That electoral vote system (combined with the winner-take-all allocation of votes in all states but Maine and Nebraska) makes it very difficult for third party presidential candidates to be competitive. In 1992, Ross Perot won 18.9 percent of the popular vote but no state and therefore no electoral votes. Direct popular election of presidents would be an incentive for fragmentation of the electorate by the proliferation of factional candidacies.

Imagine 2008 with independent candidacies by, say, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo (deport illegal immigrants), Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha (out of Iraq immediately), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (independence from the two parties is a virtue) and Jesse Jackson (he would think of a reason). None could win but cumulatively they could prevent the major-party winner from reaching even 40 percent.

And the multistate compact cannot include a runoff provision. That would require a constitutional amendment; 34 senators can prevent a constitutional amendment from being sent to the states for ratification, and many more than 17 of the smaller states benefit from the additional weight the electoral vote system gives them.

It is perverse that the 2000 election, which culminated with the lawyers' riot in Florida, is cited to undermine an electoral vote system that prevented 2000 from being a calamity. If in presidential elections all popular votes were poured into one national bucket, a close election such as the one in 1960, which was decided by fewer votes (118,574) than there were precincts (166,064), would unleash a coast-to-coast frenzy of litigation -- about ballot design, voting hours, alleged voting-machine malfunctions, etc. The electoral vote system quarantines electoral disputes to a few closely contested states.

Under the multistate compact, Californians, who in 2004 supported John Kerry by a 1.2 million popular vote margin, would have seen their electoral votes swell President Bush's winning margin. In 1960 and 1976, too, California's electoral votes would have gone to candidates rejected by Californians.

They should understand what their governor has demonstrated: Sometimes the loveliest word in America's political lexicon is "veto."