The campaign to effectively end the Electoral College's role in presidential elections has received an additional boost from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo signed the National Popular Vote Compact on Tuesday, under which the state would award its 29 electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote.
The state's electoral votes currently go to the winner of New York's popular vote, the
New York Daily News reports.
The campaign has come under fire from Republican political consultant
Dick Morris, who charged in an exclusive Newsmax column that the compact is ripe for voter fraud and would guarantee that Democrats win the White House every four years.
In New York, the bill was approved last month by both houses of the state legislature. It gives the effort 165 votes, more than 60 percent of the 270 needed for the compact to take effect.
New York is the 10th state to join the effort. The District of Columbia, with three electoral votes, has also signed the agreement.
The other states are Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Rhode Island, and Washington.
"With the passage of this legislation, New York is taking a bold step to fundamentally increase the strength and fairness of our nation's presidential elections," Cuomo told the Daily News.
Established by the Founding Fathers during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Electoral College officially elects the president and the vice president of the United States. Its "electors" are chosen by popular vote on a state-by-state basis — and they officially cast the "electoral votes" for the nation's top two leaders.
In his Newsmax column, Morris said all of the jurisdictions supporting the popular vote compact backed President Barack Obama in the 2012 election.
In addition, Morris said, the compact has been voted on by at least one legislative body in these states: Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Those states total 78 electoral votes, and eight of them also voted for Obama, Morris said.
Morris slammed the effort, which is supported in part by the Center for Voting and Democracy, an election group supported by the liberal billionaire George Soros.
"Republicans need to kill this proposal, and they better get busy doing it," Morris said. "Some small states are backing it because they are tired of all the attention being focused on swing states.
"But Republicans must stand firm and not yield to the temptation to back it."
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