How the Electoral College dies
There is a real chance that future elections will take place without the red-and-blue map of the Electoral College. Here's how it could happen.
Two things are true: When the coming election is over, Kamala Harris will have received millions more votes than her opponent. And even knowing that, we have no idea who will win.
Those two incompatible ideas are only permitted to coexist because the Electoral College, a bizarre, antique contrivance born of a distrust of direct democracy, is etched into the Constitution. As long as one party overwhelmingly benefits from it—relies on it for its continued relevance, I should say—etched it shall remain.
Of the eight elections since 1992, Republican presidential candidates have lost the popular vote every time but one—the post-9/11, rally-round-the-flag re-election of George W. Bush in 2004.
In seven of the last eight elections, a majority of us did not want them or their ideas. Five times they lost the Electoral College as well as the popular vote. But twice—once with the help of a corrupt Supreme Court, once with the help of a corrupt disinformation campaign from a hostile foreign power—they nosed their way into power despite our votes.
The lasting damage done by those two administrations that we did not want is hard to fully express.
Jesse Wegman of The New York Times editorial board says that in presidential elections, the votes in 43 reliably-red-or-blue states are essentially pointless. "Millions of Republicans in 'blue' California and millions of Democrats in 'red' Texas" have their votes essentially erased in the EC's winner-take-all system, he writes in Let the People Pick the President.
Professor Lawrence Lessig at Harvard Law argues that the Electoral College inherently undermines the principle of democratic equality, and that there is a growing recognition that its time has passed.
Sixty-three percent of Americans want to do away with the Electoral College, up from 51 percent in 2016. So how might this play out?
How the process could unfold
One of the most promising pathways toward de facto elimination of the Electoral College is The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), an agreement among states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of the results in their own state. The Constitution already grants states the authority to allocate their electoral votes however they see fit, so this is less radical than it may seem.
The compact will only take effect when enough states have joined to control at least 270 electoral votes (the number required to win the presidency). Currently, states representing 195 electoral votes have signed on (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine (for 4 of its 9 electors), Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Washington, D.C.), while states totaling 60 electoral votes have bills currently under consideration (Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia). Momentum could build as more states see this as a pragmatic solution to the problem.
But you'll note that nearly every one of those states is reliably blue. Red states including Mississippi, Kentucky, Kansas, and South Carolina have already considered and killed NPVIC bills. Since blue consistently wins the popular vote anyway, a compact of blue states would have no impact on the result. And if all the reliable blues add up to 270 already, there's no practical need for the compact.
But it would establish the popular vote as the correct basis for electing the president.
Or hey, we'll just amend the Constitution
Barring the NPVIC, there is the long and messy path of a constitutional amendment, which requires two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states (38 out of 50). Advocates including former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich have argued that public pressure, combined with shifts in political power, could make this achievable in the future, especially given the current rates of opposition to the Electoral College.
If the NPVIC continues to gain traction and large states like Texas or Florida join the compact, Congress may face overwhelming pressure to pass an amendment that would formalize the shift to a national popular vote.
Maybe we can galvanize public opinion by electing another unpopular Republican.
Timeline
A realistic timeline for the elimination of the Electoral College hinges on several variables, including political will, public opinion, and the speed at which the NPVIC gains the remaining electoral votes needed to take effect. If current trends continue, the NPVIC could be expected to reach the 270-vote threshold by the late 2020s or early 2030s. In the meantime, states with ongoing demographic shifts and growing urban populations may accelerate the movement as their residents push for a more democratic electoral process.
If enough states join the NPVIC by the 2032 election cycle, the Electoral College could become irrelevant without needing a constitutional amendment.
Should the NPVIC succeed in effectively sidelining the Electoral College, constitutional and legal reforms would likely solidify the change. Though a constitutional amendment is a more difficult path, it could follow the successful implementation of the NPVIC once it becomes clear that the popular vote is the de facto determinant of the presidency.
