Poll: Most US Voters Want a Popular Vote Model for Picking Future Presidents

New polling demonstrates that a majority of registered voters in the United States support changing the method through which presidents are selected.

Currently, the Electoral College is the mechanism used to pick presidents. Each state receives electoral votes equal to its number of congressional representatives — the number of House districts in the state plus its two Senate seats. These electors are directed by their states to vote for a presidential candidate following an election.

For most states, their entire slate of electors is given to the presidential candidate who won the most votes in their state. To win the presidency, a candidate must receive a majority of the tallied Electoral College votes, which is currently 270.

Due to significant population differences among states that are not accurately reflected in the Electoral College, the model can sometimes choose a presidential winner who did not win the popular vote among voters nationwide. Indeed, there have been five elections in U.S. history — including two elections since 2000 — in which the popular vote winner did not end up becoming president.

The post-midterm Economist/YouGov poll, conducted November 9-11, asked respondents whether they favored keeping the Electoral College or preferred to replace it with a popular vote system. Among registered voters, 51 percent said they wanted presidents to be selected through a popular vote, while only 28 percent said they wanted to keep the current system in place. Another 21 percent said they were unsure.

According to the poll, one in five registered voters (22 percent) have either heard of the Electoral College but don’t know how it works, or have never heard of it at all. It’s possible that a large segment of this population of voters would also support a popular vote model if they learned more about the undemocratic way in which the Electoral College functions.

With the results of the midterms flipping several state governments to Democratic Party control, there now exists a real opportunity for lawmakers to implement a popular vote system.

Complete abolition of the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment. But advocates for a plan called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact say the rules of the Electoral College can actually be used to create a popular vote system.

Per the Constitution, each state determines for itself how its electors are chosen. If the compact was implemented, states totaling a majority of Electoral College votes would direct their electors to the candidate who won the majority of votes nationwide, rather than the candidate who won the majority of votes in their state.

The compact doesn’t kick in until states totaling a majority of Electoral College votes sign on. As it stands right now, just 48 electoral votes are needed for the compact to go into effect.

In this month’s midterm elections, Democrats won new trifecta governments (e.g., states in which Democrats have control of the state legislature and governor’s office) in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Each of those states has yet to back the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact — but if they do, they would represent more than enough of the remaining electoral votes needed to put it in place.

Lawmakers from those states have indicated that they are planning to pursue that route or are open to the idea of doing so.

Even if those states pass the compact, there’s one more hurdle: Article I Section 10 of the Constitution also requires Congress to approve most interstate compacts. That means the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress must pass a resolution to approve the idea — and that a filibuster by Republicans in the Senate could block it.

That is, unless Democrats change rules in that chamber to limit how and when a filibuster can occur, a matter that is presently dividing members of the party.