The Electoral College, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, defines how we elect presidents. The candidate who gets the most votes in a state wins the vote of appointed electors whose numbers equal those of that state’s congressional delegation. Nationally, the victor in the Electoral College wins the election regardless of who wins the popular vote. A 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, National Popular Vote Inc. (NPV), thinks this arrangement is unfair and wants to replace it. If it succeeds – and it just might – the result could be a permanent one-party government and a constitutional crisis. That Leftist multibillionaire George Soros and certain family members have funded this outfit automatically raises such suspicions.

Recent opinion surveys suggest that a great many Americans prefer a national popular vote as the way to choose a president. This is not an accident. A cadre of political activists and their benefactors, mostly on the Left, seeing a path to power, are ceaselessly promoting it. From their standpoint, it’s understandable. Many still seethe over the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016 in which the Republican candidate – George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively – lost the aggregate vote but won more electors and hence the election. The Electoral College, they insist, violates the “one person, one vote” principle. By allowing a presidential candidate to win an election with fewer total votes than those of his opponent, they complain, the system magnifies the importance of swing states at the expense of all others. These people want to render state-by-state results irrelevant. Only the national vote should matter.

National Popular Vote Inc. came into existence in 2006 for this very purpose. The Los Altos, Calif.-based organization quickly created the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and a supporting Section 501(c)(3) group, the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections. The Interstate Compact drives the political mission. And the mission is to persuade state governments to join a pledge to award all of their Electoral College votes to the national popular vote leader. If a presidential candidate wins a particular state but loses the national popular vote, he loses the Electoral College votes as well. If, for example, a candidate wins Florida but loses in the national popular vote, his opponent gets all of Florida’s 30 electoral votes. This mechanism would be triggered if and when member states account for at least 270 of the nation’s 538 Electoral College votes. Unbeknownst to many, this collective veto could be on the verge of happening.

So far, 18 states and the District of Columbia have signed onto the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. They are, in alphabetical order: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington State. Collectively, they represent 222 Electoral College votes, just 48 votes shy of the 270 needed for an automatic election.

Significantly, each state on this list consistently votes Democratic in presidential elections. That includes Virginia, until recently a swing state. Its Leftist Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, signed legislation this April committing Virginia to the Interstate Compact. Thus, if the Republican presidential nominee in 2028 wins Virginia but loses the national popular vote – unlikely, but not impossible – the Democratic candidate would be awarded the state’s 13 electoral votes.

As member states have agreed to act in unison, NPV activists are determined to win those 48 additional Electoral College votes. Having now exhausted the pool of “blue” states for membership, National Popular Vote Inc. has a much tougher road ahead. In non-member Missouri, Democratic Assembly members for nearly 20 years have introduced Interstate Compact legislation without success; supporters in 2018 proposed a voter referendum but failed to get the minimum required signatures before the deadline. In Nevada, advocates experienced a similar defeat in 2016. And in Arkansas, the General Assembly passed national popular vote legislation, in 2007 and 2009, but the Senate did not take action. National popular vote activists, however, think long-term. Winning over Colorado, for example, took 13 years – from 2006 to 2019. The effort was worth the wait.

Support for a national popular vote also can be found on Capitol Hill. “The Electoral College is one of the obsolete anti-majoritarian filters still hanging on in our Constitution,” remarked Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a few years ago. “It was designed to separate the sovereign political will of the people from control over our elected leaders and government. The Framers were explicit in the Electoral College’s anti-democratic intent, and today provides a landscape of antique booby traps that strategic bad faith and anti-democratic actors like Donald Trump and his co-conspirators can use to subvert the will of the people.” Not too subtle, is he? Last year, Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., introduced the Equal Voices Act (H.R. 4125), part of which would establish 12 at-large seats for senators who would be elected by a national vote. This proposal, which also would create 230 new House seats, should be seen as an entrée to a national popular presidential vote.

 Their proposals, however, clash with the U.S. Constitution. Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3, states:

Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: But no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.

The high prose style of the late 18^th-century aside, these clauses clearly state the necessity and function of the Electoral College system. Far from a minor detail of the Constitution, it is an affirmation of the Framers’ central conviction that rival political factions, inevitable in any democracy, must be diffused in power so that no one faction dominates all the others. Hamilton’s Federalist No. 9 and Madison’s Federalist No. 10, each a masterful essay on why mass majoritarianism can lead to tyranny, remain sound justifications. They are not obsolete. A popular government, now as then, can lapse into despotism in the absence of enforceable mediation of collective disputes. The Twelfth Amendment, approved by Congress in 1803 and ratified by the states in 1804, ensured that two candidates on the same presidential ticket would represent one group of electors, but it did not undermine the larger principle.

