Via the Associated Press. Summary in our own words, [read the original here].
The story: Democrats flipped enough state governments in Tuesday’s midterms that they could change how the country elects a president. Eighteen Democratic-run states, with 222 electoral votes, have already joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a pact under which states would give their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote once the members reach the 270 needed. Democrats won full control in six states worth 71 electoral votes: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Minnesota is already in the compact. Reaching 270 would require Pennsylvania and Wisconsin plus Michigan and either Arizona or Nevada. Support isn’t uniform: the new governors of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania sounded open, while Arizona’s governor wouldn’t say and Nevada has a history of vetoing the idea. Republicans object on constitutional and fairness grounds, and legal challenges are all but certain, possibly reaching the Supreme Court.
Dr. Teddy Okafor-Whitlock: (unfolds the paper and holds it up to the light, as if it might be heavier than usual) Good morning, flock. Today’s headline is about how America picks a president, which is the kind of topic that makes even this atrium go quiet before it gets loud. Eighteen states have already signed on to a deal, and a wave of new Democratic governors and legislators might push it over the line. Dolores, you’ve been bouncing on your perch since I opened the paper.
Dolores the Dove: (fluttering happily) I have, Professor! I’ll keep it simple. In 2000 and again in 2016, the candidate who got fewer votes nationwide became president. Most Americans find that hard to explain to a child. And here’s the part I think both sides should notice: the article quotes a Republican strategist who works for the popular-vote movement, and he says his own vote in Minnesota has essentially never mattered in a presidential race. That’s not a partisan complaint, it’s a “my voice doesn’t count” complaint. Every voter, in every state, should matter equally, and candidates should have to ask for votes everywhere, not just in a handful of battlegrounds.
Sterling the Bald Eagle: (draws himself up, with real respect) Dolores, I’ll grant that you’ve made the strongest version of your case, and I understand the frustration. But I’d like to make mine just as fairly. The Founders built a system where states have a voice, so that a president has to build a coalition across regions, not just pile up votes in the biggest places. Under this compact, a state’s voters could choose one candidate, and the state’s electors would still be bound to vote for another because of what voters elsewhere did. The Wisconsin Assembly Republican leader called that disenfranchising his own state’s voters. You can disagree with the Electoral College, but if you want to change it, the Constitution has a front door called an amendment. This feels like a window.
Dolores: Sterling, supporters would say the Constitution lets states decide how to award their electors, so the front door is open. It’s just on their side of the house.
Sterling: And opponents say it’s a window with a very nice curtain.
Penelope the Penguin: (slaps her clipboard on the table) Professor, may I say something that will upset everyone? Good. Because I think this entire argument, popular vote versus Electoral College, is a fight over how to count a pile of ballots when the real problem is the ballots themselves. A great many voters don’t even know who they’re voting for. Ask ten people outside a polling place who their state treasurer is, or what their agency does, and watch the colony go quiet. We pick presidents on slogans and mailers, and then everyone acts shocked that government is complicated. Meanwhile, the people who actually know where the files are, the career civil servants, the inspectors, the actuaries, the statisticians, keep the clinics, food inspections, and pensions running no matter who wins. So here is my honest, unpopular position: let trained, lifetime public servants run the government, and keep the voters for the big questions of direction. Term-limit the politicians and give tenure to the professionals. Competence isn’t a party, it’s how a colony survives winter.
Sterling: Penelope, I’ve never met a penguin so passionate about paperwork.
Penelope: Paperwork is how a colony survives the winter, Sterling.
Sterling: And who elects the paperwork?
Poe the Raven: I’d like to register, with joy I can barely disguise, that Penelope has just said the two words I trust least when placed next to each other: “lifetime” and “bureaucrats.” (slow blink) A permanent class of people nobody can vote out, running the government for the voters’ own good, is not a cure for the problem, Penelope, it is the problem in a cardigan. And since we’re on the subject, I’d also add that critics of the compact warn a close national popular vote could lead to chaotic recounts across the whole country, which supporters dispute but which nobody has fully answered. I’d like to be as relevant as a swing-state voter at least once before I die. alec
Dolores: (gently) Penelope, I love public servants, and I think you’re right that voters need better information. But expertise tells us how, and voters get to say what. If we hand the “what” to experts, the first time they’re wrong, nobody can fire them.
