Talk:National Popular Vote Interstate Compact/Archive 5

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Per-Bill Status in Lower House, Status In Upper House?

Currently, the table of bills in current session aggregates the status of all bills in the lower house in the lower house column and all bills in the upper house in the upper house column; would it be better to show the status on a per-bill basis? This would make it more clear the status of individual bills, especially as they move from one house to the other.Transportcatch (talk) 17:18, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good, go for it! KarlFrei (talk) 12:30, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Oregon	7	2017	HB 2731, HB 2927, SB 823, SB 824, SB 825	HB 2927: Passed 34–23 HB 2731: Died in Rules	HB 2927: Died in Rules SB 823: Died in Rules SB 824: Died in Rules SB 825: Died in Rules	Failed
vs
Oregon	7	2017	HB 2731	Passed 34–23	Died in Rules	Failed
			HB 2927	Died in Rules	—	Failed
			SB 823	—	Died in Rules	Failed
			SB 824	—	Died in Rules	Failed
			SB 825	—	Died in Rules	Failed

"Current Electoral College Rules"

"Current Electoral College rules allow a candidate to win the Presidency while losing the popular vote" - I think these rules and how they cause this outcome should be made explicit. Up to this point, the article states that the winner of the popular vote may differ from the winner of the electoral college vote, and that the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would change that. But it does not indicate the reason this occurs - the practice of awarding electors to the winner of the plurality in the state.Transportcatch (talk) 17:22, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Right, but the practice of awarding electors to the winner of the plurality in a state is not part of the Electoral College system as laid out in the Constitution, as the new text would lead one to believe. You could accurately say:

"Current Electoral College rules allow states to award all their electors to the statewide popular vote winner, which in turn allows a candidate to win the Presidency while losing the nationwide popular vote." —swpb^{T go beyond} 14:18, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)

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Connecticut

Connecticut HB 5434 (2017 legislative session) and HB 5421 (current/2018 legislative session are both missing. https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&which_year=2017&bill_num=5434 https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&bill_num=HB-5421

[I don't have the technical expertise to add these to the appropriate table or I would.] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.151.41.137 (talk) 17:34, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

HB 5421 is in the pending legislation table. HB 5434 is not in the previous sessions table, because it did not receive a floor vote in either house before expiring, which is the standard for inclusion in that table. —swpb^{T go beyond} 19:41, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Connecticut has passed the bill in both houses as of May 5th, where it awaits the signature of Gov. Dan Malloy, who supports it. Counting Connecticut, the bill would be law in a total of 11 states plus DC, not 10, as the article currently states, with 172 electoral votes (CA, CT, DC, HI, IL, MA, MD, NJ, NY, RI, VT, WA). Could someone who knows how please update the article? 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:2461:D684:3237:8EE9 (talk) 23:00, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

The governor of Connecticut signed the bill into law on May 7th, 2018, so the page should be updated accordingly. Citation can reference https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/connecticut-national-popular-vote-compact-electoral-college_us_5af025c0e4b041fd2d287c79 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ty Melton (talk • contribs) 19:39, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

To editor Ty Melton: No, it does not appear he did. The link you posted does not say that the governor has signed the bill, only that he has indicated he will. —swpb^{T go beyond} 13:05, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree and made the change, having searched exhaustively, including the Hartford Courant, the Boston Globe and Governor Malloy's Facebook page and official website. There was another page called CT Talk or some such, which indicated he had signed it, but no major source has done so. In the course of changing it to pending I found the site very complicated to maneuver, as opposed to other sites. I managed to make a passable attempt to indicate it was pending, but failed miserably in my attempts to make further edits, making it worse. So, I reedited it to get to the earlier edit, which at least makes it clear what's going on and hope that someone with more expertise can smooth it up (originally, I really screwed up Florida's entry, but it is now back to normal). In any event, we await the governor's signature. Have no idea what's taking so long, as he has said he will sign it. Also removed CT from two lists and the numerical reality has been restored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andymickey (talk • contribs) 00:09, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

To editor Andymickey: Would you mind restoring the text in hidden comments (<!-- -->) like it was before, so it's simple to update the article when a sufficiently official source confirms? Try to use the preview button so you don't need to add so many edits to the history. —swpb^{T go beyond} 13:22, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Npr is reporting the governor signed the bill. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/07/609060190/connecticut-oks-bill-pledging-electoral-votes-to-national-popular-vote-winner Found5dollar (talk) 12:47, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry... I just closely red that article and it never actually says the governor signed it.... weird. Found5dollar (talk) 12:49, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Prospects subsection

This edit to the Prospects subsection caught my eye. Looking at that subsection, it strikes me that none of the content of that subsection beyond the Ref following the initial sentence appears to address prospects of the NPVIC but, rather, it seems to invite readers to draw conclusions regarding prospects based on the unsupported observations there presented. Perhaps the unsupported material there ought to be removed.

Also, it strikes me that Prospects probably should not be presented a subsection of History. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

The reference in that paragraph (written in 2014) shows that all jurisdictions that adopted the compact (11 at the time) were among the 14 where the Democratic candidate had the highest voting percentages in the most recent presidential election (2012). Before my edit, the paragraph repeated the same claim as the reference. I only wanted to update the claim based on the 2016 election and the addition of Connecticut. My update can be easily verified in the articles on the 2016 election (sort the table of results by state by margin percentage) and "red states and blue states", which are linked in the paragraph. However, if you believe that it's original research, I propose rewriting the paragraph like this:

Psephologist Nate Silver noted that all jurisdictions that have adopted the compact so far are "blue states", and that there are not enough electoral votes from the remaining "blue states" to achieve the required majority. He concluded that, as "swing states" are unlikely to support a compact that reduces their influence, the compact cannot succeed without adoption by also some "red states".[reference]

Is that better? I also agree with moving this paragraph to a separate section. Heitordp (talk) 08:58, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I see that you have made that change. Looks good to me, except that I've added a {{as of}} template to fix a WP:DATED issue. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I think it's appropriate for us to summarize a source's analysis, but not to present our own analysis based on newer data. I've rewritten the paragraph as you suggested. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:31, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Mechanism section

In this edit I've WP:BOLDly made some changes to the Mechanism section, seeking to add clarity. Previously, the section talked about "the candidate who wins the overall popular vote" without defining "win". As I understand it, the NPVIC would, once triggered, award all electoral votes from participating states "to presidential electors associated with the candidate with the largest national popular vote total" -- that, is the winner of a plurality (not necessarily a majority) in the popular vote. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:02, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

63.7%

Can anyone explain why it requires states representing 63.7 percent of the Electoral College instead of 50.1% (270 total votes?) and if there are any procedures for withdrawing from the compact (if for instance a census changed the number of votes the states in the compact represented?) And of course cite sources. I'm interested both for my personal edification and because I think it should be in the article. Nacoran (talk) 00:08, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood the article (or it's written unclearly). The compact requires states representing 270 votes in order to take force, as you say. It has currently been adopted by states with 172 electoral votes. 172 is 63.7% of the needed 270. I don't know about the other question. —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:59, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

