The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: A Path to National Popular Vote for President
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an interstate compact aiming to award member states' Electoral College votes to the presidential ticket that receives the most votes nationwide. It aims to establish a direct vote as the ultimate arbiter of presidential elections. Introduced in 2006, the NPVIC serves as a contractual agreement between the participating states.
Background and Motivation
The NPVIC emerged following the presidential election of 2000, in which one ticket gained an electoral vote majority, winning the presidency, but received fewer popular votes than its opponents. According to the Congressional Research Service, NPV grew out of subsequent discussions among scholars and activists about how to avoid similar outcomes in the future and to achieve direct popular election. In December 2001, Constitutional law scholars Akhil Reed Amar and Vikram David Amar wrote an article that sketched out a hypothetical agreement states could join that would result in the presidential candidate with the most votes winning the electoral college. Building on this work, in 2006, John Koza, a computer scientist and former elector, created the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), a formal interstate compact that linked and unified individual states' pledges to commit their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
The current system, where most states award all of their electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes in the state, can lead to situations where the winner of the Electoral College does not win the most individual votes across all states. This has happened in four elections between 1876 and 2024.
- 1876: Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote, but the election was ultimately awarded to Rutherford B. Hayes due to contested electoral votes and a compromise.
- 1888: Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison.
- 2000: Al Gore carried the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote to George W. Bush.
- 2016: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Donald Trump.
How the NPVIC Works
The Constitution allows states to determine how to award their electoral votes. The Constitution does not mandate any particular legislative scheme for selecting electors, and instead vests state legislatures with the exclusive power to choose how to allocate their states' electors. States have chosen various methods of allocation over the years, with regular changes in the nation's early decades. Under the NPVIC, states agree to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact only goes into effect if states totaling 270 electoral votes, a majority, have signed on. Once in effect, in each presidential election, the participating states would award all of their electoral votes to the candidate with the largest national popular vote total across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. As a result, that candidate would win the presidency by securing a majority of votes in the Electoral College. The compact mandates a July 20 deadline in presidential election years, six months before Inauguration Day, to determine whether the agreement is in effect for that particular election.
The compact would no longer be in effect should the total number of electoral votes held by the participating states fall below the threshold required, which could occur due to withdrawal of one or more states, changes due to the decennial congressional re-apportionment, or an increase in the size of Congress, for example by admittance of a 51st state.
Read also: Understanding the Electoral College
Current Status of Adoption
As of February 2026, the NPVIC has been adopted by seventeen states and the District of Columbia. They have 209 electoral votes, which is 39% of the Electoral College and 77% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.
Here's a table of jurisdictions that have enacted laws to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact:
| No. | Jurisdiction | Date Adopted | Method of Adoption | Current Electoral Votes (EVs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maryland | April 10, 2007 | Signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley | 10 |
| 2 | New Jersey | January 13, 2008 | Signed by Gov. Jon Corzine | 14 |
| 3 | Illinois | April 7, 2008 | Signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich | 19 |
| 4 | Hawaii | May 1, 2008 | Legislature overrode veto of Gov. Linda Lingle | 4 |
| 5 | Washington | April 28, 2009 | Signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire | 12 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | August 4, 2010 | Signed by Gov. Deval Patrick | 11 |
| 7 | District of Columbia | October 12, 2010 | Signed by Mayor Adrian Fenty | 3 |
| 8 | Vermont | April 22, 2011 | Signed by Gov. Peter Shumlin | 3 |
| 9 | California | August 8, 2011 | Signed by Gov. Jerry Brown | 54 |
| 10 | Rhode Island | July 12, 2013 | Signed by Gov. Lincoln Chafee | 4 |
| 11 | New York | April 15, 2014 | Signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo | 28 |
| 12 | Connecticut | May 24, 2018 | Signed by Gov. Dannel Malloy | 7 |
| 13 | Colorado | March 15, 2019 | Signed by Gov. Jared Polis | 10 |
| 14 | Delaware | March 28, 2019 | Signed by Gov. John Carney | 3 |
| 15 | New Mexico | April 3, 2019 | Signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham | 5 |
| 16 | Oregon | June 12, 2019 | Signed by Gov. Kate Brown | 8 |
| 17 | Minnesota | May 24, 2023 | Signed by Gov. Tim Walz | 10 |
| 18 | Maine | April 16, 2024 | Enacted without signature of Gov. Janet T. Mills | 4 |
Most states that have adopted the NPVIC have a Democratic trifecta, meaning one political party holds the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature.
Arguments For and Against the NPVIC
Arguments in Favor
- More Democratic: Supporters of the National Popular Vote say it would encourage presidential candidates to campaign in more states and provide a more democratic alternative to the current system, which can result in presidential candidates winning the electoral college but not receiving the most individual votes nationally.
- Equalizes Voting Power: Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, no voter will have their vote cancelled out at the state-level because their choice differed from plurality sentiment in their state. Instead, every voter’s vote will be added directly-without distortion-into the national count for the candidate of their choice.
- Constitutionality: Supporters also say the Compact fully accords with the Constitution, which grants states the freedom to decide how to award their Electoral College votes.
