A national effort to circumvent the Electoral College has gained another state.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed a bill Monday that adds the state to the National Popular Vote Compact, an agreement among states to award their presidential electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote winner.
With Virginia, the total number of states signed on to the interstate compact is now 18, plus the District of Columbia, for a total of 222 electoral votes.
The compact doesn’t go into effect, though, until there are enough states signed up to reach the required 270 electoral votes to elect a president.
Why 270?
it’s in the last sentence of the summary. 270 essentially guarantees that the winner of the popular vote becomes POTUS, as long as all states in the compact abide by the agreement. Once that happens, the EC is basically defunct.
Yeah but why wait?
Because without 270 votes, this could result in states that sign having even less impact, resulting in them not signing. As an example, imagine it goes into effect immediately. Now as a candidate, you have two options.
Option 1: Campaign and make promises in a state that signed and the only thing you get is more overall voters to win the popular vote and therefore the electors of states that signed. But winning the popular vote is not enough. You still need electors from other states.
Option 2: Campaign and make promises in states that did not sign. Convincing voters here not only gives you votes for the popular vote, but also for the states electors. So you gain votes both towards the electors of states that signed and this state that didn’t.
Now where would you campaign and make promises?
If they enact it early it would be effectively dead in the water because it would still leave the decision up to swing states, and people would lose confidence in the movement. Holding off until it’s a sure thing gives it a whole lot more power.
Either way, it’s still a couple more years until the next general election cycle spins up, they may have it locked in by then.