To editor Nacoran: As Mx. Granger said, you misread the article re the 63.7%. As for withdrawing, any state can withdraw at any time, as with any other state law. However, this would not be necessary as a result of redistribution – if the member states' EV totals drop below 270, the compact is automatically not in effect until it rises to 270+ again. —swpb^{T go beyond} 12:43, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't see that in the compact. As I understand it, if a member state withdraws by repealing the state law which placed it in the compact, the applicable state laws in all the remaining member states (now with electoral votes totaling less than 270) would remain in effect in those states, and those states would continue awarding all of their electoral votes to the candidate winning the popular vote by a majority or, if there is no majority winner, to the candidate with a plurality in the popular vote. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:13, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Look at the end of Article III: This article shall govern the appointment of presidential electors in each member state in any year in which this agreement is, on July 20, in effect in states cumulatively possessing a majority of the electoral votes. The states would still be members, but the mechanism would not be in effect. MarginalCost (talk) 14:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the enhancement of my undarstanding. That understanding having decayed over time, I had relied on a quick look back at the compact to refresh it. Clearly, my look back was too quick. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:56, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Participation Map rendering on Wikipedia Android app

In the default theme, the colored overlay is misaligned with the map base. In the other themes, the colors don't show at all. I don't have the first clue as to the cause or how to fix it. 108.246.204.20 (talk) 15:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

2016 Gallup Poll

I've removed the 2016 Gallup poll mention and reference from this sentence: "Gallup polls dating back to 1944 have shown a consistent majority of the public supporting a direct vote; however, support decreased significantly in their 2016 poll, conducted a few weeks after the 2016 election, when they found support for the popular vote at 49%, an all-time low, with 47% wanting to keep the Electoral College." The main issue is that the actual Gallup poll question was: "Would you prefer to amend the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most total votes nationwide wins the election, or to keep the current system, in which the candidate who wins the most votes in the Electoral College wins the election?" [Italics added] Since a significant aspect of the NPVIC is that it awards electoral votes to popular vote winners without a Constitutional amendment, this poll seems irrelevant. The other Gallup polls cited in this section have not used that language pertaining to amending the constitution, and thus are relevant to both the Motivation section and the article in general. --AveVeritas (talk) 04:13, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Error in State Electoral College Vote Totals

Not sure if I'm doing this right, but in several spots in this article it's stated that roughly 90% of the electoral college is in the compact, totaling 245 votes. By my math and looking at other sources it only includes 165. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.118.35.8 (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I didn't notice it until you brought it up. Thank you. I don't know how to fix it unfortunately. Callmemirela 🍁 ^talk 19:28, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I removed the wikicode for the section under the table in the Adoption section and added the numbers in manually. The article intro still has the wrong numbers, though. David O. Johnson (talk) 20:32, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

The article uses template {{EVs}} to get the number of electoral votes of each state. To calculate the sum, the article calls the template 51 times, passing the state codes listed in the beginning of the article, and adds the results. Since there are only 10 states and DC listed, the article calls the template 40 more times with empty inputs. The template used to return 0 for an empty input. However, Swpb recently made the new template {{USHRseats}}, which contains the number of House seats per state, and changed {{EVs}} to return {{USHRseats}} plus 2. The problem was that this change made {{EVs}} return 2 for an empty input, resulting in 80 electoral votes added to the total in the article. I fixed {{EVs}} by making it also return 0 for an empty input, making the totals in the article correct again. After that, I reverted David O. Johnson's edit. Heitordp (talk) 21:10, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

To editor Heitordp: Thank you for fixing my mistake! To all, apologies for the temporary inaccuracy this introduced in the article. —swpb^{T go beyond} 14:08, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Unrelated issue

Its still broken for year now, And I can't fix it. And user Swpb in page itself is finally tried of fixing its coding to getting work. And hope it will doing so. Chad The Goatman (talk) 00:45, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

To editor Chad The Goatman: Uh...what? Nothing is broken. The erroneous total noted almost a year ago was fixed the very same day (see discussion immediately above). Maybe you need to refresh your browser cache? I've made code changes to make the article easier to maintain, but none of these are visible in the rendered page. As for you trying to fix something, it looks like you've made one single, trivial edit in the history of this article. So on several fronts, I have no idea what you're talking about. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 13:51, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking about that “Jurisdictions enacting law to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” table in Adoption subsection that have error in current electoral votes row that for reason all states who sign NPVIC agreement is literally said 0, rather than actual state’s EC votes? Chad The Goatman (talk) 09:00, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I see that now; that's a new problem, not the one reported a year ago. Will fix ASAP. Fixed. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 14:10, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Now it looks functional. Chad The Goatman (talk) 16:20, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Colorado just voted it in.

https://kdvr.com/2019/01/29/colorado-senate-passes-bill-to-essentially-eliminate-electoral-college/

So...yeah, page needs some updates. 2604:2000:F60A:C00:C1CB:7316:2B8A:6E5A (talk) 17:30, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

It's not law in CO. We were on top of Senate passage when it happened three days ago. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 19:13, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Committee names in "current bills" table

Do we need this? Or would it be enough to simply say "Referred to committee" and let readers interested in which committee click on the reference? Seems like this info isn't especially relevant to the majority of readers. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 21:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I think this was added in November 2016 (when there was lots of editing of this page for some reason). While vaguely interesting, I agree that it might as well be replaced by a simple "In committee". KarlFrei (talk) 07:33, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

On its merits

This is not directly related to the article, but does anyone know what "on its merits" means in the context of committee votes? I saw on the Delaware page for the relevant bill that there were three options: favorable, on its merits, unfavorable. I have no idea what the middle option means here. KarlFrei (talk) 07:55, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

There are definitions here. Gaelan 💬✏️ 14:34, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! It looks like a strange option to me. I guess there are some tactical reasons for not announcing your position too early (i.e. in the committee vote). KarlFrei (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

1st reading = Introduced?

Florida's HB 949 is now listed on the site as having received a first reading. Does that mean it should be listed as introduced in the table? Gaelan 💬✏️ 22:03, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

What stops any given state from just not polling for President?

My main concern about this compact, is why stops states with tighter budgets from saying, ah heck with it, we'll cut that option from the ballot to save money since its decided by popular vote? What protections do the people in those states have against out of control state government? (This is one of the reasons electors are not automatically officers within government.) --184.170.76.248 (talk) 21:16, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

You do not have the right to vote in any event. See Bush vs. Gore: “[t]he individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States.” This has nothing to do with this compact. KarlFrei (talk) 07:42, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

This page is not a question and answer forum, or a place to express opinions about the subject matter. Please don't pollute it with this sort of thing. -- Jibal (talk) 20:24, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Any passage in GOP-controlled legislatures other than OK?

