How National Popular Vote Works
The National Popular Vote is a state-based approach that fully preserves the Electoral College, state control of elections, and the power of the states to control how the president is elected.
National Popular Vote would be enacted through an agreement among states, known as an interstate compact. These are quite common (the average state is a member of about 25) and are effectively contracts between states. (12)
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will go into effect once enough states have joined to represent 270 electoral votes, a controlling majority of the Electoral College. Once triggered, each member state will award its electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the most popular votes in the general election. (13)
The Founding Fathers gave the states the explicit right to choose how to award their electoral votes in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…” (14) [Emphasis added]
The U.S. Supreme Court supported this interpretation in the 1892 case, McPherson v. Blacker:
“In short, the appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States.” (15) [Emphasis added]
States exercised this right with some frequency between our nation’s founding and the mid-19th Century, when the state-based, winner-take-all method became the standard. (16) Most recently, Maine has exercised this right by switching to ranked-choice voting for the 2020 presidential election. (17)
The National Popular Vote is a constitutional solution to the problems stemming from the state-based winner-take-all method of electing the president. It will guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Candidates will no longer be able to ignore the millions of voters who don’t live in tightly contested battleground states. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will ensure that every voter in every state will matter in every presidential election.