A number of wealthy philanthropists don’t see things this way. They include at least a few members of the Soros family and the family’s Open Society Foundations (OSF). They see federal preemption of state authority in almost every aspect of law as a way to render democracy “vibrant and inclusive.”

George Soros’s middle adult child, Jonathan, also an investment manager, is a believer. Back in 2011, he and his wife donated $1 million to National Popular Vote through their philanthropy, the Jennifer and Jonathan Allan Soros Foundation. This gift proved crucial in expanding the Interstate Compact’s lobbying and public relations operations. As of the end of 2024, the New York City-based foundation had over $250 million in assets, and had given more than $13 million in grants during that year. OSF for some time has been bankrolling election reform-minded progressive nonprofits, though not focused solely on the national popular vote. During 2010-15, the Open Society Foundations provided a combined $3,864,000 to five such organizations: Common Cause, Common Cause Education Fund, Campaign Legal Center, Every Voice Center, and Every Voice.

Since then, the Open Society Foundations has continued in its pattern of funding progressive-Left election reform groups openly supportive of a national popular vote while avoiding single-issue groups such as National Popular Vote Inc. During 2016-24, nonprofit beneficiaries included Common Cause/Common Cause Education Fund ($495,000); the ACLU ($1,490,088); the Sierra Club ($790,000); and Demos ($4,268,000). That adds up to $7,043,088. Given the rising profile of this issue, it is safe to say that at least some of this money is being used to advance the national popular vote.

Some philanthropies, however, have provided direct support for National Popular Vote Inc. One prolific institutional donor is the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation. Based in Belvedere (Marin County), Calif., this 501(c)(3) nonprofit, founded in 1998, has donated millions of dollars annually to a wide range of far-Left causes. That includes the cumulative $1 million to NPV during 2008-12. More recently, in 2024, Silberstein’s group provided $140,000 to the related Institute for Research on Presidential Elections, plus $150,000 to Common Cause. Significantly, Stephen M. Silberstein, who made his fortune as co-founder of Innovative Interfaces, an Emeryville, Calif.-based developer of library cataloguing software, sits on the board of directors of National Popular Vote.

Silberstein explicitly supports a national presidential vote, though to his credit, he was against overturning the 2016 outcome. “We’re not going to relitigate or redo the results of this election,” he said on a podcast hosted by Ralph Nader in the immediate aftermath. “This election was run under a set of rules…If you really want to do something, change the rules now in time for the next election.” With the 2028 election cycle beginning a half-year from now, he’ll be doing everything possible to change those rules.

The co-founders of National Popular Vote, each a board member, John Koza and Barry Fadem, have defined the mission from the start. Koza, born in 1944, is a computer polymath with a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His resume is impressive. Over the course of his career, he has developed genetic programming models for complex problem-solving; co-founded Scientific Games, a company that builds computer systems for state lotteries; and, perhaps less impressively, invented the lottery ticket scratch card. Unfortunately, he is also chief financial officer-treasurer of the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections. As a man of the Left, he has made legal maximum donations to the political campaigns of such Democratic Party solons as Hillary Clinton, Keith Ellison, Chris Murphy and Nancy Pelosi. He also served as a Democratic presidential elector in 1992 and 2000. Even more significantly, he has donated lavishly to National Popular Vote. In 2014, Koza admitted to having given a combined $14 million of his own money to the nonprofit, budgeting $2 million annually for this purpose.

Barry Fadem, head of a Lafayette, Calif.-based law firm specializing in campaign and election law, is tasked with convincing doubters in holdout states that a national popular presidential vote is consistent with the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Back in 2013 he testified to that effect before the Connecticut legislature. “(T)he National Popular Vote proposal is based on two provisions of the U.S. Constitution,” he remarked. “The first being the provision that gives legislatures the right to determine how to award electoral votes. The second power of the Founding Fathers, in their eminent wisdom, gave states the right to enter into interstate compacts.” The legislature would oblige him in 2018.