These would be relevant to list in the "Prospects" section. Before I try to go through all the past bills, is anyone aware of any other passages in GOP-led houses? —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 15:19, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

It has passed one house in 8 additional states with 72 electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, NC, NV, OK, OR), including a 40–16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House and a 28–18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate, and been approved unanimously by committee votes in two additional Republican-controlled states with 26 electoral votes (GA, MO). Front page of [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by KarlFrei (talk • contribs)

Thanks! —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 12:54, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

There's at least one other: On June 7, 2011, the Republican-controlled New York Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill (S4208 / AB 489) by a 47–13 margin [2]. However, the bill did not succeed in NY until 2014. That year, although both houses were Democratic majorities, it passed with a large majority of both Republican and Democratic legislators. Perl coder (talk) 18:52, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

The sharp increase in support among Republicans since 2016 for keeping the Electoral College seems to reduce the relevance of actions taken prior to then by Republican state legislatures, since it is today's constituency that will control this question. Swood100 (talk) 16:33, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Popular vote and majority vote

It seems useful to note in the article the examples where this would apply:

Elections where popular winner lost

Election	EC winner		Popular winner		Voter turnout
1824	Adams	30.9%	Jackson	41.4%	26.9%
1876	Hayes	47.9%	Tilden	50.9%	81.8%
1888	Harrison	47.8%	Cleveland	48.6%	79.3%
2000	Bush	47.9%	Gore	48.4%	51.2%
2016	Trump	46.1%	Clinton	48.2%	55.7%

Also I notice that a "majority candidate" only lost once, 1876, while in 1824, 1888, 2000, 2016 no candidate had a majority. I'd think if we got a 1992 type election, a 3-way race, like 1992, say Clinton 43.00%, Bush 43.01%, Perot 13.2%..., if in 1992 Clinton had a clean win in the electoral college, I find it hard to believe that voters would accept giving the election to Bush on a 0.01% plurality victory. Of course Clinton did win with 43% in reality (Bush had 37.4%), but also had a 200+ electoral college lead. I just don't believe voters would accept this. As soon as such a case happened, the Compact would be reversed for ALL states who used it and reversed their popular vote. Tom Ruen (talk) 04:02, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Tomruen I like this addition, do you think it would be useful to include the vote numbers as well? I think that would be informative Nevermore27 (talk) 05:24, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I added to the article, and actually removed 3rd, 4th places for compactness. Linking the year to the election means people can look at vote totals there if they like. Coloring candidates by party might also show something of the partisan biases of the problem. Tom Ruen (talk) 14:41, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I added colors by party and voter turnout. Tom Ruen (talk) 14:51, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Aside from the fact that this page is not a soapbox for people to offer their opinions, a) it's silly to claim that voters "wouldn't accept" an outcome in which the candidate with the most votes wins and would demand a return to having the candidate with fewer votes win, b) voter acceptance is irrelevant; it's the state legislatures that pass the laws c) the "states who used it" is meaningless; the states that join the compact aren't treated differently; it doesn't matter which states are or are not in the compact, only that the sum of the EV for the states in the compact >= 270 d)"reversed their popular vote" is nonsense; the whole point of the compact is to replace numerous per-state popular vote counts with a single national popular vote count e) In addition, in the case where there is no majority vote, the winner of a plurality of national popular votes wins, replacing the bizarre undemocratic scheme by which the state delegations in the House of Representatives determine the President (with each state, not each member, getting a vote, despite it being the "people's house") -- so this whole "Popular vote and majority vote" section is offbase f) "the partisan biases of the problem" -- there's no such "problem", and attempting to demonstrate one is Original Research. -- Jibal (talk) 20:36, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

100% agree with Jibal. A related point is that in every election for Governor, Senator, Congress, Town Council etc with three or more candidates, the (plurality) winner might not have an outright majority. That can be solved three ways. Most commonly, the plurality winner is declared the winner, which is a widely accepted outcome. Less common methods are to have a runoff election between the two highest vote winners (typically only practical in small jurisdictions), or to have ranked-choice-voting (RCV), which is like an automatic runoff (as used in Maine). Another viewpoint is to consider Michigan in the 2016 Presidential Election. Because Michigan uses WTA, Trump received 100% of MI's EVs with 47.50% of the vote, while Clinton got none of the EVs with 47.27% of the vote. The fact that Trump got less than 50% of the votes in MI and only won by a small margin didn't diminish the voter acceptance of the fact that he won MI and all of its EVs. Perl coder (talk) 05:40, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Colors in the table

Should there be a second intermediate color when the bill passes committee or would that be overkill? Nevermore27 (talk) 06:48, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Overkill. More to track for very little payoff to the average reader. Possibly even misleading, by suggesting that a given bill is "closer" to adoption when we don't know if that's the case. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 01:27, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

To editor Nevermore27: I've begun to rethink this. Maybe it's not that much extra, and I know at least some readers would want to see that info at a glance. I think {{maybe}} gives a nice color; I'd want to use a redirect to it like {{pending2}} or similar. I want to give some of the other major editors a chance to weigh in: To editors KarlFrei, Perl coder and Transportcatch:. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 17:56, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind having an extra color in the table. It may indeed help for an at-a-glance overview. Currently, it is not so easy to pick out "Passed committee" among all the "In committee"s. KarlFrei (talk) 19:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok, then I'll go ahead and do it, and we can revisit if anyone complains. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 19:22, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm supportive too. However, some legislatures have multiple committees, so we need to decide whether pending2 means it's passed the first committee or the last. I'd prefer to use it only for the latter - meaning it's now on the way to the floor, since in the former case it is still pending (in a different committee). Perl coder (talk) 19:50, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Certainly. The status "In committee" should always be read as "In SOME committee" (no matter if it already passed other ones). KarlFrei (talk) 06:19, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 16:52, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

The fact that the Electoral College stays in existence under NPVIC is irrelevant

I added the following, which Perl_coder (talk · contribs) reverted with the comment that “polls about abolishing the Electoral College are not the same as polls about a national popular vote; NPVIC does not change or eliminate the Electoral College - it updates WTA state laws.” This seems incoherent. The issue is between using the direct vote and using the traditional Electoral College method of choosing a president. The fact that the Electoral College stays in existence under NPVIC is irrelevant since the president would be chosen by direct vote majority. Am I overlooking something?

