Presidential candidates from both parties frequently visit battleground Michigan. But its swing-state status could evaporate if Michigan lends its 15 votes to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz did in his state last year.
The compact is a vote pledge between states designed to subvert the Electoral College. Since America’s first presidential race, the country has used the Electoral College to select presidents — but this movement seeks to upend that tradition.
In 2024 there are 538 electors, split between the 50 states and Washington, DC. It takes a majority of electoral votes — 270 or more — to win the presidency. The compact would take effect when 270 states’ worth of votes sign on. The states in the compact would vote as a bloc for whichever candidate was the top vote-getter nationwide — even if the candidate didn’t win that state.
In 2016, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,000 votes. If Michigan were a nationa-popular-vote state and the compact was live at that time, Hillary Clinton would have won all 16 of its electoral votes.
In 48 states, including Michigan, the top vote-getter wins every electoral vote. In two states, Maine and Nebraska, votes are allocated by congressional district, with extra awarded to the statewide winner.
In all 50 states, the winning vote-getter in that state wins at least a majority of its electoral votes. A national popular vote would open the door to the first loser-takes-all system in American history.
I participated in a televised debate last year with the sponsor of the Michigan push for the idea, Democratic state Rep. Carrie Rheingans.
When I noted that under national popular vote, a candidate could lose all 7 million votes in Michigan but still win the state, Rheingans responded that never in Great Lakes State history have all 7 million voted one way — admitting the loser-takes-all nature of the plan even while denying the scenario. --->READ MORE HERE
The many extreme policies supported by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate, are well known. From COVID snitch lines to sex changes for children, Walz has used his power to foist far-left positions on the citizens of his state. Another, less remarked upon, measure he championed was subverting the Constitution in order to manipulate elections.
On May 24, 2023, Walz signed a 300-page omnibus bill full of lefty policies that was packaged together to stifle debate and prevent opposition from more moderate Democrats. The bill expanded affirmative action, increased regulation of political speech, instituted sensitivity training throughout the state government, and even granted specific far-left organizations (but no conservative groups) a special role in developing election reform recommendations. Even worse, however, it added Minnesota to the National Popular Vote interstate compact.
The New York Times (which supports it) has called the NPV compact “an end run on the Constitution” and “a plan for states to skirt the Electoral College.” It was developed by John Koza, a Stanford University professor whose previous claim to fame—and fortune—was inventing the scratch ticket lottery system.
Koza was frustrated by Al Gore’s loss in the 2000 presidential race. He picked up an idea floated by three liberal law professors: What if states could simply ignore their own voters and give away their electoral votes based on the national popular vote? If enough states did that, the Electoral College might be forced to rubber stamp the popular vote result. Koza turned this idea into state legislation and began a national campaign to introduce this concept to state lawmakers.
Far-left activists despise the Electoral College because it works—it forces Democrats to pay attention to voters outside of big cities. The state-by-state system the American Founders developed limits how much power any one region of the country can have over the rest of us. That creates more balance in our national politics: political parties and presidential campaigns need a broad base of support to have a shot at winning the White House. This is a powerful force for good in American politics.
By contrast, Koza’s NPV compact would manipulate the Electoral College by deforming its process and destroying its purpose. Minnesota is one of 17 blue states that have passed NPV legislation. The compact only takes effect, however, if it is passed by enough states that together have at least 270 electoral votes—enough to control the outcome of presidential elections. Right now, the total stands at 209. --->READ MORE HERE
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