Congratulations to my home state, New Jersey, which yesterday became the second state in the country to join the National Popular Vote Compact, after Maryland.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is essentially an end run around the electoral college. It stipulates that participating states will assign their electoral votes in a presidential election to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally. The catch is, it won’t go into effect until states possessing a majority of electoral votes (270) pass the law. This matters because if at least 270 electoral votes are committed to the popular vote winner nationally, the candidate has won the electoral college and therefore the election. It makes the electoral vote, and therefore the election, dependent on the national popular vote.

It’s ingenious. To amend the Constitution directly, 3/4 of the states’ legislatures would have to agree, which will never happen because there are enough small states that prefer the disproportionate advantage that the electoral college gives them.

But the National Popular Vote idea is perfectly constitutional, because under the Constitution, states can allocate their electoral votes however they wish. (They don’t even have to assign it according to the state’s popular vote if they don’t want to.)

With Maryland and New Jersey, there are now 25 electoral votes on board. Only 245 to go. There’s practically no chance this will go into effect by the 2008 election, and after the 2010 census, perhaps Maryland or New Jersey will lose electoral votes. Maybe enough states will sign on by 2012.