However, a Gallup poll taken just after the 2016 election showed that Americans' support for keeping the Electoral College system for electing presidents had increased sharply, from 35% in 2012 to 47% in 2016. Support among Democrats for amending the Constitution in favor of using the popular vote went from 69% to 81% and support among Republicans went from 54% to 19%. According to a Pew Research poll done in March 2018, 75% of Democrats supported moving to a popular-vote system compared to 32% of Republicans. These poll results are consistent with the fact that only states that were won by the Democrat in the 2016 presidential election have signed on to the NPVIC. Swood100 (talk) 17:48, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

They are very different things. The "Electoral College method" gives the states full authority to decide how to assign their electoral votes. The "Electoral College" specified in the Constitution doesn't prescribe any method the states must use. The states have used many different methods over the years (see the "History of State Winner-Take-All Laws" on the NPV Explanation Page). NPVIC doesn't change the constitution, the Electoral College or state's control of their electoral votes in any way. All it changes is the state winner-take-all laws, once enough states adopt it. While the effect of creating a national popular vote via NPVIC might be same as if the EC were abolished, the mechanisms are vastly different, and people's impressions of them are different too. Back to the polls: questions that propose changing the constitution and abolishing something in the constitution (recently a popular topic among certain presidential candidates) no doubt create different reactions than questions about just the outcome of having a national popular vote for president. Your edits might be more appropriate to add to the United States Electoral College page, since that's what they are about, not directly relevant to NPVIC. Perl coder (talk) 18:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Swood100, for one thing look at the paragraph spanning pp 58-59 (pdf page numbers 27-28) here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:03, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

If polls concerning public support for direct popular vote for president, instead of using the electoral college method, are not relevant to this article then that part of the first paragraph under the “Motivation” section dealing with such polls, including the graphic depicting the 2007 Washington Post poll just to the right, also need to be removed. That poll asked the following question: “For future presidential elections, would you support or oppose changing to a system in which the president is elected by direct popular vote, instead of by the electoral college?” Swood100 (talk) 16:59, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

That doesn't strike me as relevant to the assertion made by the topic of this talk page section. The poll question you quote is #22 in that survey, which looks like it was more widely focused than this article. That poll question, and public opinion surveys in general regarding the idea of a popular vote for President, seem to me to be relevant to the article topic. I'm not a topical expert here, though, and I'm not interested in debating this here. I would vote no regarding your removal suggestion about that. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:41, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Could you explain more clearly why question #22 is relevant but the Gallup and Pew polls I referenced, which ask the same question, are not. What is the difference? Swood100 (talk) 15:23, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Agree 100% with Perl coder and Wtmitchell – the fact that the NPVIC does not amend the Constitution means that poll questions asking about measures that do amend the Constitution are not relevant, even if the effect of the measures is the same. Furthermore, pointing to poll data from immediately after the second EC-PV split in 16 years, both of which favored the same party, is not an accurate reflection of long-term sentiment about the EC on its merits, but a totally un-illuminating reminder that we live in hyper-partisan times. Finally, the last sentence in Swood100's addition is an OR synthesis and misleading, not least since most of the compact members joined before 2016. We have taken great care in this article to fairly address the views of those opposed to the compact; we do not need to introduce misleading stats and statements to placate them. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 13:37, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

How are the polls I cited any more misleading than the polls already cited in the story? They all ask the same question. Furthermore, why does poll data become questionable if taken right after the Electoral College influenced the election in a way opposed to the outcome of a direct election? One would think that this would provide a stark practical example and allow people to focus on the real effects of the Electoral College. As for long-term sentiment, why is that more important than current sentiment, which is what is at work now. And there are no polls cited that asked questions about NPVIC so what do we know about long-term sentiment? In any event, if you believe that these polls are invalid then you need to provide a secondary source to that effect.

Do you really think that it’s irrelevant that only states that vote Democrat have signed onto NPVIC (and not withdrawn any such legislation enacted in the past) especially given the current partisan divide on the question? What is the point of keeping this out? Swood100 (talk) 15:26, 8 April 2019 (UTC) Furthermore, in 2007 NPVIC legislation was introduced in 42 states. Is it relevant that all states adopting it have voted for the Democrat in each presidential race since then? Would you prefer that I reword the sentence to say this? Swood100 (talk) 17:40, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

The fact that the states that have enacted the NPVIC bill so far are blue states is covered already in the Prospects section.[3] Perl coder (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I had overlooked that. But comment was a response to Swbp, who called this a misleading stat. Swood100 (talk) 20:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Let’s be entirely clear. This article contains the following language: “A 2007 poll found that 72% favored replacing the Electoral College with a direct election, including 78% of Democrats, 60% of Republicans, and 73% of independent voters.” This is then depicted in a graphic to the right. These numbers come from the cited 2007 poll question 22: “For future presidential elections, would you support or oppose changing to a system in which the president is elected by direct popular vote, instead of by the electoral college?” Furthermore, the Gallup polls dating back to 1944 that are referenced all ask questions related to modifying or abolishing the Electoral College.

If the current Gallup and Pew polls are not relevant because they ask about replacing the Electoral College instead of circumventing it with the NPVIC process, then why are these other polls relevant? Swood100 (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Not many people understand the subtle, but important, distinction between state winner-take-all laws (states implementing one method using their plenary power granted by the Constitution) and the Electoral College (defined in the Constitution, which doesn't prescribe any particular method states can use for assigning their EC votes). So it's common for people to think that a national popular vote would supplant or replace the Electoral College, and the poll questions often conflate those issues. While not ideal, I think that's still ok and relevant to this page. The threshold point for me is a question that specifically asks about abolishing the Electoral College and/or changing the Constitution, which takes the question and therefore the responses too far away from one about just a national popular vote and a specific method for accomplishing that - NPVIC - which is the topic of this page. Perl coder (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

You are making a very fine distinction, and are assuming that there would be a significant number of people who favor NVPIC but would not favor amending the constitution to eliminate the Electoral College and substitute direct election. However, you also acknowledge that not many people see a difference, most equate the two, and most polls conflate the issues. But then you say that any poll that conflates the issues is irrelevant to the article for that reason. Is that appropriate given that few people see a difference?

You say that the threshold point for you is a question that specifically asks about abolishing the Electoral College and/or changing the Constitution. But the 2007 poll question already referenced clearly does that, as does the existing Gallup poll currently referenced in the article, every question of which had amending the Constitution as part of the question. These polls clearly do not come within your threshold point so are you prepared to remove them? Swood100 (talk) 20:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I didn't say there was a subtle difference between modifying the system (eg, state laws), and abolishing the EC by amending the Constitution. That's where the difference is significant, and that's our point. To restate it, most people don't distinguish between a change to a national popular vote also being a change to the EC, when it fact it might only be a change to the state laws and not the EC itself. "Electoral College" is a short-hand for "the current system". At the top of this talk section you used the phrase "traditional Electoral College method", which I took to mean "the current system". Anyhow, Q22 on the 2007 survey asks:

"For future presidential elections, would you support or oppose changing to a system in which the president is elected by direct popular vote, instead of by the electoral college?"

That satisfies the criteria, even though when it says "...by the electoral college" it really just means "in the current manner". That difference is negligible and unlikely to confuse any respondents. Therefore this poll is relevant to NPVIC.

In contrast, the Gallup Poll you are citing asked:

"Thinking for a moment about the way in which the president is elected in this country, which would you prefer -- [ROTATED: to amend the constitution so the candidate who receives the most total votes nationwide wins the election, (or) to keep the current system, in which the candidate who wins the most votes in the Electoral College wins the election]?"

This is asking a much different question about amending the constitution, and that's just not related to NPVIC. And, being pedantic, NPVIC is excluded by either alternative in this question, so the question isn't well-formed. Perl coder (talk) 03:56, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

No, ”instead of by the electoral college” means that the electoral college method is supplanted by direct popular vote. “Instead of” means “in place of : as a substitute for or alternative to.” How many people responding to this question would have agreed that some method instead of the electoral college would still use the electoral college?

