Why I Oppose the National Popular Vote Initiative

I sent the following to the legislators from my district:

Gentlemen,

I am asking you to OPPOSE the current national popular vote initiative.

In the past I have considered a form of national popular vote.  But the system being considered now has two critical flaws.

First, it requires each signatory state to cast its electoral college votes not for the candidate who garnered a plurality of popular votes in that state, but rather for the candidate who won the most popular votes nationally.  Those who back this approach will argue that, in this way, the plan would ensure that every voter—regardless of the state in which they live—would have their vote count equally to that of every other voter in the country.  This is fundamentally UNTRUE.  Committing all electoral votes to the person winning nationally means that the votes of those who voted against that individual are thrown away.  Worse, it means that their dissenting votes are essentially CHANGED - without the consent of those who cast them.  

Let me demonstrate this another way.  

Suppose the state of Michigan decided that all legislation would be enacted using the system being proposed for the NPV.  Legislation would be voted on in each house, and all votes would be committed to the side receiving the popular vote in both houses.  Regardless of how you, personally, felt about and voted on a given bill, your vote would ultimately be committed to the side garnering the most votes.  If the Yays took it, your vote would be thrown in with theirs - even if you voted Nay, or vice versa.  In effect, your vote would be changed - without your consent - to support the popular consensus.  That is exactly what is being proposed with the current NPV scheme.  Not only does it NOT count each vote equally, it marginalizes those who vote against a given candidate; it tells them that their vote, ultimately, doesn't matter.  While this illustration doesn't perfectly reflect the NPV proposal, I daresay that if someone were to propose such a system for the state legislature, you would oppose it forcefully - to the point of resigning because of what it would essentially do to your individual vote.  

Second, the current initiative is unconstitutional. The Constitution requires congressional approval before any state can enter a compact with another state.  While this has been watered down through successive Supreme Court decisions, even that body has continued to hold that any compact that has the effect of changing the balance of political power in DC must have congressional approval before any state can enter it.  The compact being ramrodded through the legislatures of the states today never received the congressional approval required by the Constitution.  As to dividing the vote, the Constitution gives states the right to appropriate the votes of the electoral college as they see fit.  If the state elects to give all of the votes to the winner of the state popular vote, it may; if the state elects to divide the votes, it may do that as well.  It is entirely up to the state, and does not require an illegal, unconstitutional compact to accomplish this.

I am very concerned about the NPV proposal as it is now stands, and I hope that you will oppose it.