Why reject a reform ensuring that the candidate with the most individual votes always wins the presidency? Because this plan fundamentally alters the federal system enshrined in the Constitution and proven in more than two centuries of political experience.
Last year the push for a national popular vote passed the state Senate on a party-line vote -- Democrats for, Republicans against -- but didn't come up for a vote in the House. In the months since, three other states, all with Democratic legislative majorities and Democratic governors (as in North Carolina) have joined Maryland in agreeing to an interstate compact that would deliver the presidency to the national popular vote winner. Those states are Hawaii, New Jersey and Illinois. Many more states --enough to muster a majority of electoral votes (270) -- would have to sign on before the plan could take effect.
Here's how it would work.
Winners and losers
At present, voters in presidential elections choose electors committed to vote in the Electoral College for a particular candidate. Each state has Electoral College votes equal to its congressional delegation. Electors, except in Maine and Nebraska, cast all their votes for the popular vote winner of their state.
Under the new plan, North Carolina would commit its 15 electors to the candidate with the most individual votes nationwide, no matter what the result was here. The winner of the national popular vote -- Al Gore in 2000, just for example -- would become president, which hasn't always happened. (In 1824, 1876 and 1888 the popular vote winner also failed to win.)
So, yes, the plan solves that problem. It is also in tune with our history of ever-expanding democracy, and, advocates say, would encourage more people to vote. That's because voters in states that aren't "swing states" may not bother to cast ballots.
Critics of the proposal point to the anomaly of having a state's electors vote for a candidate who the state's voters just rejected. But that complaint is only the surface of a deeper fault.
E pluribus unum
Our federal republic was born in Philadelphia in 1787 as semi-independent states melded themselves into a unitary nation. Each state retained important roles, one of which is that presidential voting (and thus campaigning) is state by state.
The nationwide popular vote plan changes that. It turns states into mere tools for casting Electoral College votes that would no longer be tied to their preferences. Would we next circumvent the Senate, where states large and small each get two votes?
There are less lofty objections. Rather than focusing more on "non-swing states," candidates might simply concentrate on major population groupings -- the Northeast Corridor megaplex, for example. Rural areas would count for less. Strictly regional or single-issue candidates could prosper, leading to fragmented ballots and the danger of a "winner" with a relatively small percentage of the popular vote. Elections would then be thrown into the House of Representatives for a high-stakes determination. In all this the two-party system, a hallmark of American political stability, could well be the loser.
Above all, this interstate compact plan is mainly a clever way to work around the Constitution's amendment process, through which it would not be likely to succeed. And despite sincere protestations by its backers, this plan is attractive to one political party and not the other. Party-line votes are no way to enact a change so fundamental. North Carolina should vote no.