be less just IMO than a system in which everyone gets a vote, but the influence of each vote is based on factors like geography (like the EC) and not always equal, but candidates are not restricted by ethnicity or gender. When I look at the EC and compare it to a hypothetical national popular vote system for the US, I don’t see any benefits that make up for this less just characteristic. If I understand their reasoning correctly, the framers were concerned that without an EC, presidential candidates would ignore vast swaths of the country and only focus on high population areas. Modern politics and the EC has proven that presidential candidates still ignore vast swaths of the country, including many or most of the largest cities, and that strikes me as even worse than focusing on big cities at the expense of rural areas, which might occur with a national popular vote. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/162 "2018-01-05T14:42:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The Compact isn’t exactly clear about what it means to “win” the popular vote. Does a plurality win, or does it have to be a clear majority? In the current system, if no candidate gets a majority of the EV vote, the election goes to the House. With the increased likelihood of faithless electors, I think this Compact will increase the probability of an election going to the House (if we can suspend all reality for a moment and pretend that this Compact could pass). As noted above, then each state gets an equal vote, with no weighting for population. > > But what should happen with this Compact if the votes come out: 45% - 40% - 15%? Does the 45% candidate “win”? > > Some of you are probably too young to remember, but it wasn’t that long ago that we had a 43.4% - 42.7% - 13.5% election (1968). And let’s not forget 1992, which was 43.0% - 37.4% - 18.9%. I believe the compact would indicate the winner of the plurality, as it has been rare for a president to actually win a majority. Your examples are times when the vote was extra split by a more robust than usual third party, but most of the time, the winner still has less than 50%. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/163 "2018-01-05T14:45:02Z")
It \*has \*to mean a plurality. How else are you going to have a winner? ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/164 "2018-01-05T15:25:39Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I believe the compact would indicate the winner of the plurality, as it has been rare for a president to actually win a majority. Your examples are times when the vote was extra split by a more robust than usual third party, but most of the time, the winner still has less than 50%. If [this chart is right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin), a president has received a majority of the popular vote in 30 of the 49 elections since 1824. And in 18 of the 26 elections between 1916 and 2016. It’s hardly “rare” (although, of course, the person elected president has had more people vote for someone else in 4 of the last 7 elections, so maybe it’s becoming more common). ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/165 "2018-01-05T15:44:17Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > It \*has \*to mean a plurality. How else are you going to have a winner? Yes. Note that in the only case that matters — one side wins the pop vote, the other the traditional e.c. — the election is very close and _the vote winner will almost certainly NOT get a majority._ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The present system favors campaigning in swing states and, for different reasons, in Iowa and New Hampshire specifically (both swing states). _ **I view this as a feature not a bug.** _ For one thing, it almost forces the D’s to reach out to Middle America rather than focusing primarily on urban centers. And, by addressing voters in 50-50 regions, _ **dialog is possible** _, in contrast to the echo chambers on the coasts or in the lopsidest states of Flyover land. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/166 "2018-01-05T15:47:55Z")
> [@Falchion](#): > > If [this chart is right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin), a president has received a majority of the popular vote in 30 of the 49 elections since 1824. And in 18 of the 26 elections between 1916 and 2016. It’s hardly “rare” (although, of course, the person elected president has had more people vote for someone else in 4 of the last 7 elections, so maybe it’s becoming more common). Thanks for the link, I was thinking that it was a bit more common than that. In my voting lifetime, Obama is the only president to win the initial election by a majority. (Of course, in my voting life, republicans have only initially won the presidency while losing the popular vote.) An interesting note, if you sort by margin, then trump comes in right behind quincy adams and hayes on winning with the most popular vote against him. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/167 "2018-01-05T21:43:26Z")
