In the history of bad ideas, this is ranking as one of the best bad ideas ever.
On Friday, the Governor of Colorado signed a bill having the state join the compact known as NPV or National Popular Vote.
Roll Call explains…
Colorado has become the latest state — and the first swing state — to join a group pledging to elect presidents based on who wins the national popular vote.
Eleven other states and the District of Columbia have signed onto the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement that requires those states to select their presidential electors based on who wins the most individual votes nationwide, regardless of which candidate wins in the state.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill Friday bringing the state into the compact.
Sounds harmless but, of course, the devil is in the details. This compact directly contradicts the founders’ intention of not allowing a national election to be driven just by popular vote. Even back when the 13 colonies existed, the issues facing New York were much different than those of the other 12 colonies.
Why does this matter?
Currently, we have 51 separate elections for President held every 4 years. The 51 are the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Each election awards electors based on the vote in your state, not what happens in California, New York, New Jersey or Texas, unless you live in those states.
Prager University has a great breakdown of this with Tara Ross explaining this with cool graphics.
Here is the 2016 national vote.
Clinton 65,853,514
Trump 62,984,828
Difference 2,868,686
If the NPV were in place, then California, with Clinton’s win by 3,446,281 ( Source Politico) would have decided the electoral votes of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and any other state that voted for Trump. That is exactly the OPPOSITE of what the founders intended.
All a candidate for President would have to do is make sure that California, New York, and Florida were well-visited and occasionally drop in on the other states to say, “Hi.” As long as the voters in those large states voted the way they should, the electoral votes of all the NPV states go to that person.
That is nonsense.
In Michigan, during the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump won the state by just over 10,000 votes. The Clinton campaign thought this state was in the bag and did not realize it was in play until it was too late. The voters of the state benefited from having the candidates fight it out here in a state that normally would have just rubber stamped a D for President. The Michigan electors would have gone to Clinton even though she lost here. The same for Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Those supporting NPV make the argument that if this electoral system is the way to go why don’t we elect Governors and Senators this way. The obvious reason being a state election is a not part of a 50 state, nationwide pact. Montana has different concerns than in New York. Even though Montana is most likely never going to decide a Presidential election, those three votes it has in the E.C. should be cast for how votes were cast there, not what is decided in New York and California.
The people behind the NPV are trying to take a shortcut to amend the Constitution. Hopefully, Colorado is the last state to enact this anti-republic provision. The founders knew what they were doing in this regard.
Gov. Polis of Colorado obviously does not.
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