By Derek Draplin | The Center Square

The group behind an effort to challenge Colorado’s new national popular vote law at the ballot box reached a major milestone this week when it submitted more than 227,000 signatures the Secretary of State’s office.

Protect Colorado's Vote, formerly Coloradans Vote, announced Thursday that it collected 227,198 signature to put a national popular vote question on the November ballot.

“We are so grateful for the remarkable outpouring of support from people across Colorado,” Protect Colorado's Vote said on its Facebook page. “In the effort to keep our vote from going to states like California, Illinois, and New York, we collected signatures from every county in Colorado.

The group said 2,200 volunteers collected signatures and called the effort “the largest volunteer signature effort in the history of Colorado.” It’s original goal was 180,000, its backers said when the group launched.

Only 125,000 signatures were needed to make the November ballot, but the Secretary of State’s office must first verify the signatures.

The national popular vote law was signed by Democratic Governor Jared Polis in March. The law means that the state’s nine electoral votes would be bound to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote, but the compact only takes effect if enough states join to total 270 electoral votes.

Critics of national popular vote question its constitutionality and say it would give Colorado’s electoral votes to other states, while proponents argue it would prevent candidates who don’t win the popular vote from becoming president, as in the case of to President Donald Trump’s election in 2016.