Fortunately, our framers gave our state legislators the tools to fix presidential elections. State laws govern how states allocate electors, with states making many changes going back to the founders’ generation. Today, legislators focus on two basic reform approaches: One to join with other states to guarantee election of the national popular vote winner, and the other to act on their own to replace the winner-take-all rule for allocating electors.

We prefer the National Popular Vote plan. It would put every voter on equal footing by ensuring that the winner of the most popular votes in all 50 states always earns a majority of electoral votes and, as a result, the White House. Coming in the form of a binding interstate agreement, the plan is activated only after being adopted by states that collectively represent a majority of the Electoral College. At that point, all participating states will award their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The plan is 61 percent of the way to activation, having been passed into law in 10 states and the District of Columbia. States still have time to act in 2015 to effect change by 2016, or at least keep momentum going to win by 2020.