By Chris Cargill / For The Herald
The 2024 presidential election has been called a “landslide” by some analysts. It appears Donald Trump will win the popular vote and 312 Electoral College votes. But should he be awarded more than that?
Welcome to the debate over the National Popular Vote compact, a scheme created to work around the Electoral College.
The compact requires a state to award its electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide, regardless of what the voters of that state decide. Washington and Oregon were eager to sign on to the law, as were 15 other blue states.
So far, Vice President Kamala Harris has won about 57 percent of the vote in Washington state. But under the National Popular Vote compact, Donald Trump would be awarded Washington’s 12 electoral votes.
Technically, the compact doesn’t become binding until the number of participating states reaches the presidential race’s 270 Electoral College vote threshold. But why wait? For the sake of consistency, should Washington send Trump electors to D.C. when the counting begins? That probably wouldn’t go over well.
It is not unusual for a state to decide to allocate Eectoral Votes differently. Two states, for example, allocate electoral votes based on the winner of their Congressional districts. Other states have a winner-take-all system.
But the NPV is problematic for several reasons. First, as the example of this election has shown us, a state can overwhelmingly vote for one candidate, while having its votes go to another.
Second, arguments about who won a close election would never end. Instead of being confined to one state or another based on the number of electoral votes a candidate may need, disputes would go national, and parties could pick and choose areas to contest based on how many supporters they have.
Third, there are serious constitutional questions, specifically regarding whether states can create a compact such as this without Congressional approval, and perhaps more importantly, whether the NPV violates the 14th Amendment, which says: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
The NPV compact specifically nullifies a citizen’s vote if the state’s electoral votes are simply transferred to the winner of the national popular vote.
Analysts at the Cato Institute have noticed another trend now appearing in more conservative states to counteract any implementation of the NPV compact: “In North Dakota, the Republican‐controlled state senate passed a bill saying their state will withhold its popular vote totals for president until after the Electoral College has voted in December. Instead, the state would only publish the rough percentages. This is deliberately aimed at making it impossible to properly calculate the national popular vote total in time to award electors on that basis. Similar bills have been introduced in other states.”
As of 2024, Washington state has joined the NPV compact, but Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have not. To protect the legitimacy of elections and to preserve a voice in the Electoral College, they should avoid doing so. And Washington and Oregon may want to think long and hard about their support of the compact.
Chris Cargill is the president of Mountain States Policy Center, an independent research organization based in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Eastern Washington. Online at mountainstatespolicy.org.
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