Is this the end of the Electoral College?
The institution of the Electoral College doesn’t inherently favor one party over the other (in fact, both parties nearly got rid of it after the 1968 election), and the NPV wasn’t designed to tilt the scales, either.
Key points
- Amar thought the Electoral College was historically and inherently flawed, but only a constitutional amendment could abolish it.
- Once enough states sign on, their combined electoral votes would guarantee the presidency to whoever wins the national popular vote.
- The compact has laid dormant for two decades, however, while its backers lobby to sign on more states and their electoral votes.
Instead, they’re concerned about a wonky electoral workaround called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would essentially sidestep the Electoral College.
Boxes containing the Electoral College votes are carried into the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress to ratify the 2024 presidential election.
Additional details
- Amar, for his part, thinks that even the small risk of electoral disruption outweighs the benefits of….
- I don’t know how much time you spend in the more feverish right-wing corners of the internet, but some conservative commentators are growing very alarmed about a specific Democratic policy proposal that could be nearing fruition.
- (And in the words of one right-wing commentator, “effectively [rig] the system so Democrats could never lose again.”) NPV isn’t quite as nefarious as that (Trump won the popular vote just two years ago!), though it would revolutionize how the United States conducts presidential elections.
- But as the discourse on right-wing social media suggests, Trump’s 2016 victory with a popular vote minority has only further hardened views on each side, and all the Democratic signatories have made it look like a partisan proposition.
- But in the current environment, it’s actually hard to imagine a centralized body that both parties would find credible: People just don’t trust institutions the way they did in, say, 2000.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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