- Reduces Focus on Swing States: State winner-take-all laws encourage candidates to focus disproportionately on a limited set of swing states, as small changes in the popular vote in those states produce large changes in the electoral college vote. The project has been supported by editorials in newspapers, arguing that the existing system discourages voter turnout and leaves emphasis on only a few states and a few issues, while a popular election would equalize voting power.
- Reduces Incentive for Partisan Gerrymandering: Under NPVIC, this incentive may be reduced, as electoral votes will no longer be rewarded on the basis of statewide vote totals, but on nationwide results, which are less likely to be significantly affected by the voting rules of any one state. Under the compact, however, there may be an incentive for states to create rules that make voting easier for all, to increase their total turnout, and thus their impact on the nationwide vote totals.
- Less Likely to be Decided by Disputed Tallies: National Popular Vote contends that an election being decided based on a disputed tally is far less likely under the NPVIC, which creates one large nationwide pool of voters, than under the current system, in which the national winner may be determined by an extremely small margin in any one of the fifty-one smaller statewide tallies.
Arguments Against
- Potential for Fraud: Pete du Pont argues that the NPVIC would enable electoral fraud.
- Shifting Campaign Focus: If the President were elected only by national popular vote instead of by the states, a presidential campaign would only need to locate the highest concentrations of voters most likely to support its candidate-and ignore the rest of the country. The ability to do so has never been greater.
- Loss of Voter Rights: Under the Constitution without the NPV in effect, each voter has an opportunity to vote for an elector who in turn would be pledged to vote for the presidential candidate favored by that voter. However, if that voter’s state has joined the NPV, that voter will have lost that right.
- Vagueness in Determining Popular Vote Total: The Compact’s language simply assumes the existence of a traditional popular vote total in each state but it provides no details on how that is to be ascertained.
- Circumventing the Constitution: Some opponents of a national popular vote contend that the non-proportionality of the Electoral College is a fundamental component of the federal system established by the Constitutional Convention.
- State's Will Negated: Opponents of the compact have raised concerns about the handling of close or disputed outcomes. Why should a state legislature have the authority to negate the will of the people of that state?
Legal Challenges and Constitutionality
There is ongoing legal debate about the constitutionality of the NPVIC. A 2019 report by the Congressional Research Service examined whether the NPVIC should be considered an interstate compact, and as such, whether it would require congressional approval to take effect. The Supreme Court has held in Chiafalo v. Washington that states may compel their presidential electors to vote for a specific candidate in at least some circumstances.
UCLA Law Professor Daniel H. Lowenstein starts his list with George Washington. However, it was universally recognized at the 1787 Constitutional Convention that Washington would be the first President, and he was elected unanimously in both 1789 and 1792. However, Washington was elected before the era when the state-by-state winner-take-all rule became widespread. Lowenstein credits the Electoral College with success when it resulted in the election of “good Presidents” such as Thomas Jefferson. Lowenstein includes two Presidents on his list of 11 good Presidents who were defeated in the Electoral College after receiving the most popular votes nationwide, namely Andrew Jackson in 1824 and Grover Cleveland in 1888. How, specifically, was the Electoral College or winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes essential to the emergence of, say, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or Reagan?
Read also: Comprehensive Guide: Electoral College
In July 2020, the Court decided two landmark faithless elector cases together on identical grounds: Chiafalo v. Washington (2020) and Colorado Department of State v. Baca (2020). Both cases centered on challenges to state laws that authorized the punishment or removal of faithless electors. The Washington statute subjected each faithless elector to a $1,000 fine, while the Colorado statute required electors to vote for the state’s popular vote winner or be replaced. In Chiafalo, the Court affirmed state authority in a big way, holding that states may compel their presidential electors to vote for a specific candidate in at least some circumstances. But Chiafalo did not say how far that power extends.
Proponents of the NPV reason that because the Constitution grants states broad power in appointing electors, the compact is a valid exercise of the states’ constitutional authority. They argue the constitutional mandate that states shall appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct” grants the states power to select electors pledged to a candidate other than the winner of the state popular vote. They also claim the NPV does not require congressional authorization under the Constitution’s Compact Clause, which provides that “[n]o state shall, without the Consent of Congress . . . enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State,” because the NPV is not a “Compact” in the constitutional sense.
While Chiafalo has little to say about the Compact Clause, it would seem at first blush to bolster the NPV supporters’ argument that states may appoint electors pledged to the winner of the national popular vote. The Chiafalo Court held that “the power to appoint an elector (in any manner) includes power to condition his appointment-that is, to say what the elector must do for the appointment to take effect.” However, Chiafalo falls short of guaranteeing the constitutionality of the NPV, and part of the Court’s reasoning cuts against the compact’s legal argument. The Court recognized the country’s entire history of presidential elections strongly supported an interpretation of the Constitution that granted states the power to compel electors to vote for their respective state popular-vote winners. But there is no long-standing practice of allowing states to compel electors to vote for someone other than the state popular-vote winner. On the contrary, the “[l]ong settled and established practice” is that electors are simply a means of state-based electoral representation.
Public Opinion
Public opinion surveys suggest that a majority or plurality of Americans support a popular vote for President.
Read also: Understanding the Electoral College
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