How to Abolish the Electoral College & Why the NPV Compact Falls Short

Stop talking about whether we should abolish the Electoral College, and start asking whether we could.

Have you ever had a friend complain about the Electoral College? To me it’s a sort of ritual (or possibly entertainment) where I ask someone what their opinion is on the Electoral College just to see what happens. (We will abbreviate as “E.C. as this gets repetitive) You can learn a lot about someone from their answer. Either they hold no strong opinions (and political conversation is likely to be pretty bland with that person) or they strongly believe it should be maintained/abolished, which both tells me their political affiliation, and tells me whether the conversation will likely be interesting. In general, politically active Republicans are for the E.C., politically active liberals are against it, and the median voter holds a slight distaste, but doesn’t really care.

If you’re reading this, the loose argument against is probably already familiar to you. Your vote essentially doesn’t matter unless you’re lucky (or unlucky) enough to be in a swing state. There’s good reason to be apathetic in general, as even the justification of Why You Should Vote In a Non-Swing State boils down to; “There are state elections and propositions too, so you might as well vote for a president while you’re there.” Sure, it’s just filling in a little bubble so you might as well do it, but it has the persuasive power of asking your roommate to pick up extra milk while they’re out shopping.

I recently read this convincing argument against the electoral college. It’s clear that the E.C. isn’t something Americans are excited about, as the majority of Americans prefer a simpler, more one-vote-per-person system. The majority of arguments for the E.C. (which I won’t be steel-manning here) are unique to the context of an 18th century America. The majority of arguments against the E.C. (which I also won’t be talking about here) are simple, intuitive, and believed by the majority of Americans.

Personally, while I sympathize with ideas against direct democracy, the majority of pro-electoral-college support comes from the practical reasons of Republicans wanting to win. If you inherit a system that benefits you, that’s largely benign but perhaps slightly harmful to society, it’s relatively easy to rationalize this system after the fact. If people can use the Bible to justify antebellum slavery, then it should be very easy to rationalize the E.C.

This conversation isn’t anything new, as the debate of replacing it has been ongoing since the start of the country. In 1876 president Rutherford B. Hayes won the E.C., but lost the popular vote to the Democrat candidate, which sparked a renewed interest in addressing this system. After all, so long as the popular and electoral college votes matched, it doesn’t really matter what system you’re using, and there’s better things to worry about most of the time.

So why haven’t we abolished, or at least altered the electoral college despite the significant popular support for doing so?

The short answer is that it’s kind of really difficult to actually amend the constitution without an overwhelming majority of people in power agreeing with the amendment. It also doesn’t help that the vast majority of people don’t really care about the E.C. outside a very narrow window of time when it is functionally impossible to make any changes (i.e. during an election).

Google Trends of the term “Electoral College”. See a pattern?

If that simplification is satisfying to you, then feel free to stop now. If not, here’s the long answer explaining How to actually abolish the electoral college and Why this doesn’t happen. I won’t be trying to explain why we should abolish it (I am personally skeptical of all obvious answers) but if you have an interest in either abolishing or preserving this system, it’s important to know how that actually might happen.

1. Abolishment Through Constitutional Amendment

The founding fathers, when drafting the constitution, knew that the document they created wouldn’t be perfect for all time. Hell, there was significant disagreement between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists right from day 1, so this constitution of compromise was satisfying to no one (as all compromises are). Presumably both parties believed their views were right.

“Soon enough, those misguided fools will see the error of their ways,” both parties said in unison. “Let’s make sure we have a way to set things right when our way is proven true!” Article 5, which was probably the only satisfying clause to everyone was created.

Constitutional Amendments By Year

So far this constitution has proven extremely effective. The United States, for all its problems, is one of the longest lasting democracies on the planet, and has had a abnormally strong track record of protecting freedoms and ensuring economic growth. Although the system is slow to change, this is by design. It may take longer than idealists would wish for necessary change to be made (i.e. Women’s suffrage, abolishment of slavery, Civil rights, etc.), but it also protects against flares of passion and tyranny of the majority changing things for their own benefit.

The E.C. is enshrined within the constitution, so a constitutional amendment would be necessary to change or replace it. Without getting into too much detail the technical process is quite simple:

1. Either 2/3 of the House and Senate propose an amendment or 2/3 of the states do so.

2. 3/4 of the states (38/50), either through the state legislature or a ratifying convention ratify the amendment.

