Map shows where effort to replace Electoral College stands

For nearly two decades, there's been an effort to change the way the U.S. has always elected its presidents by creating a workaround to the Electoral College, the indirect popular election process that's been used in every American presidential election in history. A collection of states is now a little closer than it was four years ago to choosing a president by popular vote, after Maine signed legislation in April to join the effort.

Under the nonpartisan National Popular Vote Compact, the most prominent of the Electoral College reform proposals, states would agree to give their electoral votes to the national winner of the popular vote — even if it doesn't match the outcome in their state. For instance, if a presidential candidate were to lose Colorado — one of the 17 states that has signed the compact — but win the national popular vote, Colorado's electors would vote for that candidate.

A majority of Americans would prefer to elect the president by popular vote, rather than the Electoral College, Pew Research Center has found. That preference tends to be more pronounced when a president wins the popular vote but not the Electoral College, which has happened just five times — but twice since 2000. Former President Donald Trump was the last president to do so, winning about 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016, though he won the Electoral College by a sizable margin, 304 to 227.