BOSTON – Bay State voters often get short shrift from the top presidential contenders, whose campaigns devote far more money and resources to winning over the electorate in key in battleground states.

Five years ago, former Gov. Deval Patrick signed a law intended to elevate the state’s role in selecting a commander-in-chief. Massachusetts joined other states vowing to reject the 228-year-old Electoral College — which assigns electoral votes to candidates based on the will of each state’s voters — in favor of a direct, national election for president.

Supporters of the deal say it puts the Bay State on more even footing with “swing” states such as New Hampshire, or those boasting large numbers of electors such as Ohio, Florida, California and North Carolina.

But the state’s Republican minority is still pushing to reverse the decision, arguing that it should have been ratified by a state constitutional convention and could disenfranchise Massachusetts voters in the future.

“This is a system set up by our founding fathers, and if we want to change it, we should amend the constitution, not find a way around it,” said Rep. Bradley Jones, Jr., R-North Reading, chairman of the House Minority caucus.

The Democrat-led effort to change presidential elections could backfire – even of their own party, he said.

“So, for example, if Hillary Clinton wins the state vote, but Donald Trump wins the national vote, we would still have award our electoral votes to Trump regardless of who won the state outright,” he said. “That’s the deal we agreed to.”

Jones, who voted against the 2010 law, said many Republicans favor a hybrid system that allocates electoral votes to the winner in each congressional district. The current system, in most cases, assigns all of a state’s electoral votes based on the winner of the popular vote.

But, Democrats say, a congressional district-based election would unfairly boost the GOP’s chances, in part because Republicans redrew those districts across the country to favor their party following gains in the 2010 midterm elections.

Besides Massachusetts, nine states including Vermont and New York have approved the popular vote compact, representing 165 of the 270 electoral votes needed to determine a president.

In all, there are 535 electoral votes.

The legislation would not go into effect, however, unless those participating states together hold a majority of the Electoral College. Backers say they expect to have that by the 2020 election.

John Koza, chairman of National Popular Vote, the group pushing for the change, said Republican candidates have little incentive to campaign in solidly Democratic states, including Massachusetts, when they know that states like Florida and Michigan are toss-ups.

“A vote in Massachusetts would suddenly become important under a national popular vote,” he said.

Nationally the winner of the popular vote has lost the presidential election four times since 1824. The most recent occurrence was in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush won the election despite losing the overall national popular vote to Democrat Al Gore.

Other recent elections have highlighted potential pitfalls with the Electoral College, Koza said.

In 2004, Democrat John Kerry would have won the election with a shift of 59,393 votes in Ohio, despite President Bush’s 3 million vote lead nationwide, he said.

In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney would have been elected with a shift of 214,393 votes, despite President Barack Obama’s lead of nearly 5 million votes.

Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, which pushed for signing onto the vote compact, said repealing the agreement will mean that Massachusetts will continue to be ignored by presidential candidates.

“Three-quarters of the states receive no visits, no campaign dollars and no advertisements during the general election cycle,” Wilmot told a legislative panel, which heard testimony on Jones’ repeal bill, on Monday.

Ahead of the 2012 presidential election, more than 98 percent of the fundraising money spent by presidential campaigns and visits by the candidates went to just 10 battleground states, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Massachusetts is hardly a swing state. It hasn’t cast an electoral vote for a Republican in more than 30 years.

New Hampshire, which is more competitive and receives more attention from campaigns because of its first-in-the-nation primary, has also flirted with joining the national popular vote pact. But its Legislature has failed to act on several proposals in recent years.

There appears to be support among Granite State voters to sign the pact. A recent survey of about 800 New Hampshire voters by the North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling showed 69 percent support the idea.

Wilmot said she expects eventually enough states will get on board to elect a president by popular vote.

Even though the Electoral College is baked into the U.S. Constitution, an amendment isn’t required to make the change, she said, because each state has the right to choose the way in which electors are selected.

“The president should be elected by all of the people, not just those in closely divided battleground states,” Wilmot said. “With a national popular vote, all votes in every state will be equally important.”

Christian Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at cwade@cnhi.com