That’s basically it. There’s no presidential veto, no review by committee and once it’s ratified, it’s added to the constitution, making it a staple of American life for all time.

The Problem With Step 1:

A constitutional amendment would require substantial support from states that currently benefit from the E.C.e, particularly in the Senate where smaller states have an outsized influence. Under our current system, more than 1/4 of states receive proportionally more influence in presidential elections under the E.C. than they would under a popular vote. This doesn’t even consider the swing states, which also benefit from the increased attention they receive. It’s hard to imagine they would want to miss out on the campaign spending that contributes to their local economies, and the more subtle focus the executive gives to these states in order to make reelection more likely. The United States is truly a vast and diverse country, and if swing states are slightly favored in federal economic policy (using fair and plausible justifications like wanting to revitalize American industry), then that makes reelection even more likely.

Now I’m not so cynical as to imagine Biden or Trump are conspiring to give financial rewards directly to swing states for the purpose of reelection, but there are definitely subtle, perhaps unconscious motivations that translate to millions or billions of extra dollars within a trillion dollar federal spending package. After all, if your party is good and the other bad, the best thing you can do for the country is ensure you stay in power to pursue your long-term policies, even if that involves some quasi-corruption by focusing economic growth in swing states.

It’s not unimaginable that 2/3 of Congress would propose such an amendment, but would be extremely difficult to convince the states that currently benefit from the system to vote to remove that benefit.

The Problem With Step 2:

Actually, Step 2 isn’t much of a problem. So long as congress decides to put it to a ratifying convention, rather than sending it to the state legislature, the overwhelming majority of Americans who support replacing the E.C. would make this step reasonably likely to succeed.

Of course there could be a a poison pill in step 1 where even if it does pass through the senate, relatively pro-electoral college senators might insist on ratification through state legislature instead of constitutional convention in order to prevent the amendment for passing. This would act as a sort of pressure release valve, where the senators could pretend to do something the public wants, knowing that there’s effectively zero chance such an amendment would be approved by enough state legislatures to pass into the constitution. “Well, we gave it our best try everyone! It just looks like the states don’t want to abolish the electoral college.” The relatively uninformed public on this topic would buy this, redirecting anger away from congress to their respective state legislatures.

Overall, the prospects for a constitutional amendment abolishing the E.C. are grim. There’s little chance that states that currently benefit greatly from the system vote to abolish it, effectively voting away their current outsized political power. We’ll have to look towards other methods.

2. Abolish It Through An Extra-Legal Compact

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states to award all their E.C. to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote, regardless of that candidate's performance within their own state. The compact’s goal is to effectively bypass the E.C. without a constitutional amendment by ensuring that the candidate with the most votes nationwide becomes president.

For the NPVIC to take effect, it requires enough states to join to total at least 270 electoral votes, the majority needed to win the presidency. So far, several states, primarily Democratic-leaning ones, have signed on, collectively representing 195 electoral votes as of the latest updates. While the compact would achieve a popular vote-based election outcome, it does not technically abolish the E.C. and relies on enough states joining to reach the threshold of 270 votes. This strategy is a workaround that could potentially align the outcome of the presidential election with the popular vote without the difficult process of amending the Constitution.

NPVIC States (Green) & Pending States (Yellow)

States have the authority to allocate their electors however they wish, so it’s completely in their power to require they vote according to the national popular vote. In most cases, this would be irrelevant, as when a president wins the E.C., they usually win the popular vote, so this system is designed to deal with exceptions, like Trump’s 2016 win.

Is It Legal?

Maybe? It’s certainly legally dubious. States are allowed to enter into interstate compacts, but are not allowed to do so to the diminishment of the Federal government’s power. It’s also an open question whether or not this would lead to the diminishment of uninvolved State power, which would open the door to further lawsuit. Until the Supreme court would make a decision, it could go either way, with likely the disenfranchised States, and the Federal Government pushing a suit (depending on who was the outgoing president at the time).

