National Popular Vote Compact Nears 270 Votes With 222 From 18 States and DC The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has 222 electoral votes from 18 states and D.C., and could override state results if it reaches 270. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has reached 222 electoral votes with 18 states plus Washington, D.C. having signed on. Organizers have publicly targeted five states to cross the required 270-vote threshold: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada have each seen the compact pass in one legislative chamber within the past two decades. Under the compact, member states award all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, regardless of who that state's own voters choose. The NPVIC does not protect member state voters, critics say; it disenfranchises them. The compact is an agreement among certain states to bind every member state to a system that can override its own citizens and ultimately undermine how the U.S. chooses its president.If enough states ultimately decide to reach 270 electoral votes, the compact would take effect in the very next presidential election. There is no waiting period and no ratification by the people. A series of legislative victories in key state capitols could therefore fundamentally change how every American's vote for president is counted.Critics argue the actual target is not fairness but the Electoral College itself, and beneath that, the entire constitutional idea that America is a union of sovereign states, not a single undifferentiated mass of voters counted from a national ledger. They call the NPVIC a backdoor repeal of Article II, engineered to avoid the one thing the Constitution actually requires for a change this fundamental: a constitutional amendment, debated openly and ratified by three-quarters of the states.The founders considered and rejected direct national election of the president, not because they doubted the wisdom of voters, but because they understood a simple truth that still holds today. A candidate who only needs to win the raw national vote count has no reason to ever set foot in a small or rural state again. Why campaign in Iowa, Wyoming, or West Virginia when you can bank more votes faster after canvassing dense blocks in Los Angeles or New York City?Under the NPVIC, entire regions of this country, and the industries, communities and concerns that define them, become irrelevant to a presidential campaign. Farmers, small manufacturers and rural families would not be a constituency to win. They would be a rounding error to ignore. The Electoral College is the mechanism that forces national candidates to build genuinely national coalitions, to answer to Ohio and Nevada and Georgia, not just to the handful of metro areas with the most people packed into the fewest square miles.Strip that away, and you do not get a more democratic system, opponents say. You get permanent rule of the country by whichever politicians control its largest cities, at the expense of everyone else. Think Tammany Hall, but with national-level power. The compact sits at 222 electoral votes, and the path to the 270 electoral vote threshold is not hypothetical.The debate should alarm every voter, in every state, of every political affiliation, critics contend, because a system that can reverse the votes of a state's citizens calls into question the very concept of the United States of America, and statehood itself. When a state's voters can be silently nullified, why vote at all? Why not just leave the voting to residents of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago?America has thrived for over two centuries under a system that forces presidents to earn support from a genuine cross section of this country, urban and rural, coast and heartland, large states and small. It does not need to be quietly dismantled by a compact most voters have never even heard of, opponents argue.The traditional motto of the United States is e pluribus unum, meaning out of many, one, and it signifies that the nation is a union of states, united as a people, despite the cultural and historic differences of those 50 states. To maintain that unity, the act of self-governance through voting should recognize our differences and not silence the many in a vain attempt to define the one based solely on population density.Proponents of the NPVIC argue that it would make every vote count equally across the country, ensuring that the president is chosen by the national popular vote. They believe it would encourage candidates to campaign everywhere, not just in a handful of swing states. Opponents counter that the compact would lead to permanent rule by the largest cities, at the expense of the rest of the country, and warn that it would undermine the federal system and the principle of e pluribus unum.The compact does not require a constitutional amendment or ratification by the people. If the threshold is reached, it would apply in the very next presidential election. The compact currently stands at 222 electoral votes, with supporters needing 48 more to reach 270. The targeted states could provide the margin.Governor Bobby Jindal is the former governor of Louisiana and serves as the chair of Healthy America at the America First Policy Institute. Governor Phil Bryant is the former governor of Mississippi and serves as a senior advisor at the America First Policy Institute. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is not a fix for American democracy, they argue; it is a threat to it.