Law & Principles

How blue-state teenagers could make Oklahoma voters disappear

August 26, 2024

Trent England

Los Angeles County has more than double the population of Oklahoma. Disparities like this are why we have the Electoral College. It places some checks and balances on our national politics. Big states, and their massive cities, get a lot of power—but there is a check, an upper limit on just how much power they can have over the rest of us. That check creates balance, spreading power out to more Americans.

There is a plan to undo all this. It’s called the National Popular Vote interstate compact (NPV), and 17 blue states have signed on. NPV would force the Electoral College to rubber stamp the popular vote result (it takes effect if joined by enough states that they control a majority of electoral votes). If this happened, it would open the door to further manipulations that could make Oklahoma, and similar-sized states, virtually disappear.

Consider that NPV would reward states for lowering the voting age. A fringe group of self-proclaimed “democracy” activists already wants to do this. (The Twenty Sixth Amendment only requires that states not have a higher voting age than 18.) Today, the effect would be limited to elections within an individual state. With NPV, it would have a direct effect on the outcome of presidential elections. 

California, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, has 1,545,012 residents aged 15, 16, and 17. Certainly not all of them would be eligible to vote, or would cast a ballot if allowed. Yet that number is almost the same as the number of ballots cast in Oklahoma in 2020. Throw in one more blue state and their teenagers could outvote every single Oklahoma voter.

The same thing would apply to states allowing people in prison to vote. Or perhaps looking the other way while foreign citizens vote (some states today have policies that make it difficult or even impossible to detect voting by foreign citizens—and a few actually allow it in local elections).

Is this race to the bottom an unspoken purpose behind NPV? Or is it just another unintended consequence of the poorly drafted interstate compact? Even the law professors who thought up the concept behind the compact have raised these concerns about its drafting. Whether intentional or not, it’s yet another aspect of NPV that would benefit the largest states at the expense of voters in small and medium-sized states.

[A version of this post was first published by Save Our States.]