I don’t understand in the first place why you think that the keeping of the electoral college under NVPIC is a factor that is important enough that responses to a poll that just asks about eliminating the electoral college are irrelevant to public opinion on the NPVIC. But given that you do, that you would then be willing to let slide a question that we know was interpreted by those answering it as asking whether they favored direct election as a replacement for the electoral college. You propose abandoning the literal meaning of “instead of” in favor of some other meaning that, while perhaps grammatically possible, was clearly not the meaning in the minds of those being polled.

I see the distinction you are making, but for it to have the importance you ascribe to it we would have to assume that a significant number of people in favor of NVPIC would oppose modifying the Constitution to replace the electoral college with direct election, or vice versa. Is that what you believe? Swood100 (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I've tried to explain our position as objectively and clearly as I can, and I'm sorry I haven't been successful. I don't have any more points or perspectives to add. If you carefully re-read this discussion and still truly believe your references and additions are appropriate, we'll need other editors to weigh in again. Perl coder (talk) 16:06, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, according to your analysis the existing reference to Gallup polls dating back to 1944 is inappropriate for this article. Are you going to remove it? Swood100 (talk) 15:55, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

According to the reference (a Gallup press release from 2000), the 1944 question looks ok and relevant. The sample of questions in the press release shows they addressed various topics over the years, some of which aren't relevant to this article. But overall the reference looks fine, since it specifically supports the statement about 1944, and the press release mentions support for a national popular vote again in 1988. Perl coder (talk) 23:35, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

1948, 1977 and 1980 specifically asked about discontinuing or doing away with the electoral college.

1948 – "It has been suggested that the electoral vote system be discontinued and Presidents of the U.S. (United States) be elected by total popular vote alone. Do you favor or oppose this proposal?"

1977, 80 – "Would you approve or disapprove of an amendment to the Constitution which would do away with the electoral college and base the election of a President on the total vote cast throughout the nation?"

You said “…abolishing the EC by amending the Constitution. That's where the difference is significant, and that's our point.” But here when poll questions are asked specifically about abolishing the electoral college you say those questions are OK to cite in this article. I don’t see how that is consistent. Swood100 (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

All – I have struck a balance in which the 54% → 19% poll shift is mentioned with what I think is the appropriate context and weight. I've moved all non-NPVIC polling data to the "History" section, where it makes more sense anyway. If there is more concern about the different wording of polls, that can be incorporated, or we can reword to replace the absolute results for Republicans in the 2016 poll with merely the size of the change. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 19:13, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the move to the "History" section and the added text and reference. Thanks for the changes and repairing United States Electoral College too. Perl coder (talk) 01:22, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

To editors Perl coder and Wtmitchell: Heads up, this fight has been dragged over into the summary of this article on United States Electoral College. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 18:37, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Campaign focus map

The older map did a better job of showing how many visits/dollars each state got:

similar to the 3D map in the source: http://archive.fairvote.org/media/research/who_picks_president.pdf

Can the new one be re-done to show the same information?

It should use a real continuous colormap instead of 5 color categories. — Omegatron (talk) 00:09, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Both the older symbol-based map and a continuous color map would be less effective than the current map: neither one allows the reader to extract quantitative information by referencing a key, which is vital to grasping the exponential logarithmic scale used; which is in turn vital to distinguishing values at the low end (for a color map) or high end (for a symbol map) that otherwise look nearly identical. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 13:23, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

It should definitely not use exponential scaling. That would defeat the whole purpose of the map. — Omegatron (talk) 03:59, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Bills in current session table

It occurred to me to wonder whether it would be useful to add info to the table in the Bills in current session section.

The EVs column might color-code the number in each row using colors for Introduced, Passed and Not passed, and a row might be added at the bottom of that table with current-session totals as of the last table update. Alternatively, how about just adding summary info in an added field at the bottom of the table or as a table note saying that nn more votes are needed to reach 270 as of the last table update.

Either way, that would require careful updating and careful monitoring of updates to that table, but the result ought to be of interest to readers of this article, which says that the current status is 189 passed, or 70% of the 270 EVs needed. I don't want to WP:BOLDly make this change, but thought that I would mention it as a possible improvement to the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:59, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

We could easily add the pending total to that table without adding a maintenance task (the lists in the hidden sections at the top are used for computations throughout the article), but I don't know why we'd want to. The pending total isn't very meaningful without the passed total, and the passed total doesn't belong here – that's information about the whole history of the compact, and this is a section about what's happening just this session. At any rate, those numbers already appear multiple places in the article (lead, infobox, and passed EVs appears twice in "Adoption") where an interested user would encounter them before reaching the "current bills" table. If you mean to total up just the statuses in the current bills table, I don't see much value there either – anyone who really wants to see how many bills passed in just this session can count them on one hand. And I don't understand why you would want to color-code the EVs column – what would the colors represent? Those numbers never change within a session. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 16:09, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Display 270 goal in stacked timeline chart

Would require formatting changes to template. I've posted this request to the template's talk page (Template talk:NPVIC chart#Request to display chart height relative to goal rather than current percent), but am mentioning here for visibility. djr13 (talk) 20:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Should "legal standing" be its own level-2 section?

User:CommonKnowledgeCreator has just greatly expanded this section (and done a wonderful job of it, IMO). This raises a question for me though – the "Legal standing" section is far larger than the other subsections under "Debate" (and stands to become much larger still if and when the compact is actually litigated), and it is qualitatively different from those other subsections, which all discuss potential effects of the compact's adoption, assuming it stands. Should we promote "Legal standing" to a level 2 header? And if so, is its present position, between "Debate" and "History", the right one? I'd say yes to both questions, but I think broader input is warranted. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 15:03, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm "yes" and "yes", and kudos to User:CommonKnowledgeCreator on the excellent and carefully written additions. Perl coder (talk) 01:12, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Done. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 14:05, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Natelson's "public trust"

The recent addition to the "Legality" section needs context: Natelson says the scheme would be declared unconstitutional as a violation of "public trust"; is there any relevant court precedent? State legislatures are given wide allowance to apportion electors; has any state's apportionment scheme ever been declared unconstitutional, under 14A or otherwise? What about constitutional rulings on "violations of public trust" outside of EC apportionment? If there are no such precedents, that should be mentioned. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 19:03, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't know of any constitutional requirement of "public trust", but I'm not a constitutional lawyer. I should note that this May 2019 opinion piece from Natelson undermines his position as an objective legal authority. His arguments about why only needing a plurality under NPV is bad of course equally applies today for every state's WTA presidential election, or seats for senators, congress, etc. It does raise the question of whether his cited article is just an opinion piece too. Perl coder (talk) 20:48, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to handle this. It seems pretty clear to me that the "public trust" argument is just one man's opinion, and probably not a very sound one. I only hesitate to remove it because, among arguments against the compact, it is fairly unique and from a vaguely credentialed source, and we could be accused of bias (maybe fairly) if we excluded it. Anyone slightly familiar with the two organizations Natelson works for will recognize that he's likely working from a position of naked partisanship rather than disinterested academia. But we can't really say that without RS's that either question his motives or credentials, or better yet, directly undermine the "public trust" theory. Maybe WikiProject Law could help? —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 14:09, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

What's up with Minnesota SF 2227?

