WPRO Newsroom
Rhode Island is officially part of a group of states that wants to elect the President according to the national popular vote.
Governor Lincoln Chafee signed into law a bill that adds Rhode Island to a list of states that have promised to commit their electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes nationwide.
The new way of determining which candidate gets the electoral votes wouldn’t take effect until a majority of the Electoral College joins.
Currently, nine states – with a total of 132 electoral votes – have enacted law to participate in the “national popular vote” compact. Those states are Vermont, Maryland, Washington, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Hawaii and the District of Columbia. Rhode Island has four electoral votes.
There needs to be a total of 270 electoral votes to constitute as a majority. The bill is going through the legislative process in about a dozen other states.
