The 2026 blue wave could end up washing away the Electoral College. In addition to winning Congress, Democrats won full control of state governments in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. That means that a two-decades-in-the-making plan to switch our presidential elections to a popular vote system — a plan 18 states have already approved— […]
I don’t think you’re understanding it. Let’s say you have enough states in the compact. The popular vote is close but for posterity’s sake should go to to the Republican. You’re the governor of a democratic state that voted strongly Democratic. The compact SAYS you should instruct all your electors to go Republican, but if you just tell them to go with the will of the people in your state that would sway the elector votes enough that the Democratic candidate would win.
That would be more in line with what the people you represent want. You would have to throw out your duty to your state’s citizens in order to improve democracy at a national level. The political pressure would be insane.
Now imagine you’re a corrupt Republican governor and the roles are reversed. There is no way in hell you’d instruct your electors to vote Democrat when you can cheat the system, break your agreement through underhanded state supreme Court bullshit and elect the Republican president.
The compact works mathematically and is a great idea to improve democracy. But it requires everyone in the system to constantly put the values of democracy above their own values and winning and destroying the libs and we just don’t live in a world where that’s going to happen.
I’m not against the compact, or supportive of going back on it. I think it’s probably worth trying, but I completely understand where the author is coming from.
Yeah, it needs 100% compliance to work as designed, and there are stong (mainly corrupt) incentives to defect.
But isn’t that already in defiance of the Compact that would’ve been passed by state law, which is also an extension of the will of the people? At that point, we just have corruption on our hands, and to some extent the entire system of electoral is already built on trust though, right? Just look how closely Trump got with the fake electors plot in 2020. It’s just that in this moment, there is a glaring systemic flaw with the E.C. that extends beyond corruption and trust.
Yes absolutely. It’s just that the compact requires much higher levels of commitment to democracy and resistance to corruption under immense political pressure than we have now and we can barely keep this together.
You would literally have to put the will of the country above that of your state’s citizens when you swore an oath to represent your state’s citizens.