To editors Perl coder and BenbowInn: Having a hard time understanding what's going on with this bill. Are they really trying to add the NPV in conference, without another vote on the Senate floor? If so, including the tally of the Senate vote on the non-NPV version seems questionable. If not, and the Senate will need to vote on it again, then the color is wrong. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 22:06, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

User:BenbowInn's and your updates are exactly right. The conference committee (5 senators and 5 house members) will meet to reconcile the different versions of the bill. I presume that if they are successful, it will then be re-voted by each chamber. I wasn't sure how to color code this rather unique situation (having NPV included in a larger Omnibus bill by just one house); perhaps the Senate should be light yellow, or we don't show their vote at all since their bill didn't include NPV? This ambiguity about how we represent the bill status should get resolved one way or the other relatively soon (a few weeks?), unless the entire bill stalls if there is no compromise struck. BTW, this NPV FB post shows the history and potential future steps of the bill(s). Perl coder (talk) 00:04, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Ok, so if we're not sure if there will be a re-vote in the full Senate but we're presuming yes, I would err on the side of using {{pending}} instead of {{pending2}}. I've also replaced the Senate text with "In conference committee". Here's how I suggest we deal with the possible outcomes from here:

Outcome of conference	Senate	Footnote
Bill without NPV	Not voted	Final conference bill did not include the NPVIC.
No compromise reached	Not voted	Senate version of this omnibus bill was passed without the NPVIC, and conference committee did not produce a compromise bill.
Bill with NPV, which requires a new Senate floor vote	Passed conference committee	[None]
Bill with NPV, which does not require another floor vote	Passed [no tally shown]	Senate version of this omnibus bill was passed without the NPVIC, which was incorporated in conference committee.

—swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 13:59, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Now that the special session has ended with no action on SF 2227 and a separate budget bill passed, can we say that it was not voted on? After all, even if it nominally will be automatically reconsidered next year, there's no reason they'd reconsider an omnibus budget bill for 2019 in 2020, right? Blippy1998 (talk) 18:17, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 03:19, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I marked it as "not voted" and explained the situation in the footnote. Heitordp (talk) 21:06, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. Well explained. Blippy1998 (talk) 21:29, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Wisdom of having multiple rows for executive and overall status of current bills within the same state?

Some states (currently FL, ME, MN, OR) have multiple, substantially identical versions of the NPVIC bill pending at the same time, with different bill numbers, and often introduced in different houses of the legislature. Right now, each of these bills gets its own cell in the "Executive" and "Status" columns. However, we know that only one of these bills, at most, can reach the executive. I think for these columns, it's more important to note how many states have pending bills, not how many bills are pending in total, since several of those will necessarily be subsumed as part of parliamentary process before getting that far. Therefore, I propose we merge the cells belonging to a single state in the latter two columns, or at least in the rightmost "status" column. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 23:09, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree completely. In fact, I think we don't really need to have the bill numbers in this table at all. (First I was going to suggest putting the bill numbers in the status columns.) Why don't we just remove the Bill column and instead put all the references in the Lower house and Upper house columns? The word and color of each cell should in this case refer to the most advanced bill (e.g. preferably one that has already been passed in the other house), whereas the references would still refer to all the bills. KarlFrei (talk) 07:39, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I think I'm leaning against that proposal – I think it's worth noting that, for example, the bill that has been introduced in the Florida House is not technically the same bill that has been advanced in the Senate, even though they would ultimately be reconciled before proceeding. Simply having different refs on the same row somewhat obscures that fact. In the mean time, I'll go ahead on merging cells in the last two columns. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 15:25, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

The bill numbers are important, sometimes people like to go to the state's website and track progress on their own. Nevermore27 (talk) 20:24, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Swpb that it's more important to note how many states have pending bills - obviously, once a bill passes in a state, the rest are moot, since the state has joined the compact, which is a pretty binary process. However, it's definitely not true that only one bill can reach the executive. In line with our consensus that it's important to distinguish between individual bills, we should not combine all the cells in the executive column into just one - that approach is inconsistent with our approach to differentiating the bills in the columns corresponding to the legislature. A good hypothetical example of when our current protocol might fail is Minnesota, where there was an omnibus bill that might have been passed by the executive as part of a compromise while a standalone bill might have been vetoed. Therefore, the decision to merge the cells belonging to a single state in the penultimate column was ill-founded, and we should not continue doing this. Blippy1998 (talk) 01:45, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

You make a good case; that's fine by me. I'd still keep the final column by-state rather than by-bill, but I think we're on the same page there. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 23:02, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Split "Proposals to abolish the Electoral College by amendment"?

The lead of that section provides important historical context for the creation of NPVIC. However, the details of these two attempted amendments are pretty tangential to NPVIC itself. As it is, NPVIC doesn't appear until pretty far down the "History" section. Maybe we split these amendments off and merge any unique content into United States Electoral College#Efforts to abolish or reform? —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 20:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Since I don't usually get much push-back to proposals here, and this seems fairly uncontroversial, I'm being bold. As always, we can revisit if there's concern. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 18:07, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with removing them here. I see that the "Every Vote Counts Amendment" addition was not agreed upon on United States Electoral College#Efforts to abolish or reform. I'm fine dropping it altogether. There have been numerous congressional bills to eliminate the EC, and other than the Bayh–Celler amendment they have gone nowhere. At the end of National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#Proposals to abolish the Electoral College by amendment I would support adding one more sentence about the Bayh–Celler amendment, because it is notable. Perl coder (talk) 02:31, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Misleading map

The map in the infobox gives a very strong impression that the interstate compact is on the verge of coming into force, with the addition of ten "yellow" states where legislation has been either vetoed (NV) or is still in committee. There are a few states where legislation has passed at least one house, so including those is probably legitimate, but the others need to be designated differently, probably with a lighter shade. --70.181.130.177 (talk) 18:28, 30 May 2019 (UTC) SchutteGod (not logged in)

and yes, I know the veto *could* still be overridden in NV, but it's probably not going to happen. --70.181.130.177 (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Pending legislation is at least an objective criterion, plus it gives people an idea of what states have activity going on that could be worth watching. But yeah, it could give slightly the wrong impression, since most legislation that gets introduced doesn't pass. As you suggest, we might want to introduce another shade of yellow indicating legislation that has passed at least one house this session. Зенитная Самоходная Установка (talk) 18:44, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The summary map does not suggest anything about the probability of the "pending" states joining, nor is it meant to. The fact that most legislation (not just NPVIC) goes nowhere is not in the scope of this article; a general article on American state legislative processes would be the place to address that point. The summary map here should stick to the hard, categorical facts: NPVIC is law in some places, it is in process in other places, and is not active at all in the rest.