The reality is that there’s a lot of debate, which hasn’t needed to happen as it’s just a hypothetical agreement right now. So long as there aren’t enough states in the compact to have an electoral majority, then it is not in effect and thus there’s no grounds for anyone to challenge it. The issue is, the compact would be implemented only in the case of a candidate winning the E.C., but losing the popular vote, which is more than enough impetus for a lawsuit. This would likely lead to a contentious election, where the legitimacy of the process would be seriously questioned by the losers. It’s uncertain how such a compact would stand up to legal challenge, and would likely drive further division in an already polarized nation.

The 2024 Election Results if the NPVIC was implemented.

If the whole point of the NPVIC is to make more democratic (and therefore, more legitimate) elections, if it was ever actually implemented, it seems like it would be the single most de-legitimizing force in politics. Imagine you were playing in the world championship Chess tournament, the other player redefined winning as having the most pieces mid-game rather than checkmate, and due to a very dubious interpretation of the rules, along with agreement by half of the players there (Who perhaps have a lot at stake if their preferred player loses) agrees. Would you continue to play, grumbling about your suddenly inferior board position, or would you flip the table, storm out, and try to rally chess fans across the world to riot? In our analogy, which is just a game, I think there would be significant cause for complaint. In reality, the NPVIC would only come into effect for the first time during an actual election, with probably 95% of the American population learning about it on election night.

What of defectors?

Even if the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is deemed legal and fully legitimate, there remains an inherent risk of states defecting. While the political majority of the states currently in the pact leans Democrat, that could shift to Republican (or some other as-yet-unconceived party) in the future. Imagine a scenario where a state that locally voted for one candidate is compelled by the compact to cast its electoral votes for the national popular vote winner, who goes against the wishes of its local electorate. In a close election, a single large state flipping back to the traditional E.C. vote could be enough to swing the entire election outcome. The temptation to break from the compact would be especially strong if doing so would result in a win for the preferred candidate of that state's voters—and if the incoming federal government, likely grateful for the state’s decisive swing, would be inaugurated before the Supreme Court could fully respond to the breach.

Consider this scenario: the current blue-leaning states in the NPVIC are set to vote for a Democrat candidate who won the national popular vote but would have lost under the traditional E.C. system. Suppose almost all states in the compact would vote for the Democrats regardless, while most outside the compact would vote Republican (a plausible situation, as NPVIC membership closely mirrors states that voted for the Democrat candidate in recent elections). Now, imagine one state in the compact—say, New Jersey—has a local majority that favored the Republican candidate. Here, New Jersey faces a choice: adhere to the NPVIC, overriding its local electorate’s preference, or break from the compact, thereby handing the election to the Republican and ensuring their preferred administration for the next four years. This scenario highlights a powerful incentive for defection when the stakes are high and the results are close.

The Democrat states under the Electoral College (2024) are almost identical to the NPVIC.

In essence, the outcome under the compact rests on uncertain legal foundations and the hope that no state will be tempted to revert to the E.C. system if an opportunity arises to swing the election. The added unpredictability and sense of illegitimacy this could bring would far outweigh any potential benefits. The core of democracy isn’t necessarily about electing the candidate who wins the most votes as the "best" president but about establishing a stable, broadly accepted process that ensures clean transfers of power. If that process breaks down, becomes compromised, or can be subverted by the decisions of a few leaders in pivotal states, it raises the question: does this more democratic system actually uphold greater legitimacy?

3. Overthrow The Whole System!

This is more of an honorable mention rather than a legitimate proposal. Clearly, if the system is broken, then the legitimate means of replacing it have been made so inaccessible, that the only way forward is throwing the whole thing out and starting again. Either a popular revolution, or a dictator could wipe away the stain of the E.C., and (hopefully) replace it with a superior system that adhered more closely to the principle of one person, one vote.

More likely though we’d end up with a system far worse than what we have now, and instead of an ever so slightly biased electoral system, we’d end up with plain old tyranny. This is the equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or punting it like a football because it’s crying. It would technically solve the problem, but not exactly for the reasons we care about the problem in the first place.

People (Or Zombies?) overthrowing the government. Courtesy of AI.

4. Split Presidential Voting

In Nebraska and Maine, the way electoral votes are awarded differs from the usual "winner-take-all" system used by most other states. Instead, they use a method called "congressional district voting," where they split their electoral votes based on the results in each congressional district.

