Virginia signs national popular vote bill into law, joining interstate compact with 17 other states and District of Columbia

Virginia signs national popular vote bill into law, joining interstate compact with 17 other states and District of Columbia

A national majority vote for president is one step closer to reality after the Virginia governor, Abigail Spanberger, signed the national popular vote bill into law, joining an interstate compact with 17 other states and the District of Columbia.

Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state. The compact takes effect when states representing a majority of electoral votes – 270 of 538 – pass the legislation and thus would determine the winner of the presidential contest. With Virginia, the compact now has 222 electors.

Every state that has so far enacted the compact has Democratic electoral majorities, including California, New York and Illinois. But legislation has been introduced in enough states to reach the 270-elector threshold, including swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

  • Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    10 hours ago

    Making that change would be at least as difficult as getting it passed in the first place has been, probably harder, since for that to happen each state would need to pass a new law amending it.

    • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 hours ago

      I wasn’t suggesting that changing it so would be easy or simple. The point of the thread thus far was discussing the legality and effectiveness of such a compact.

      Someone suggested that as it is now it would be challenged and overturned by the courts. I argued that it is well within the bounds of the language in the constitution and legal precedent.

      And someone else suggested that would all but be overturned if any state withheld their voting numbers or if any state in the compact withdrew. I was agreeing that it could be stymied by such things under the current terms of the compact, but also pointing out that the compact can be changed by those in it to make it more resilient/impervious to external sabotage and to mitigate the risks of a schism while still remaining in constitutional bounds.

      The difficulty of that change is not nothing, for sure, but still far easier than a constitutional amendment.