Multistate Agreements as Policymaking Tools: Evidence From Signatories to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Open Access

Abstract

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVC) is an agreement that binds states

to allocate their Electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, ensuring that

the two totals do not diverge. However, the NPVC is not legally binding until the Electoral

votes of its signatories total at least 270, raising two important questions: is the NPVC likely

to gain enough signatories to take effect, and if so, what factors are the best predictors of a

state's signing? Using a Cox proportional hazards survival model, I find that state population

density is the strongest predictor of joining the NPVC, which suggests that geography is the

primary motivator for state membership in the compact.

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction. 1

1.1 What Happened? 1

1.2 The Nature of the Problem. 3

1.3 Thesis Plan. 5

2.0 The Electoral College. 8

2.1 An American Experiment. 8

2.1.1 Electoral Misfires. 10

2.1.2 Campaign Resource Allocation. 11

2.1.3 Unequal Representation 13

3.0 Interstate Compacts. 15

3.1 The Neglected Dimension. 15

3.1.1 Background. 15

3.1.2 Compact Scholarship. 16

3.2 The NPVC. 18

3.2.1 The Proposed Agreement. 19

3.3 The NPVC: Barriers to Implementation. 20

3.3.1 Required Number of Member States. 20

3.3.2 Congressional Consent. 24

4.0 Methodology. 26

4.1 Hypotheses. 26

4.2 Data. 28

4.2.1 Compact Membership Status. 28

4.2.2 Measuring State-Level Democracy. 32

4.2.3 Political Variables. 33

4.2.4 Other Covariates. 34

4.3 Results. 35

4.3.1 Survival Model Results. 35

4.3.2 Robustness Check: Deconstructing State Democracy. 37

5.0 Conclusion. 39

5.1 Discussion. 39

5.2 Limitations. 40

5.3 Contributions. 41

Appendix A. 42

Appendix B. 43

Bibliography. 45

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Mathematics and Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General
Keyword	interstate compacts political science federalism elections
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	John W. Patty, Emory University
Committee Members	Ian M. McCarthy, Emory University Bree Ettinger, Emory University Michael J. Rich, Emory University

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