what other democracy does it that way? >> reporter: jeffrey dinowitz is a democratic state assemblyman representing part of the bronx in new york city. he has championed legislation to change how we elect presidents. it's called "the national popular vote interstate compact," and it would allocate participating state's electoral votes to whomever wins the national popular vote. for example, if donald trump were to win the most votes nationally, new york and every other state in the compact, would pledge its electors to him, even if he didn't win those states. so, the pact leaves the electoral college in place, no constitutional amendment required, but essentially circumvents it and creates a direct national popular vote for the presidency. >> we want every state to count, count, and we want the issues of our state and our communities to count as much as the issues in other states like florida. >> reporter: new york overwhelmingly adopted the legislation in 2014 with bipartisan...

but when you're determining purely based on who is turning out to vote on election day you lose that bit of representation. >> reporter: while only safe democratic states have joined the compact, ironically, the democratic party seems to have a structural advantage in presidential elections under the current system. >> as long as california and new york are not competitive, and you throw in a few other big states, the democrats start off with a big lead. >> reporter: joshua tucker is a professor of politics at new york university and says that if a reliably republican state like texas, with the second most electoral votes, turned democratic, the white house would become out-of-reach for the republicans, and then they might be open to the national popular vote compact. >> if you want to go to a naked political calculation, if politicians want to win elections, if political parties want to get their candidates elected president, they're going to think about what sort of electoral system...