Talk:National Popular Vote Inc.

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Problems or issues with the NPV plan:

(1) There is no definition in the compact text of how to determine the "National Popular Vote." The chief elections official in each Compact state is to report the popular vote from every other state, for the purpose of determining how the Compact state is to cast its electoral votes. Yet there may be nothing preventing a non-Compact state from reporting the vote in such a way as to distort the NPV. If the "error" in the report from within the non-C state is moot, that is, if it does not affect the state result in determining electors, there may generally be no recourse in the courts of that state, courts generally will only consider election appeals when they can reasonably affect the outcome, and, we must not forget, absent the Compact, the outcome is the selection of electors, not the President. Further, if states adopt alternative election methods, such as Approval or IRV or Range, how the votes would be reported and used in the Compact is less than clear. The Compact language and discussion in the book about it appears to ignore the problem. How is the compact state official to report the vote from other states? What if other states revert to choosing electors by legislative action? Some versions of IRV repeated drop candidates, reassigning votes accordingly to the next choice. I'm not sure, but some versions of IRV repeat this process until there is only one candidate left. Would all these votes be reported and used? Or would only first place votes be used? Approval Voting, however, would seem to be harmless, for the overvotes that Approval allows are essentially abstentions in the pairwise elections of those receiving votes from a single voter. Approval -- which amounts to dropping the no-overvote rules -- would report an increased total vote count from a state, but the extra votes would not change the outcome; in the end, what moves the NPV outcome is the increment between the top vote-getter and the next one down.

(2) Presently, there are often large errors in vote counts, but these only go to recount or court for resolution if they would affect the *state* outcome. The compact will not affect this situation in non-Compact states, even though the vote counts resulting from those states will affect the NPV. So we could see a large increase in vote fraud, because it could be more widely distributed and thus more difficult to detect, while still effective, and/or we could see a substantial increase in court action for recount. The Compact arguments assume that the status quo with respect to recounts will remain, while at the same time the pressure for recount everywhere would increase.

(3) There is no discussion on the NPV site, nor in the book, about why a Compact is used. It would seem that any state, individually, could adopt a procedure to use the NPV, without the legal complications of a Compact. This would either affect the outcome or it would not. If not, it would be moot and certainly harmless. If it affected the outcome, it would only be to elect the NPV winner, never to shift the result from the NPV winner to the non-NPV winner. So why use a Compact? Why not just individual state legislation? The only reason for a Compact, which is not explicitly stated, would seem to be to be able to guarantee an NPV result. However, this will likely actually postpone the day that we would see only NPV winners. If a substantial number of states, across the political spectrum in terms of Presidential majorities, were to adopt the NPV process, but short of the electoral college majority specified in the Compact for implementation, we would get, almost certainly, the NPV result *before* the time when an electoral college majority of states adopted it. If even one state adopts such a procedure, it would make the election of a popular vote minority President less likely. Why complicate it with a Compact?

It would seem that the reason is a sop to the sentiments of those who would be offended at seeing their state's electoral votes go elsewhere than to the state winner. By using a Compact, it would seem that the effect is a single national election. However, in either case, with a Compact or with an individual state procedure, the effect is that the state's vote can go against the state winner. Both of these, Compact and non-Compact, with respect to any individual election and state, are either moot or would reverse the overall result from the state result, to the NPV winner.

(4) States may delay filing the Certificate of Ascertainment regarding the state presidential vote until the day that the electoral college meets. This is presently common where the state vote is not in controversy, that is, where the outcome is clear. Six days earlier is the "safe harbor date," and, in the presence of controversy, states attempt to meet that deadline. But "controversy" does not refer to a disagreement about the absolute vote numbers, but only about the state winner. Thus states could delay their reporting until such a time as it was impossible for the state official in a Compact state to certify the electors for that state. (Consider time zone differences, it literally could be the next day before all results were available officially.)