By basing the award of their electoral votes on the voting in other states (which have varying degrees of standards in their election processes) this likely violates the equal protection clause. It also disenfranchises the voters of Oregon, as it does not award their electors based on the wishes of the Oregon voters, but rather on a non-existent construct: the national popular vote. This is no certified national popular vote, it is a construct of the media which performs a summation of state popular votes on election night in order to have something to report.
Alissa disagrees with you - she says it will make Oregon MORE relevant :-)
EXACTLY!
You have just given me pause to think about the NPV movement. This sounds like it may be a legitimate argument AGAINST the Constitutionality of states adhering to this stupid proposal. Thank you.
My position is that while this is an utterly IGNORANT way of allotting electoral votes, it would stand Constitutional scrutiny because states are allowed to allocate EVs in any way they choose...but your invocation of the 14th gives me pause.
So the press can announce any numbers they want to as the “national popular vote”, and who can stop them?
You’re right – there is no formal construct called the “national popular vote”… The best that these compact States might do to pass muster is by saying that the total popular votes of all compact states is the standard, however even this could be problematic under the equal protection rules.
This is a great point. The federal Secretary of State does not certify vote totals, like the state level Secretaries of State do.
Since Oregon is (proposing) to award their E.C. votes based on other states vote totals, they are like violating either the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, or Article 1, Section 10. Or both.