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John Koza’s National Popular Vote interstate compact (NPV) has a problem with election math. It also has problems with election rules. In two recent posts, my colleague Sean Parnell and I demonstrate NPV’s chaos and unfairness by showing how its process would make a mess of some otherwise simple elections.

First, I showed how Koza’s insistence on combining state ranked-choice voting (RCV) results with the results of other states makes a mockery of democracy. In my hypothetical classroom elections, the clear winner would lose under Koza’s NPV rules. This is because rankings are adjusted or eliminated at the state level before combining them with other states’ votes. Whether those other states use RCV or not, this process is mathematically invalid. The results it produces are nonsense.

Sean takes this a step farther. He shows how other alternative election processes—which could be legal and internally consistent within a state—would throw Koza’s NPV Compact into chaos.

Both posts raise a fundamental issue: American elections are not designed to cross state lines. Never in American history has anyone been elected by a national popular vote. We are a nation of states, a federal republic, by constitutional design.

In the United Sates, all election administration is managed at either the state or local level. Virtually all of our election laws are established by the states. These state laws are allowed to vary - and they do. Here are just three examples of how different states run presidential elections in unique ways.

Ballot Access: Getting on the ballot is a state-by-state process, and states have different rules. This means that some states have only the two major parties on the ballot, while other states may have additional minor-parties or independents on the ballot.  Some candidates are placed on ballots by parties, some by petition.

Voting Time & Method: Some states have extensive early voting, or even run elections almost entirely by mail. This means that many voters in those states cast ballots well before the campaign is over. In other states, voters cast ballots on or close to Election Day.

Recounts: As Sean has shown in “Recount madness” and “Count on Chaos,” states have very different recount laws, and not one is compatible with Koza’s NPV Compact.

The Electoral College contains the choice of presidential electors within each state. Within a few decades, this evolved into a system of state popular elections. For more than 200 years, nearly every state has elected its presidential electors. The process is fair—as fair as elections for governor or U.S. Senator. States elect their presidential electors, who then cast their state’s electoral votes for president and vice president.

The states that join NPV would attempt to hold an election across state lines. They would do this without synchronizing election laws or even developing nationwide recount laws. They would pretend that ranked-choice voting totals can be combined with single-ballot results after the fact, making a mockery of basic election math and results. None of this would work out well, and any of these flaws could produce a failed presidential election,

These flaws are why legal scholars - even those who support the idea of a nationwide vote for president - condemn Koza’s compact. As written, NPV has “rough spots” that raise “the specter of electoral crises,” according to one law school dean. Another professor called NPV a “doomsday machine.” 

As an attempt to fundamentally change the constitutional design without amending the Constitution, NPV is illegitimate. Because it harms some states and voters by subverting the constitutional design, it is illegal. But even setting aside the ethics and legality of Koza’s plan, it is dangerous because it ignores the practical reality of presidential elections within America’s federal system.