Voters don't actually vote directly for the President
Did you know that when you vote for a Presidential candidate, you aren't actually voting directly for President? Instead, you are telling your state which candidate you want your state to vote for. The states use their general election results (also known as the popular vote) to appoint their electors. The winning candidate's state political party selects the individuals who will be the electors.
This process, known as the Electoral College, is at the center of a lot of debate and confusion. The main frustration is that the Electoral College does not guarantee that the candidate with the most votes nationwide will win the presidency.
Although Donald Trump won both the national popular vote and the Electoral College vote in 2025, there have been five times in American history that the will of the people was overridden, as the presidential candidate with the most votes nationwide did not win the presidency.
How can a candidate win the national popular vote yet lose in the Electoral College?
The Electoral College's ability to override the will of the people is possible thanks to state-level “winner-take-all” laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate winning the popular votein that specific state. That's why all of Connecticut's 7 Electoral College votes were cast for Kamala Harris, who received 56% of the popular vote. It's also why most voters are considered irrelevant to presidential campaigns, with a whopping 94% of 2024 general election campaigning targeting voters in a handful of competitive battleground states representing just 20% of the U.S. population.
The Electoral College violates our 14th Amendment rights
In effect, the Electoral College process violates our Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the law because it ensures that some people's votes matter more than others, depending on where they live. The Equal Protection Clause guarantees that the government cannot “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," which applies to voter and election laws through 1) equal access to the ballot and 2) equal representation in government.
To level the the playing field, the League of Women Voters is promoting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) as part of its One Person, One Vote campaign.
The NPVIC is a proposed agreement among participating states to award all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. This means the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide would be guaranteed to win the presidency once enough states representing a majority (270 electoral votes) join the compact. Right now, the NPVIC has been enacted into law in 18 jurisdictions representing 209 electoral votes, with 61 electoral votes to go.
Good News, Bad News for Connecticut
The good news is that in 2018, after a decade of pushing, Connecticut was the 12th jurisdiction to join the Interstate Compact with the passage of our own bipartisan National Popular Vote law. It will take effect once enough additional states sign on.
However, there is already a 2025 bill that has been referred to committee in both the Connecticut Senate and House that, if passed, would withdraw Connecticut from the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
What can you do?
Learn more about the One Person, One Vote campaign and sign up for the LWVCT updates for actions you can take in Connecticut.
