Colorado is the latest state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
As an agonizing presidential vote count drags on, a movement is growing to replace the controversial electoral college system. One week ago on Election Day, Colorado became the latest state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement that calls for states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
Thus far, 15 states and the District of Columbia have signed on a growing effort to go around a confusing electoral system, which has seen two recent presidential races in which the losers actually won the popular vote.
The compact would take effect when states holding what amounts to 270 electoral votes in total sign up. That magic number constitutes the votes needed to decide a winner. Under the agreement, states would award their votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes in the nation. Presently, electoral votes go the candidate who wins the most votes in each state.
Though Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, the election went to George W. Bush after Florida's electoral vote gave the Republican the number of votes needed to win. In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton met a similar fate when electoral votes went in favor of Donald Trump.
In the current contested count, Democrat Joe Biden is the projected winner of he electoral system, and the clear victor in the popular count. Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina are still counting, amid false accusations of widespread voter fraud from Trump and some Republican officials.
If the pact were in effect, supporters said, the presidential race would have already been decided in favor of Biden.
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