The 2020 election, whatever the outcome, will be a pivotal point in American history in fundamental respects. It will demonstrate for all to see the deep and dangerous defects in our presidential election system. Some citizens may embrace that system because it makes possible that their candidate who earns millions and millions fewer votes nationwide than his opponent will become the chief executive of the country as a whole or come very close. But the majority of Americans, including many Republicans, will feel that the country’s presidential election system has betrayed them and the values our country stands for.
The outcome will further fuel the momentum for reform that a large majority of all Americans, across party lines and state boundaries, which believes that the candidate who earns the most votes nationwide should become president. Many Republicans, in particular, will support reform of the presidential election system believing that their party cannot survive, let alone thrive, unless it competes for broader support from the national electorate which a popular vote system for selecting the president would force it to do.
These convictions will be at their highest pitch right after the election. Therefore, beginning January 2021, reform advocates must seize the tide of sentiment as soon and as broadly as possible. And the reform needs to be in place and relevant for the 2024 presidential election. Now is a once-in-a-generation (or two) opportunity to accomplish presidential election reform that has been stymied for over two hundred years.
For the Compact to become effective for the 2024 presidential election or even the 2028 election, three things have to happen. (1) States with enough electoral college votes have to join the Compact to make it effective; (2) member states cannot withdraw from the Compact as the political landscapes in those states change or states with the necessary additional electoral votes have to join the Compact; and (3) the Compact must survive judicial and Congressional challenges. That’s a tall order and far from certain.
Something more and something quicker is needed as soon as possible to protect against these risks and the destructive consequences of current presidential election system until the Compact becomes effective, during periods when the compact is not effective because member states have defected from it, or if the Compact never becomes effective.
The “something more and something quicker” is the voter choice ballot. Several states could adopt it by legislation or by a voter initiative election in 2021, while the public’s insistence for reform is at its peak. This insistence could become somewhat less urgent in 2022 and 2023. But adoption of the ballot reform in even one state in 2021 would provide additional momentum for the necessary legislative and voter initiative campaigns to do the same in 2022 and 2023.
In addition, the voter choice ballot reform would become effective as soon as a single state adopts it. Unlike the Compact, which does not have to wait until states with over half of the country’s electoral college votes to take this same step. To go into effect, no other state needs to adopt the ballot proposal. This step alone could have significant impact in the 2024 election. The fact that one, two, or three states with significant numbers of electoral college votes had adopted the ballot and, as a result, could assign their electoral votes to the national popular winner could, as a practical matter, force candidates to wage their campaigns nationally and not, as is the case now, predominantly on five to ten swing states with 20% of the country’s population. Motivated by a desire to win the presidential election, parties and primary voters would gravitate toward more centrist, less divisive candidates better suited to winning the national popular vote.
The above reasoning is not speculation. Common sense makes it obvious. In addition, Making Every Vote Count used a highly sophisticated new software program that was developed at its request for the specific purpose of determining whether a popular vote system would have this effect. It also confirmed this conclusion in discussion with campaign strategists and in the field campaign managers.
Preparing for a presidential campaign that will conclude nine months in the future with the possibility that all kinds of developments could occur that might affect the election’s outcome over that period, few candidates, strategists or parties will want to take the risk of focusing their campaigns on as few states as they have in the past. They will choose to wage a national campaign that meets the crucial needs of the nation today and into the future.