FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: "The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on an ongoing initiative to remove the influence of the Electoral College. The initiative, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, seeks to encourage state legislatures to pass laws requiring that their electors be allocated based on the nationwide popular vote, provided that a sufficient number of other states do the same. If states totaling at least 270 electoral votes (an outright majority of the total available) sign the Compact, it would become active, and this would theoretically guarantee (provided there were no unfaithful electors) that the winner of the popular vote would also win the Electoral College.

The initiative has been passed by four states totaling 50 electoral votes. In five other states totaling 36 electoral votes, there is 'live' legislation that has been passed by one of the two state houses but not yet by the other. Finally, there is another tier of seven states, consisting of 112 electoral votes, that have had at least one chamber of their state houses pass the Compact at some point in the past, but not in the current legislative session:"