The section "Bills in latest session" gives detailed information about where each bill is in the legislative process, and a two-shade distinction is appropriate in that context. Putting that distinction in the summary map however, without context, would actually increase the likelihood of misinterpretation, by making it look like the states with an advanced bill are on the verge of adoption – which, as we have been reminded by ME and NV today, is not necessarily the case. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 22:10, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Some other relevant info would be, in which states has an NPV bill ever passed a legislative chamber? Both Idaho and Maine had an NPV bill this year, but Maine's prospects of passing such a bill in the foreseeable future are a lot higher than Idaho's. Зенитная Самоходная Установка (talk) 02:15, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Again, that's already there: National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#Bills_receiving_floor_votes_in_previous_sessions. But we are not in the predicting game. Deciding which information suggests likely passage and which does not would be WP:OR. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 14:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Updating first bullet in Motivation

The first bullet in Motivation starts with this sentence:

State winner-take-all laws (allowed under current Electoral College rules) allow a candidate to win the Presidency while losing the popular vote, as happened in the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016.

In 1824 the EC winner did not win the popular vote, but it's not because of WTA. In 1824, no candidate had a majority of the EC, so it went to Congress with 1-vote-per-state. One proposal is to remove 1824 from this first bullet, and add a new bullet at the end of the list that mentions that if no candidate receives a majority of the EC, then Congress votes with one vote per state, and the winner might not be the popular vote winner as in 1824. NPV avoids this outcome, except in the exceedingly unlikely case that there is an exact tie in the popular vote, whereupon it falls back on the current WTA system. Also, I would like to rephrase the parenthetic remark "(allowed under current Electoral College rules)"; there aren't "EC rules" beyond what is in the constitution; specifically plenary power to pick electors is granted to the states under the constitution. We could replace it with something like "(enacted by states under their plenary power granted by the constitution)", or remove this parenthetic remark. Perl coder (talk) 21:16, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I would just simplify the first bullet to "The current Electoral College system allows...". This does away with the need to treat 1824 separately and the need for a parenthetical. I don't think this bullet needs to be framed in terms of WTA, which is treated in the subsequent two points and again in "Debate". We should strive to balance precision with pertinence – the details of 1824 are fairly tangential to the motivation for NPVIC. If anything, it could be treated in a footnote. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 19:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion; I made that change Perl coder (talk) 05:39, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Removing non-final votes on Maine LD816

Discussing per BRD (see B and R). With all respect to Nevermore27, I don't see value in including each procedural vote on a non-active bill. The "Bills" section, both "Latest" and "Previous" tables, should give the top-level information on what each state has done. IMO, that means only presenting the final of the floor votes on non-pending bills (and the final veto-override votes, if such occur). As discussed before, readers who want detailed information on the meanderings of a given bill can easily follow the link to the legislature's page; this information isn't useful to the vast majority of readers. Nor does it help to establish anything about the nature of NPVIC bills – bills of all kinds routinely face such parliamentary hurdles. I think we should keep only the final floor votes (and final veto-override votes) for non-pending bills in both tables. This only affects Maine LD816 in the latest session, and the two previous Massachusetts bills. To be clear, I have no problem listing multiple floor votes for pending bills, for those trying to follow a bill's action in real time. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 14:17, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

As the original reverter, I think that individual floor votes are important. Not every legislative action, just floor votes. Nevermore27 (talk) 21:58, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't really mind either way, but I want to note that summarizing each bill on one line makes it hard to choose which numbers to give for the votes. (As a side note, I believe that the last action in the Maine senate was to insist; even though no numbers were given there, I think that was based on a vote (voice vote?).) One option would be to write something like "Failed (multiple votes)" or "Failed on final vote", referring the reader to the website for numbers and more details. KarlFrei (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I like "failed final vote". —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 17:49, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Unsourced content notice from National Popular Vote Interstate Compact#Constitutionality section

Moved following unsourced content here from section. Given that the content is not sourced, please do not restore the content to the article until a source is found.

Proponents of the compact counter that if removing the possibility of contingent elections is grounds for unconstitutionality, then Congress setting the size of the House at an odd number (resulting in an odd number of electors) as it did in 1911 was also unconstitutional.

• See Public Law 62-5 of 1911, though Congress has the authority to change that number. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 capped the size of the House at 435.

--CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Would this reference be suitable? Perl coder (talk) 19:47, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Restored text with this reference Perl coder (talk) 05:34, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

@Perl coder: I think that reference is fine. I apologize for not responding sooner. Maybe I'm an exception among editors but if you don't ping me when you leave me a message on a talk page, I'm probably not going to be aware that you left me message at all. I edit too many different kinds of articles to follow them all with my Watchlist, and most Watchlist notifications are really only helpful for things like WP:Rollback that I'm not particularly active in doing or for deletionists who just want to automatically revert any content other editors add or put up WP:No original research or WP:Synthesis notices because they don't want to believe verifiable information that doesn't reinforce the deletionist's worldview. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 17:17, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Protective function of Electoral College

@Swpb: There have been far more "faithless electors" than 24 in all the presidential elections since 1796, as described on the faithless elector page. There is no citation for this incorrect number. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of faithless elector state laws. Ray v. Blair only addressed the issue of pledging during elector selection, not whether these pledges are legally enforceable or an elector can be legally forced to vote in a certain manner. In fact, the constitutionality of faithless elector laws were challenged after the 2016 election, with the Washington Supreme Court and 10th Circuit giving conflicting opinions, which are at this moment pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. One of the objectives of this litigation is to shed light on how the Electoral College actually is supposed to function given the procedures laid out in the Constitution and spur enthusiasm for reform either through the NPVIC (which should have a sufficient buffer in electors to negate any effect of faithless electors) or through constitutional amendment. Or at the very least, a finding that faithless elector laws are unconstitutional would allow the putative protective function of the electoral college to operate unabated by state laws, which was not the case in 2016. This section should be revised accordingly, as these details are important to the topic being discussed in this section. Mdewman6 (talk) 17:13, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, NPV's value of 24 (now apparently 17) is suspect; they may be using unusual criteria. Their claim re the effect of Ray may also be biased. If you have good sources for where the state laws stand in light of recent litigation, by all means add it. The point of the section is that NPVIC doesn't impede the possibility of deliberative EC any more than it is currently impeded. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 21:13, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Maine status?

Anyone with knowledge of Maine's legislative process and terminology invited to answer.