The other three NPV directors are similarly inclined. Ray Haynes, a former Republican member of California’s State Assembly and Senate, lends a bipartisan aura. A national popular vote, he said in testimony in 2018 before the Michigan legislature, is “good for the United States…makes every vote in every state important in every election…and aligns the outcome of the election with the expectation of the voters.” Christopher Pearson, the board’s secretary, is a longtime activist of the Vermont Progressive Party and served in that state’s House of Representatives and Senate. He won the latter office as a Progressive-Democrat fusion candidate. Needless to say, Bernie Sanders strongly endorses him. Pam Wilmot is former executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of Common Cause and currently the organization’s national vice president for state operations. A Ralph Nader-trained researcher, she’s visited many states to persuade their legislatures to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

There is one more person who bears mention. That would be Tom Golisano, founder-chairman of automated payroll service Paychex. Politically, he’s been a Republican and an Independent, but that hasn’t stopped him from filling National Popular Vote coffers. Through 2017, Golisano had donated $10 million in personal funds to NPV. Though his enthusiasm reportedly lessened starting around that year, his Forbes-estimated net worth last fall of $6.5 billion indicates he could fund the group in perpetuity if he so wished.

It’s time for some polemics. A national popular vote for electing presidents is a misguided venture in political reform. Yes, it radiates a certain feel-good populism. Who, after all, could be against taking politics out of the hands of the super-rich and “special interests,” and giving it back to “the people?” Beneath such uplifting rhetoric, however, is a clever ploy by the Left to assert permanent dominance. The fact that some of NPV’s supporters are Republicans and/or on the Right, like Ray Haynes, Saul Anuzis, Tom Golisano and Patrick Rosenstiel, does not alter the reality.

Our Founders intended presidential election campaigns to be “divisive.” They understood that political factions are inevitable. That’s why they designed the Constitution so that smaller states could assert their interests through debate without being overridden by larger states. Supporters of the Interstate Compact claim that the Electoral College deprives people in low-population states of the opportunity to register their voices. Yet in practice, the Interstate Compact would ignore those voices.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and currently senior legal fellow with the Indianapolis-based nonprofit Advancing American Freedom, expressed this view in 2019 in connection with the then-recent adoption by three states of the Interstate Compact. “Legislators in those three states have displayed woeful ignorance about the good and rational reasons for having the Electoral College,” he said. “Delaware and New Mexico are even more puzzling. These are small states most protected by the Electoral College. A national popular vote will give them less influence.”

It doesn’t take much effort to understand why. With state-by-state vote counts made immaterial, presidential campaigns would have every incentive to target voters in heavily populated metropolitan areas and ignore just about everyone else. Why bother worrying about Delaware or New Mexico, or for that matter rural areas in every state, if the national grand total is the sole arbiter of victory? In such a scenario, debates would take a distant back seat to shrill and potentially corrupt get-out-the-vote campaigns in politically “safe” areas. With less pressure to attract moderate voters in a general election, candidates would have far fewer inhibitions about adopting extreme positions. In addition, the Democrats would have every reason to boost mass Third World immigration, legal or otherwise, and conduct hasty naturalization ceremonies just in time for Election Day. George Soros would be proud.

Only five presidents in U.S. history have won an election while losing the popular vote: John Quincy Adams (1824); Rutherford B. Hayes (1876); Benjamin Harrison (1888); George W, Bush (2000); and Donald Trump (2016). Advocates of a national popular vote see these events as failures of constitutional authority. Actually, such outcomes can be seen as successes. The Constitution explicitly grants states the authority to enact laws so long as the laws don’t usurp federal authority. It stands to reason that if a state’s population is proportionately represented in Congress, it also should be proportionately represented in presidential elections.

Almost two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat who paid America an extended visit and wrote a two-volume book about what he saw, cautioned that our democracy could lapse into a “tyranny of the majority.” The authors of the Constitution a half-century earlier had anticipated this possibility. That’s why they established the Electoral College. Donors and foot soldiers dedicated to creating a National Popular Vote, in their blindness to political reality, reject such counsel. To them, a functioning democracy requires virtually unlimited mass participation. Leftist donors among them also insist that America can fulfill its true promise by becoming a centrally-managed demographic global “rainbow.” Compatibility with our laws and customs is a non-issue for them. This fantasy reinvention of our republic is now less than 50 electoral votes away from being activated.

To reiterate, all states belonging to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact have agreed to award their Electoral College votes to the popular vote leader. They’re now more than four-fifths of the way home. If these states represent at least 270 electors, it’s game over for all runner-up popular vote candidates who under current arrangements would win the Electoral College vote. Democrats could not have asked for a clearer path to permanent rule.

At some point, even in absence of a disputed election, the issue is likely to land on the Supreme Court docket. The Court, highly divided, might not be able or willing to resolve the issue in a decisive manner. And if it doesn’t resolve the issue by firmly rejecting the Interstate Compact, we could find ourselves in a constitutional crisis of a magnitude rivaling that of 1860-61. And we know how that played out.

Carl F. Horowitz is an NLPC Senior Fellow.