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HOW NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE WORKS
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution says:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
The Constitution gives the states exclusive control over the choice of method of awarding their electoral votes. It does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular way of awarding a state's electoral votes.
The National Popular Vote law will take effect when approved by states with a majority of the electoral votes (270 of 538).Then, the presidential candidate winning the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC will get all the electoral votes from all of the enacting states. That is, the candidate winning the most popular votes nationwide will be guaranteed enough votes in the Electoral College to become President.
This will ensure thateveryvoter, ineverystate, will be politically relevant ineverypresidential election—regardless of where they live.
Under the National Popular Vote law, no voter will have their vote cancelled out because their choice differed from prevailing sentiment in their state.Instead, every voter’s vote will be added directly into the national count of the candidate chosen by that voter.
National Popular Vote has been enacted into law by 6 small states (Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia), 10 medium-sized states (Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia, Washington), and 3 big states (California, Illinois, New York). These states have 222 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the National Popular Vote Compact.
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