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I agree this won’t be easy. Legal challenges, political backlash, and states reluctant to surrender their influence are real obstacles.
But I see this as a civil rights struggle.
Slavery shaped the Electoral College through the Three-Fifths Compromise. That compromise is gone, but the institution remains. It allowed Trump to win in 2016 despite losing the popular vote.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 used existing constitutional authority to dismantle discriminatory barriers without new amendments.
The National Popular Vote Compact takes a similar legislative approach: once participating states control 270 electoral votes, they award them to the national popular-vote winner.
Now consider the historic governors just elected: Keisha Lance Bottoms, America’s first Black woman governor; David Crowley and Aaron Ford, the first Black governors of Wisconsin and Nevada; and Deb Haaland, the first Native American woman governor.
Communities historically excluded from political power now have leaders positioned to change how presidential power is awarded.
Crowley and Ford, working with their legislatures, could help lead that change.
The inversion: Leaders from historically excluded communities could use the states’ own constitutional authority to prevent an Electoral College shaped by slavery from overruling the national popular vote.
I need to look into this more because this would be a pretty interesting issue to follow that would 110% end up in the Supreme Court.
An issue I see with this idea just right off the top is in the states you mentioned esp. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania actually following through in awarding your votes to a person that could have lost the vote in your state is a hard pill to swallow. South Carolina is another one that is currently in the pending category with 9 votes.
This is something I could see go into effect and then absolutely blow up in the face of a state or several who do not vote for someone but their votes go to them. The unrest and outrage that could spark would be well wild.
Just off the top of my head to I wonder if this started to gain traction and actually hit the 270 if some of the states in it would leave. Swing states would lose a significant amount of power if this went into effect which would result in some economic loss.