Virginia Enacts National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

Jill Fermanich, NPVIC Committee Chair –

A 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 63% of Americans want the nationwide popular vote - not the electoral college - to decide who becomes president. We are on our way to making that a reality. On April 13, 2026, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed the National Popular Vote bill into law, making Virginia the nineteenth jurisdiction to enact the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact into law. 

The National Popular Vote law will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. States that enact the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact agree to award all of their state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote, not necessarily to the candidate who wins the popular vote within that state. These state legislatures vote to replace their current winner-take-all law with a new state law affirming that all that state's electoral votes will go to the candidate who wins the overall popular vote in all 50 states and D.C.

Winner-take-all is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not mentioned at the Constitutional Convention. Instead, the Constitution (Article II) gives the states exclusive control over the method of awarding their electoral votes – thereby giving the states a built-in way to reform the system. 

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will take effect when enacted by states that together possess a majority of the 538 electoral college votes, which is 270. With Virginia's newly added 13 electoral votes, the compact has been enacted in states that together control  222 out of those 270 electoral votes. Only 48 additional electoral votes are needed to activate the compact. 

National Popular Vote will apply the one-person-one-vote principle to presidential elections, making every vote equal.