Colorado Governor Jared Polis will sign a bill that will automatically give all of Colorado’s electoral college votes to whoever wins the popular vote in the presidential election. With the new law, Colorado will join the National Popular Vote compact of states that support ending the electoral college.
So far National Popular Vote includes 12 states, amounting to some 172 electoral college votes. The compact will kick in when enough states have passed their own bills that a 270 vote majority of the electoral college will automatically go to the popular vote winner. Colorado has 9 electoral college votes.
The National Popular Vote project launched in 2006, with the goal of making the electoral college irrelevant by keeping its deciding vote in line with the will of the people. So far, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state have all joined the compact.
Support for electoral college reform as well as support for projects like National Popular Vote has grown in recent years after multiple presidential elections have been decided by going against the will of the popular vote. Critics of changes to the process say that it was never the original intent of the constitution to have the president elected by the popular vote.
New Mexico is likely the next state that will decide whether to join the compact. They have a measure under consideration for the current session. Governor Grisham hasn’t commented as to whether she’d sign the bill if it passed.
