The National Popular Vote effort is predicated on the following:



1. States are allowed to assign their presidential electors however they see fit. (Note how Maine and Nebraska split their electors not only by statewide vote, but by congressional district.) 2. Thus, they pass a law saying that a) once states totaling 50+1 percent of the total electoral votes pass a similar law, that b) they will assign their state's entire electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. (The Electoral College doesn't go away.)



In other words, once states totalling 270 electoral votes pass this law, we will collectively choose our president based on whoever wins the most votes.

It's quite genius, actually.

And this isn't some fringe effort. National Popular Vote's efforts have led to such legislation in nine jurisdictions totaling 132 electoral votes— CT CA, DC, HI, IL, MD, MA, NJ, VT, and WA. Meanwhile, the bill has passed in at least one chamber in AR, CO, CT, DE, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, OR and RI.

It's also not a partisan effort. When it passed the New York Senate in December, Republicans supported the bill 21-11, while Democrats supported it 26-2.

Here's the bottom line—the current system makes sure that the presidential campaign is waged only in the so-called "battleground states." And like Iowa and NH skew the nomination process, this skews national policy toward the parochial concerns of a lucky few states. Pennsylvania, for example, guards its "swing-state" status jealously, because it knows it allows it to game the system: Former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter:

“I think it’d be very bad for Pennsylvania because we wouldn’t attract attention from Washington on important funding projects for the state. We are trying to get more funding now for the deepening of the port [of Philadelphia]. When I was on the Appropriations Committee, we got $77 million over the years … We are trying to get the president to do more." “Under the current electoral system, [President] Obama has good reason to give us the money to carry Pennsylvania. Because presidents think that way, it affects their decisions … In 2004, when I ran with [President George W.] Bush, he … came to Pennsylvania 44 times, and he was looking for items the state needed to help him win the state. … It’s undesirable to change the system so presidents won’t be asking us always for what we need, what they can do for us.”

Now this is great stuff for Pennsylvania, and Florida, and Ohio, and Colorado and maybe New Mexico and Wisconsin, but it's bad for the two-thirds of states that will be ignored. Indeed, in 2004 and 2008, two-thirds of all candidate visits and money were concentrated in six states.

Again, is this a way to elect the president of the United States? Governors sure don't get elected this way.

While Republicans avoid California and Democrats avoid Texas under the current system, that wouldn't necessarily be the case under a national popular vote. Both states will offer enough votes to the minority party to make it worth their while. And it's not just big states. Kansas will go Republican as a whole, but there will be plenty of Democratic votes to be chased. As National Popular Vote argues:

Although Kansas will probably continue to deliver a statewide majority to the Republican presidential candidate in the foreseeable future, a Democratic presidential candidate running under a national popular vote system could not afford to ignore Kansas (as is currently the case). The Democrat would care if he lost Kansas with 37% of the vote, versus 35% or 40%. Similarly, a Republican presidential candidate could no longer ignore Kansas (as is currently the case), because it would matter to him if he won Kansas by 63% or 65% or 60%. Under a national popular vote, a vote gained or lost in Kansas would be just as important as a vote cast anywhere else in the United States.

And in case you think Kansas would be too small to get any attention from either party, take a look at Nebraska's 2nd congressional district in 2008. While the district represented a single electoral vote under Nebraska's odd EV apportioning system, that single EV was worth three campaign offices and 16 full-time Obama staffers. And in case you're wondering about urban versus rural attention, big cities aren't a majority of the country. The largest 50 cities, combined, represent just 19 percent of the nation's population. Thus, suburban, exurban and rural areas will continue to be hotly contested regions, and just as relevant to victory as the big cities.

In short, if there's a vote to be won, there will be a campaign fighting for it. And if there's a campaign fighting for it, there will be national party building being done at a scale we've never truly seen before.

This is all a good thing, and will dramatically shift the balance of power in this country away from the few battleground states, to the American people. That's why it has passed so many state legislatures. You won't see Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and the rest of the battleground states voting for it. It strips them of way too much power. But every other state in the union would benefit greatly, as would the entire notion of American democracy.