Iowa and New Hampshire are “middle America”, I guess they may have up to a few dozen black folks. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/168 "2018-01-05T21:50:42Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The present system favors campaigning in swing states and, for different reasons, in Iowa and New Hampshire specifically (both swing states). _ **I view this as a feature not a bug.** _ For one thing, it almost forces the D’s to reach out to Middle America rather than focusing primarily on urban centers. The second part of your statement doesn’t follow at all from the first. Being a swing state has nothing to do with Middle America or Flyover country or rural areas or anything else. Florida isn’t Middle America. And Kansas definitely is. Swing states got that way, essentially, by luck–just the right mix of demographic factors that led to a 50/50 split. Maybe the population is relatively red-leaning but there’s a higher mix of cities. Maybe it’s relatively blue-leaning but they had fewer cities. Whatever–it’s sheer happenstance. It’s like gerrymandering, except that the boundaries got locked in centuries ago and we’re just stuck with the artificial boundaries. Why was Colorado a swing state but not Kansas? It’s not because the demographics are all that different. Colorado just happened to have a few factors that nudged it toward a split vote. Probably Boulder is a tad bigger than Wichita, relatively speaking. It doesn’t matter. The factors are arbitrary and irrelevant for the people that live on the boundary, except that it meant people 100 feet to the West had their votes count and 100 feet to the East did not. Focusing on swing states doesn’t make “dialog possible”; on the contrary, it makes reasoned discussion of nationwide issues virtually impossible, by ignoring huge swaths of the population and focusing on a few randomly-selected locations and the local issues that come with them. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/169 "2018-01-05T22:01:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The Compact isn’t exactly clear about what it means to “win” the popular vote. > [@](#): > > THE CHIEF ELECTION OFFICIAL OF EACH MEMBER STATE SHALL DESIGNATE THE PRESIDENTIAL SLATE WITH THE LARGEST NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE TOTAL AS THE “NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE WINNER.” Pretty clear to me. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/170 "2018-01-05T22:31:44Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Thanks for the link, I was thinking that it was a bit more common than that. In my voting lifetime, Obama is the only president to win the initial election by a majority. (Of course, in my voting life, republicans have only initially won the presidency while losing the popular vote.) … Why the emphasis on “initial” / “initially”? From my perspective, it looks like you’re just trying really hard to exclude Bush’s 3-million-vote victory over Kerry in 2004, but is there some other reason for the focus? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/171 "2018-01-05T22:46:20Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Why the emphasis on “initial” / “initially”? From my perspective, it looks like you’re just trying really hard to exclude Bush’s 3-million-vote victory over Kerry in 2004, but is there some other reason for the focus? Because incumbency is a different beast than your first run. I may not have worder things as well as I liked, but my reasoning was to not count incumbency. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/172 "2018-01-05T23:07:15Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Pretty clear to me. OK, thanks. I may have been relying too much on the wikipedia article linked to in the OP, and didn’t see that in it. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/173 "2018-01-05T23:10:00Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Because incumbency is a different beast than your first run. I may not have worder things as well as I liked, but my reasoning was to not count incumbency. Thanks, that’s a reasonable answer. I appreciate the clarification. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/174 "2018-01-05T23:50:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > When every last EV counts, as it did once again in 2016, yes, it does mean a lot. When it results in overruling democracy, it means a hell of a lot. But that aspect of it _didn’t_ have much to do with the 2016 result. Every last electoral vote really _didn’t_ count in 2016. Trump ran up the score with tiny pluralities in a few large, heavily urban states. Hillary would have lost even if she’d won every single state with 3, 4, or 5 electoral votes. It’s bizarre that so many people on both sides want to believe that the opposite happened. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2018, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/175 "2018-01-06T02:03:57Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > For one thing, it almost forces the D’s to reach out to Middle America rather than focusing primarily on urban centers. 1. Wouldn’t ‘middle America’ be the suburbs these days? Dems are doing a pretty good job connecting to the 'burbs. 2. What’s so magic about reaching out to rural and small-town America, which is what I guess you really mean by ‘middle America’? Dems don’t exactly neglect their interests, but if their votes are already decided by God, guns, and gays, then all the ‘reaching out’ in the world won’t do any good politically, short of sacrificing core values. 3. When do we get a system that ‘almost forces the R’s to reach out to urban America’? