This guy just found out his state's electoral votes, properly won by a Republican, will instead go to a Democrat.

On Tuesday, Massachusetts became the latest state to pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, that would assign the state’s electoral votes for President and Vice President to the winner of the most popular votes.

For the sake of foreign readers: in our system, the two offices are indirectly elected by an Electoral College. The person getting the most votes in a state typically gets all the electoral votes for the state (though there are exceptions), the number of which are assigned by population. In some rare cases, the combination of electoral votes from the various states means one candidate can get more electoral votes, while the other gets more popular votes. However, as the electoral votes are the deciding factor, the first person would be elected.

This legislation is being touted as a way to fix that problem without having to drop the Electoral College entirely, which would require a constitutional amendment.  However, this law is certainly not the remedy, and would in fact disenfranchise many voters in states that enact it.

This is because of the fact that the state gives all of its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote.

I’m thinking of places like Colorado. Even though they voted for Obama last election, they’re not a solidly blue state. In fact, Republicans have won there more since 1900 than have Democrats.  The law hasn’t passed there yet (it’s failed three times), but with things in that state trending blue, it’s possible the law might pass in the future.

With a state like Colorado, that can change its mind from election to election, the side-effect is that if, say, Obama wins in 2012, but the residents of Colorado vote for his Republican opponent, then under the compact the electoral votes would go to Obama, and not the Republican. I’d sure feel angry if I know my state voted one way, but the other candidate got more electoral votes than they deserved, because the law says my state must do it that way.

This could have the effect of transferring large numbers of electoral votes to candidates who did not win a state. Take Ohio for instance. Their legislature is currently split in control between the two parties, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. If a law passes there, I mean, Ohio has 20 electoral votes. In the above example, Obama’s opponent would lose 29 EVs between them and Colorado, should the two vote the way they did in 2000 and 2004 (for Bush).

While I do think the Electoral College has some flaws, it is actually a fairly good system. Elections like 2000 were outliers. I think it is completely unfair for a candidate who won a state fair and square to have to potentially lose electoral votes in states they won, because a group of people want to fix a problem that actually happens very rarely. If we are to reform the electoral system, it should be to eliminate the flaws that allow a 2000 election to happen, and not in ways that will cause voter disenfranchisement.

Edit (8/16): Re-wrote a portion about the law’s status that no longer made sense to me, though I know it did at the time of posting.