Penelope: Voters can’t fire a bad forecast either, Dolores.
Poe: No, but I can heckle.
Gus the Pigeon: (through a mouthful of fry) I’ll tell you who I’m voting for, Penelope. Whoever’s going to fix the pothole on Elm Street. That’s all the civics I’ve got, and it’s worked. I also live in a swing state, so I get four campaign mailers a day, six phone calls, and one guy who knocked on my door twice. I can’t tell if that means my vote counts a lot or just that I’m very easy to find.
Dolores: Gus, that’s the whole argument in one sentence.
Professor Ptolemy the Owl: (unrolls a flowchart with many arrows pointing toward a small box labeled “Supreme Court”) Allow me to organize the legal side. Three things are known. First, a compact needs enough states to reach 270 electoral votes, and not every new Democratic governor has signaled support. Second, there will almost certainly be a legal challenge, and a Notre Dame law professor who is skeptical of the idea told AP he expects the Supreme Court to take an interest. Third, the questions are genuinely open: whether a state can set rules that affect another state’s outcome, whether differing third-party ballots raise an equal-protection issue, and whether Congress must approve a compact like this. And a footnote for Penelope: the United States has had a merit-based civil service since the 1880s, precisely so government jobs wouldn’t be handed out as favors, and how much control an elected president should have over those agencies is an old, unresolved argument.
Dr. Teddy: All right, let me steer this before we turn into a debate club with feathers. I’d like to pull out three questions. First, is it fair: should the president be whoever gets the most votes? That’s Dolores. Second, is it constitutional: is this the right way to change it? That’s Sterling, Poe, and Ptolemy. Third, what happens in practice: recounts, campaigns, and who gets ignored? That’s Gus and Poe. And Penelope has handed us a fourth, which is bigger than today’s story: who should hold power, voters or experts? That deserves its own morning, so let’s park it with respect and come back to it. Sterling, does Dolores have a point about the Minnesota strategist?
Sterling: (thinking) I’ll admit that a voter who feels permanently irrelevant is a problem for any system, and that’s worth taking seriously. I’d just say the cure shouldn’t create a new problem, like a system where a candidate could skip small-town America entirely.
Dolores: And supporters would reply that candidates already skip most of America. Which I note, Sterling, with respect.
Sterling: (grudgingly) Noted.
Kia the Kiwi said it would be rude for a visitor to weigh in on another country’s constitution, but she quietly wrote down three questions and slid them across to Teddy. Nobody asked what they were.
Pickles the Parrot: (brightly) “Two-seventy! Two-seventy!”
Poe: At least one of us is committed to the math.
Dr. Teddy’s Wrap-Up
Dr. Teddy: (sets down the mug) All right, flock, here’s what I heard. On the idea, supporters want every vote to count equally and campaigns to compete everywhere, while opponents say the Electoral College protects the voice of states and that this is the wrong way to change it. On the law, the plan is likely to be challenged, and the legal questions, from equal protection to congressional approval, are genuinely open. On the politics, not every new Democratic governor is on board, and the math depends on a handful of states. And on Penelope’s challenge, she argued that many voters don’t know enough about who they’re choosing and that trained career public servants should run the government, while Poe and Dolores answered that people who can’t be voted out shouldn’t hold the final say.
Where you disagreed was whether the compact is a fair fix or a constitutional shortcut, and who should hold power in the first place. Where you agreed, grudgingly, was that no voter should feel permanently irrelevant, and that a change this big deserves open debate and a legal path that holds up. Gus reminded us that being a swing-state voter means your doorbell never stops ringing.
What to watch: the legislative sessions in January, what Governors Hobbs, Benson, and Ford decide, and any lawsuit headed toward the Supreme Court.
And finally, a note for the record: my coffee is lukewarm, which makes it the only thing in this atrium both sides have agreed on all morning.
Kia the Kiwi: (raising a wing) Professor, may I read the third question I wrote down? Where I come from, we count the votes and then go home. Here, you count the votes, then count the states, then ask nine judges to count the counting.
Dr. Teddy: (laughing, then wiping his glasses) Kia, I’m putting that on the masthead. Class dismissed.
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