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2018, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/176 "2018-01-06T02:13:43Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Why was Colorado a swing state but not Kansas? It’s not because the demographics are all that different. Colorado just happened to have a few factors that nudged it toward a split vote. More of a balance between urban and rural/small town. Denver’s a big city with major-league teams and such, plus there’s the other Front Range cities. Wichita (Motto: “far from this opera forevermore” ;)) is much smaller, ditto the part of the KC area that’s in Kansas. Most of the state is small town and rural. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2018, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/177 "2018-01-06T03:04:22Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > More of a balance between urban and rural/small town. Colorado has some larger cities, certainly. The state’s population is also larger. Colorado’s top 15 cities cover 50% of the population. How many in Kansas? Also 15. The larger a city gets, the bluer it also tends to get. That’s probably enough to tip the balance. But these are relatively small effects. If you throw out every other city in Colorado, the lists look pretty similar. Colorado has 11 cities with \>100k people; Kansas has 5. Colorado has 26 cities with \>25k people; Kansas has 16. Pretty much what you’d expect from a state with just under twice the population. So there’s no dramatic difference in urbanization, but a few big cities and some minor other differences are enough to tip the balance. It doesn’t have to be much; a few percent is the difference between a swing state vs. not. The differences between Colorado and Kansas are less than the differences between, say, the LA metro area and the CA Central Valley. And yet we pretend that CA is a homogeneous lump of liberals, Kansas is a homogeneous lump of conservatives, and Colorado is a purple state deserving of special attention. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2018, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/178 "2018-01-06T04:31:34Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > You’ve seen the maps: Gore support was clustered in a few key areas whereas you could drive coast to coast while driving through all Bush counties. Wanted to mention another thing: this isn’t even true in the first place. It only looks true on a binary red/blue map. If you want a more representative picture, see [this one of the 2016 election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_America#/media/File:2016_Presidential_Election_by_County_(Red-Blue-Purple_View).png), or [this one of 2008](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_America#/media/File:ElectionMapPurpleCounty.png). Good luck finding a path coast to coast without hitting a purple county at the least. Another thing of note: you can’t really see states on the map. You just get the barest outline from the county boundaries. If it were smoothed out just a tad, you would have no idea which state is which. This is a really big hint that states are _the wrong unit of quantization_ for deciding the election. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2018, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/179 "2018-01-07T00:01:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The Compact isn’t exactly clear about what it means to “win” the popular vote. Does a plurality win, or does it have to be a clear majority? Assuming the compact is the same in every state, it is quite clear. Here is how it appears in California’s Election Code: _The chief election official of each member state shall designate the presidential slate with the largest national popular vote total as the “national popular vote winner.”_ Plurality is specified. (BTW, in case of a tie, it works like it does now in 48 states - each state’s electoral votes all go to the popular vote winner in that state.) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2018, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797/180 "2018-01-07T01:28:02Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Colorado has some larger cities, certainly. The state’s population is also larger. Colorado’s top 15 cities cover 50% of the population. How many in Kansas? Also 15. > > The larger a city gets, the bluer it also tends to get. That’s probably enough to tip the balance. But these are relatively small effects. If you throw out every other city in Colorado, the lists look pretty similar. Colorado has 11 cities with \>100k people; Kansas has 5. Colorado has 26 cities with \>25k people; Kansas has 16. Pretty much what you’d expect from a state with just under twice the population. Like you say, “the larger a city gets, the bluer it also tends to get.” Which is important because you’re ignoring the elephant in the room. “If you throw out every other city in Colorado,” the only thing that will matter is, _is one of those cities Denver?_ Because the Denver MSA contains 2.6 million people, which is 47% of the state’s population. Kansas has no cities of a million or more. Below that, yeah, Kansas and Colorado look similar. But Kansas has no Denver, or anything remotely close. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-proposed-national-popular-vote-interstate-compact/805797.md?page=10)