On March 15, user 86.85.246.18 revised Maine's LD 816 status to "passed committee" in both chambers. I'm having trouble confirming this from the Maine legislature's website. This page lists the latest actions on the bill, but it's not clear to me that the next step for the bill is a floor vote in each chamber, as the table currently implies. Do you have any source that would make this clearer? Thank you! —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 13:51, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

What is the current status of the NPVIC bill in Maine? Pass or Fail? ~~Hartmut, 31 Dec 2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.144.152 (talk) 20:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

The march 4 update on this page ( http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/display_ps.asp?ld=816&PID=1456&snum=129&sec3 ) looked to me that the bill was trough the committee with a divided report but now it looks like my interpretation was wrong. The april 11th update which reported out with MAJ Ought not to pass. Still unclear if the bill has failed in committee or it is an advice for the chambers vote. Bill states should maybe for now be returnd to the "in committee" status. (86.85.246.18) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.85.246.18 (talk) 18:33, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok, returned to "In committee" until someone with more insight can weigh in. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 18:40, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I believe LD816 is through the committee, but with a negative majority vote (ONTP = Ought Not to Pass). Maine allows bills to move to the floor even if they receive an ONTP recommendation (our terminology doesn't really cover this case, since we can't say it "passed" the committee). The Maine Legislature Glossary explains some of the terms. In particular, I believe "Reported Out" means the committee work is complete, and the next step is a first reading on the floor. LD816 is expected to be on the Senate floor in the next week or so, but I don't have a ref for that. Around that time, the legislature's bill status should be updated. Perl coder (talk) 16:06, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added a footnote; see if you think it captures the situation accurately. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 16:40, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Looks good to me; thanks! Perl coder (talk) 19:14, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I suppose I can repeat the first line of this section here. The article currently says that the bill is ready for the governor to sign, but the bill website actually says that the bill is "held" in the house. This to me suggests that they did not yet send it to the governor. I have no idea what exactly "held" means though. It looks strange, after already passing the bill. KarlFrei (talk) 07:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

This article says the bill "faces further action in both chambers", but I don't know what that would be. If that is just pro forma procedural stuff, which seems likely based on other states, then I don't think we need to make any distinction – we can say its next step is the governor's desk. But Maine is weird, so if anyone knows otherwise, please speak up. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 15:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I see that it has now been released from the house... KarlFrei (talk) 14:19, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Latest action column

I think it might be nice to include a column that says when an action was last taken on each bill as it gives an idea if the legislature is actually considering a bill or if it's been sitting untouched in committee for over a year. Here's something I threw together.

State	EVs	Session	Bill	Latest Action		Lower house	Upper house	Executive	Status
Delaware	3	2019–20	SB 22	Mar 28, 2019	Signed	Passed 24–17	Passed 14–7	Signed	Law
Georgia	16	2019–20	SB 42	Feb 5, 2019	Read and referred	—	In committee	—	Pending
Kansas	6	2019–20	SB 115	Feb 7, 2019	Referred	—	In committee	—	Pending
Maine	4	2019–20	LD 418	Mar 14, 2019	Placed in legislative files	Died in committee	Died in committee	—	Failed
			LD 816	Jun 19, 2019	Placed in legislative files	Failed 66–76	Passed 19–16	—
						Passed 77–69	Insisted 21–14
						Enactment failed 68–79	Enacted 18–16
						Enactment failed 69–74	Insisted on enactment
Minnesota	10	2019–20	HF 1603	Apr 26, 2019	Author added	In committee	—	—	Pending
			HF 1941	Mar 27, 2019	Author added	In committee	—	—
			HF 2117	Mar 18, 2019	Author added	In committee	—	—
			SF 34	Jan 14, 2019	Author added	—	In committee	—
			SF 189	Feb 11, 2019	Author added	—	In committee	—
			SF 2227	May 1, 2019	Bill laid on table	Passed 73–58	Not voted	—
Missouri	10	2020	HB 1591	Jan 9, 2020	Second reading	Introduced	—	—	Pending
New Hampshire	4	2019–20	HB 541	Jan 8, 2020	Referred for interim study	In committee	—	—	Pending
North Carolina	15	2019–20	SB 104	Feb 25, 2019	Referred	—	In committee	—	Pending
Ohio	18	2019–20	HB 70	Feb 20, 2019	Referred	In committee	—	—	Pending
Pennsylvania	20	2019–20	SB 270	Jul 9, 2019	Referred	—	In committee	—	Pending
South Carolina	9	2019–20	H 3209	Jan 8, 2019	Referred	In committee	—	—	Pending
			H 4277	Mar 20, 2019	Referred	In committee	—	—
Virginia	13	2020	HB 177	Jan 31, 2020	Failed to report	Died in committee	—	—	Failed
			HB 199		Incorporated to HB 177	Died in committee	—	—
			SB 399	Jan 28, 2020	Stricken	—	Died in committee	—
Wisconsin	10	2019–20	AB 185	Apr 25, 2019	Read and referred	In committee	—	—	Pending
			SB 197	Apr 30, 2019	Read and referred	—	In committee	—

References in Table

Filinovich (talk) 00:49, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

It may be a bit TMI for most readers. Maybe just the date so people can see what's happened and when, but not info about particular events. UnknownM1 (talk) 01:10, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree that the action taken at the last date does not need to be included. Moreover, on reflection, I think that the column "executive" is also not really needed. Most of the time it is empty and the other cases could be included in the final column. The possible entries would be Pending, Failed, Vetoed, Law. KarlFrei (talk) 11:03, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

An unsourced section makes a claim; but should it be deleted?

Article claims: "In the next presidential election after adoption by the requisite number of states, 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."

So far as I know, states do not award electoral votes. The electors do the awarding of their electoral votes. Thus the question arises, despite the intent of the state law, can electors once chosen, be forced to vote in any way? Would it be constitutional for a state to make it a felony for an elector to vote in some way? Should the passage be revised to say:

As a result, the probability would be established that the candidate who receives the majority of national popular votes, would be elected president."

Also the article claims:

"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."

Doesn't this statement similarly falsely claim that Constitution vests state legislatures with power to choose how to allocate electors? The Constitution, so far as I know, gives state legislatures to power to determine how electors are chosen, but NOT the power to control how they allocate their votes. If the sources make that claim, I would deem them unreliable. States do not allocate electors to candidates. I think the word "allocate" is an error here. (PeacePeace (talk) 23:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC))

Well, these issues are the very question behind two cases arising from the faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election that are currently waiting to be heard at the Supreme Court (probably in April, with a decision by end of June). See Colorado Department of State v. Baca. I personally agree that the Constitution gives states complete (plenary) power to choose electors, but under the 12th amendment, have no power to control how an elector votes once chosen and appointed. Perhaps more information on this topic is needed on this page. It is alluded to in the section on protective function of electoral college. Mdewman6 (talk) 00:43, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The first-quoted sentence is potentially a bit misleading, as it does what many do, which is to conflate electors with electoral votes. I would support some revision to be clear what is meant. Electors can vote for whomever they choose, but a tenet of the NPVIC is that the electoral votes from electors in the compact states combined with electoral votes for the same candidates in non-compact states will create a buffer in the total of electoral votes such that it would take an unprecedented number of faithless electors to threaten the electoral college majority of the popular vote winner. This should be discussed on the page, with some appropriate references. Of course, many compact states currently have faithless elector laws as well, but the constitutionality of these are in doubt as described above.

I think the verb allocate is fine, referring to choosing electors, not allocation of votes per se. For example, Maine and Nebraska allocate their electors based on popular votes by congressional district and statewide, rather than just statewide. Mdewman6 (talk) 01:03, 20 February 2020 (UTC)