It is sometimes asserted that "the voters would rebel" if a state's electoral votes were awarded to a candidate who did not carry their own state. This argument is based on the incorrect premise that the voters are devoted and attached to the current system. In fact, the opposite is true. In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public have supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The 2007 Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in Vermont (75%), Maine (71%), Arkansas (74%), California (70%), Connecticut (73%), Massachusetts (73%), Michigan (73%), Missouri (70%), North Carolina (62%), and Rhode Island (74%), and Washington (77%).⁵⁰ Indeed, public support for the current system of electing the President is at the level of Nixon's approval rating just prior to his resignation. In short, most of the public believes that the candidate who receives the most votes should be elected.

When voters watch presidential election returns on election night, they are, first and foremost, interested in finding out which candidate won the Presidency. The question of whether their preferred candidate won their state, county, city, congressional district, or precinct is a secondary concern. If a voter's preferred candidate loses the White House, it is no consolation that he may have won any particular state.

Certainly, the average voter does not derive any satisfaction, on election night, from knowing that some person from their political party in their area won the essentially ceremonial office of presidential elector. The purpose of a presidential election is to elect someone to serve for four years as the nation's chief executive, not to elect a group of largely unknown loyal party activists who meet for a half hour in the State Capitol in mid-December for the ceremonial purpose of casting electoral votes. Ultimately, the concern that a state's electoral votes might be cast, in some elections, in favor of a candidate who did not carry a particular state is a matter of form over substance.

The essence of a nationwide popular vote for President is that the winner would be determined by the nationwide popular vote, not by the separate state-by-state outcomes. The National Popular Vote law would be an agreement among the states to award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is a method to reform the Electoral College so that it reflects the nationwide will of the people.

There was no voter rebellion in reaction to the enactment by Maine (in 1969) and Nebraska (in 1992) of state laws that permit the awarding of electoral votes in those states to candidate who did not carry the state. There was no voter rebellion in Nebraska after Barack Obama carried the 2nd congressional district (the Omaha area) in the 2008 presidential election. The district system was the choice of the people's elected representatives in Nebraska, and it was the law that governed the conduct of the presidential election in Nebraska for the 2008 election. Nebraska's law operated exactly as advertised by delivering one of the state's electoral votes to the winner of the 2nd district (Obama), despite the fact that another candidate (McCain) carried the state.

More importantly, voters in states that George W. Bush carried in 2000 did not rebel because their state's presidential electors voted for the candidate who did not receive the most votes nationwide. Everyone understood that the state-by-state winner-take-all rule was the law that governed the conduct of the 2000 presidential election. Bush won the Presidency by winning a majority of the electoral votes (one more than the 270 needed) in an election where everyone involved knew the rules of the game.

Similarly, there will not be a voter rebellion if a state legislature responds to the wishes of 70% of its own voters and enacts a law providing that the presidential candidate receiving the most votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will win the Presidency, The presidential campaign will be conducted with both candidates and voters knowing that this is the law.

For those concerned about "state identity," official election returns showing the popular vote for President will continue to be published (as required by existing federal law), so the information as to which presidential candidate carried a particular state will be known to all.

The purpose of the National Popular Vote bill is to eliminate the state-by-state awarding of electoral votes and instead award a majority of the nation's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is the current state-by-state awarding of electoral votes that permits a second-place candidate to win the White House. It is the current state-by-state system that makes votes unequal in presidential elections. It is the current state-by-state system that makes two-thirds of the states politically irrelevant in presidential elections. Under the winner-take-all rule, candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to the concerns of states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of closely divided battleground states. This means that voters in two-thirds of the states are ignored in presidential elections. In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just states, and 98% in just 15 states.⁵¹

Under the National Popular Vote plan, the focus of the media in the months prior to a presidential election will be on polls of the national popular vote, not on state-by-state polls from a small handful of closely divided battleground states. The concept of "battleground" state will be obsolete because every vote will be equally important throughout the country.

Under the current system, voters in two-thirds of the states are not relevant in presidential elections; a second-place candidate may occupy the White House; and every vote is not equal. Ultimately, the choice is whether it is more important for the winner in a particular state to receive the state's electoral votes or for the winner of the entire country to win the White House.