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The more time I spend considering the possible effects of the National Popular Vote interstate compact, the less it seems like serious public policy. Not that there aren’t serious people pushing it for their own reasons. But talk to an average NPV supporter and you find someone so mad at the Electoral College that they don’t care how the NPV compact would work—or if it would work at all.

Consider a basic fact about NPV: All the power NPV creates is in the hands of one election official in each compact state. Some of these people are appointed, others are elected. None of their current job descriptions include certifying national vote totals. And state election officials—not to mention state election laws—frequently disagree on what constitutes a fair and honest election.

Consider another fact: States run elections, including for presidential electors, in different ways, and they report results in various ways as well. The NPV compact can’t change that, which means it’s “national” in name only. The election officials mentioned above—just the ones in compacting states—would have to collect all those other states’ results.

Maybe this would be easy. Perhaps even states that have refused to join the compact—or passed resolutions condemning it and promising to challenge NPV in court—would quietly go along. If you think so, I have some ocean-front real estate in Las Vegas that I’d like to sell you.

And maybe there would never be a close national election. That would be helpful, since the NPV compact says absolutely nothing about close or contested elections. How would a nationwide recount work? Your guess is as good as mine.

All this suggests that the compact is not serious public policy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not serious. Millions of dollars have been spent lobbying for it around the country. Perhaps the point is simply to attack the Electoral College, and this is the only tool around. That might be shortsighted, but it’s understandable. Perhaps destabilizing American elections is a feature, rather than a bug, for some NPV backers. Who can say for sure?

One final piece of evidence: The NPV compact has no limit on small plurality winners. So far as I can tell, every serious reform proposal before the compact dealt with this obvious problem. In summary, the Electoral College requires a majority of electoral votes to win, and those must come from many states, which makes it difficult to get elected without at least a large plurality (Bill Clinton, with 43% of the popular votes, had the smallest in modern times). That creates a powerful incentive for political parties and campaigns to build massive, national coalitions. A direct popular election shifts the incentives, favoring more candidates with smaller (possibly regional) pluralities. As with recounts, NPV says nothing about any of this.

It's easy to understand partisan frustration with election rules. It’s a human reaction to question the rules anytime we’re losing. But when that frustration becomes little more than an urge to flip over the gameboard, to destroy rather than improve, that’s just a tantrum.