A national effort to bypass the Electoral College and pick the president by popular vote — which may or may not be constitutional — is picking up new support and moving closer to success.
Governors in Colorado, New Mexico and Delaware are poised to sign the National Popular Vote compact, under which states would pledge to give all their electoral votes to the candidate who collects the most votes nationwide. California, 10 other states and the District of Columbia already have joined the compact, which would take effect if states holding 270 electoral votes, the number needed to elect a president, sign on.
Colorado’s nine electoral votes, New Mexico’s five and Delaware’s three will bring the total to 189, more than two-thirds of the way there. However, backers have their toughest work in front of them — the states that haven’t signed on are mostly Republican-controlled ones unwilling to give more clout to large, heavily Democratic states, and there are serious questions about whether such a compact would be constitutional.