[Political Junkie Too]

However, it does not take a Constitutional amendment to do this. The Constitution establishes that the states get to decide how to apportion their electors, and if they choose to do so on the basis of how other states voted rather than on how their own citizens voted, then they have that authority.

They have the authority if they unilaterally do it on a state by state basis.

Where they run into Constitutional trouble is when they link it to a compact of other states doing the same, and not making it effective until enough states join. By doing this, it is no longer one state choosing its own method of allocating Electoral College votes. It becomes the last state to join's choice, because that state chooses when to "turn it on," not the other states.

If a state can't decide for itself when to start allocating their Electoral College votes, then it's really not "choosing" per the Constitutional power, it's deferring. I don't think that deferring to choose is a choice in and of itself, as is expected per the Constitutional power delegated to the states.

-PJ

[Phlyer]

They have the authority if they unilaterally do it on a state by state basis.

That's splitting a vanishingly fine hair. The only issue would be if a state who had 'joined' the compact had allocated their electors based on its own citizens' votes instead of the national popular vote - and the other states that were part of the compact had tried to sue it to comply. In that case, your point is exactly valid. The 'compact' was legally unenforceable for the reasons you mentioned.

But there is no Constitutional reason that a state could not be 'convinced' by the 'logic' of the agreement and do so after the votes were counted in some other state. In essence, because the compact was/is legally unenforceable, it is by definition a unilateral decision.

This is actually key, because as I said before, the first time a non-collectivist Presidential candidate wins the national popular vote, none of the blue states are going to have their electors vote for him anyway. If they were serious, they would not wait for enough states to have a majority of the electoral college to agree to their 'compact.' They would just declare that they were going to allocate their electors to the winner of the national popular vote and other states could join in if they wanted to.

This is all 'cart before the horse.' The so-called swing states are not going for this - not enough to guarantee a majority. A state goes solid 'blue' long before they would give up their electoral votes to the results in another state - in which case the results would be the same as if there were no agreement in the first place.