States are responding to the need for reforming theway a president is electedby joining the National Popular Vote Compact. Oregon recently became the 15th state to sign the compact. Under this interstate agreement, signatory states assign all of their electoral votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Right now signatories control 196 electoral votes of the needed 270 to elect a president. The compact has a significant advantage in that a constitutional amendment is not needed to turn the College into an instrument of the popular will. Even establishing an interstate agreement is not easy; recently Maine and Nevada declined to sign the agreement. Swing states which have an inequitable influence under the current system will be unlikely to sign also, and some red states will need to join if the agreement is to take effect with at least 270 votes. Besides Senator Sanders, nine other Democratic candidates have expressed their support of eliminating the Electoral College.
There are some problems with a national popular vote designating the next president, but they are not insurmountable. Currently, the national vote does not have official standing, it is largely ad hoc. Theoretically, a state could try to repudiate its agreement to assign its electoral votes in a disputed national vote total, say a state popular vote elected Candidate A who also won the Electoral College vote, but Candidate B won the national popular vote. Such an attempted repudiation would make Florida's hanging chads look like confetti. A national popular vote overseen by a Federal Election Agency that insures uniformity in the state voting processes would be preferable, but that would require amending the Constitution, an event beyond the bounds of political reality as it now stands. The compact specifies that if a state wants to leave the compact between
July 20 and January 20 of a presidential election year, their departure
won’t become effective until after the president is inaugurated. Despite is warts, 'commie' US Person thinks the compact is the best way forward because clearly the Electoral College does not fulfill the constitutional standard of "one person, one vote".*Across the Great Lakes region, the former industrial heartland and a key swing vote, 'Mericans say they would prefer presidential elections to be decided by the national popular vote as opposed to the Electoral College. Roughly two-thirds of Ohio (66%), Michigan (66%), and Wisconsin (67%) residents say they prefer the popular vote over the Electoral College. Nearly seven in ten (69%) Minnesota residents and close to three-quarters (73%) of Illinois residents also express a preference for the popular vote.