Here’s how it works: each state allocates one electoral vote per congressional district, which goes to the presidential candidate who wins that district. The remaining two electoral votes—which represent the state’s Senate seats—are awarded to the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote. In Nebraska, for example, there are three congressional districts, so the statewide winner gets two votes, and each district’s winner receives one. If a candidate wins both the statewide vote and all three districts, they receive all five electoral votes; however, if the districts split between candidates, so do the electoral votes.

The approach was originally adopted to give more representation to local preferences, so in tight elections, one or two electoral votes can be "up for grabs," reflecting a bit more of each state’s internal political landscape. It’s an interesting contrast to the all-or-nothing system and occasionally produces a map where a state is technically "split."

This isn’t some century old inherited system either. Nebraska did it when they were firmly a red state in 1992, with 16 years passing before one of their electors voted Democrat. Maine did it in 1972, when they had just swung from voting Democrat to Republican.

This of course doesn’t actually institute a nationwide popular vote. The currently implemented split systems still would favor small states due to 2 of their electoral votes going winner-take-all to the winner of the state’s popular vote, but there’s no reason that states could develop a pure state popular vote, where the votes are apportioned approximately according to the popular vote. While it’s not the preferred solution for the one-person-one-vote purists, it would essentially be immune to the criticisms usually levied against the E.C. If states adopted this, there would be no swing states, and it would be incredibly unlikely for a president to win the E.C., but lose the popular vote.

So why haven’t more states done this?

There is a very strong argument against states like California or New York instituting split electoral voting despite supporting a more democratic presidential election. Doing so would effectively hand the White House to Republicans baring a Democrat landslide considering their size (unless Texas did so at the same time). If California instituted a split electoral vote, it would be handing the Republican candidate a few dozen extra votes, making a divergence between the popular vote and the E.C. far more likely.

I don't see a strong argument why small states like Vermont shouldn’t do so. They have an absolute majority, like Nebraska did in 1992, and due to their small size would make it very unlikely that this would affect any of the end results. All the while this would make split electoral voting more common, and perhaps motivate more legislatures, in both Blue and Red states, reconsider the current system.

There are also the swing states, like Maine was when it implemented split electoral voting, which could plausibly adopt this system without making the E.C. even less representative. If Pennsylvania is equally likely to go Democrat or Republican, splitting the electoral vote shouldn’t meaningfully benefit either party. Of course swing states benefit from being swing states, so there are practical reasons why no one seems to be pushing for this. Then again, Maine did it, so I don’t see why others couldn’t too.

Conclusion

In short, my view is very simple. I find it implausible that actually abolishing the E.C is possible. Technically possible, yes, just as it’s technically possible congress votes that all new bills must be read aloud in Latin. If you think we should abolish the E.C., then my professional opinion (posting on substack makes me a professional) says that you should seek split presidential voting in states that are either completely blue, or are swing states. Maybe with some momentum, and with a country that was mostly operating on split electoral votes, actually abolishing the Electoral College would be possible.

Abolish the Veto

As somewhat of a tangent; This whole debate reminds me of a similar thing going on over in Europe. Most of the political active urbanites in Europe want to support Ukraine with even more resources then they are already sending (or at least they used to a year or two ago), but have been repeatedly thwarted by a few “far-right” governments like that of Orban in Hungary. This is because each member state has the power of Veto, making any unilateral foreign policy of the EU extremely difficult. This has admittedly caused a lot of disfunction in the EU system (imagine if every US state could Veto US foreign policy they didn’t like), and some have concluded that the veto should be abolished.

Unfortunately for those in opposition to the veto, any attempt to remove veto power can just be vetoed through the preexisting procedures. Baring a huge uptick of popular support in literally every EU state (including the many small states that benefit greatly from the veto), any attempt to abolish the veto will just be vetoed itself. It’s a Catch-22. At least here in the US there’s a semi-plausible route to fully abolishing the E.C., and a plausible route to making it more democratic. In the EU there’s no imaginable path forward.

Thank you for reading.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this essay. I’m working on a lot of other things at the moment, and am generally not posting until I’m satisfied. If you liked this article, feel free to subscribe. If you disliked this article, I encourage me to hurl insults in the comments.