by Whitney Tipton
New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation Wednesday officially joining a group of states agreeing to elect the president by popular vote.
By formally adding HB55 to the Governor’s list of signed legislation, Grisham confirmed that New Mexico is the 14th state the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). The measure passed through both chambers of the New Mexico legislature with no Republican votes, according to the state’s website.
The NPVIC is an agreement between states to pool their electoral votes together for the candidate who wins the states’ aggregated popular vote. States will award their electoral votes regardless of individual state voting results.
States that have passed similar legislation to join the NPVIC now represent 189 electoral votes. The compact could become official when that number hits 270, enough votes to elect the president of the United States.
Under the U.S. Constitution, a state gets one Electoral College vote for each of its seats in Congress. New Mexico is a winner-take-all state, which means it allocates all five of its Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state. If the NPVIC ever takes effect, New Mexico would instead award those votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote of the compact.
Current compact states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Including the District of Columbia, there are 15 electoral jurisdictions with 189 votes.
Legislation has also passed one house in eight more states representing 72 electoral votes.
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Whitney Tipton is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Whitney on Twitter.
Background Photo “New Mexico Capitol” by Einar E. Kvaran. CC BY-SA 3.0.
