Let’s talk about the Electoral College. I’m sure we all know it is part of the United States Constitution and has been subject to amendment over the years.
In the current political party iteration in the U.S., Democrats hate it and Republicans love it.
Why? Because the Electoral College favors less-populated, more “conservative” rural states and penalizes more populated “progressive” states with larger urban areas.
This was done on purpose by the Founders.
For the record, here is the text of the relevant Articles/Amendments:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 (1787): “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 (1787): “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President.”
12th Amendment to the Constitution (1804) (The 12th Amendment essentially supersedes the original Article II, Section1, Clause 3.): "The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
23rd Amendment to the Constitution (1961): “Section 1: The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint, in such manner as the Congress may direct, a number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the Twelfth Article of Amendment
Section 2: The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
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Now, here is some background on the Founders’ rationale of the Electoral College.
They wanted “informed” people to make the final decision on who should be President. Alexander Hamilton explained it well in the Federalist Papers #68. In essence, the Founders believed the people should have a voice in the election of the President but also that actual selection should be made by individuals capable of making an informed decision about who would best serve the country.
They wanted to protect the interest of smaller states. The Founders established a compromise between large and small states in Congress: The House has proportional representation and the Senate has two members from each state regardless of population. The Electoral College incorporated both principles. The end result is that less populated states have larger representation in the electoral College than they would have if the number of lectors was based solely on population proportion.
Slavery played a role in the Electoral College. In the original Constitution, slaves counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of allocating the number of representatives from each state to the House of Representatives. This carried over to the Electoral College, giving southern states additional influence in presidential elections even though enslaved people had no voting rights.
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The impact of the Electoral College today is essentially twofold:
Less populated “rural” states like Wyoming (with a population of approximately 560,000 and 3 electors – 1 House member and 2 Senators) have disproportionate influence in choosing the President compared to California (with a population of 40 million and 54 electors – 52 House members and 2 Senators). So, California has 71x the population of Wyoming but only 18x representation in the Electoral College.
Presidents can be elected even if they lose the popular vote (most recently, W. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016).
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Reality check: We hear and read lots of people talking about “getting rid of the Electoral College.” Unfortunately, the only way to do that directly is to amend the constitution, which, per Article V of the Constitution, requires the ratification “by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States…” (note: the governor’s signature is NOT required to ratify). That currently means 38 out of 50 states. Incredibly unlikely in today’s United States.
There is, however, a work-around, and Tuesday’s election immeasurably increased the chances of successfully implementing this work-around.
Here we go.
It’s called that The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (let’s abbreviate it to “NPVIC” for short). The idea is simple: to ensure that the candidate who wins the national popular vote becomes president—without abolishing the Electoral College or amending the Constitution. In fact, the genius of the NPVIC is that it uses the authority given to state legislatures in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 (the very clause in the Constitution establishing the Electoral College) for this work-around.
Here’s how it works:
Participating states agree to award all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote, rather than the candidate who wins that particular state.
The compact becomes effective only when participating states collectively control at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes.
Once activated, the national popular-vote winner receives all the electoral votes belonging to compact-member states
Why did this election matter? Well, as of November 3, 2026, 19 states (including Washington, DC even though it’s not a state) had enacted the NPVIC, representing 222 electoral votes. That means in order for the NPVIC to go into effect, states with only another 48 electoral votes needed to enact the compact.
Prior to Tuesday, Democrats held a “trifecta” (State House, State Senate, and Governor) in 16 states. This past Tuesday, Democrats flipped state legislatures and governorships giving them trifectas in 5 additional states: Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It also looks like Arizona and Alaska may fall into the Democratic trifecta category. Even without Arizona and Alaska, those 5 “flipped” states hold 60 electoral votes, enough to put the NPVIC over the top and in effect (Arizona and Alaska together hold an additional 14 electoral votes).
Tuesday provided Democrats with the ability to effect major structural changes and reforms to a sclerotic and aging political system. Pushing newly flipped “trifecta” state legislatures to pass the NPVIC would go a long way to remedying an anachronistic mandate of our Constitution. It would ensure the winner of the national popular vote would become President. It would also have the effect of making sure every vote mattered in a Presidential election (currently, Democrats in, say, Wyoming are discouraged from voting because they know the Republican Presidential candidate will get the most votes, while the converse is true in California).
Let’s make the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact a priority!
