We did it! With your help – all of us working together – we got the 2019 Oregon Legislature to sign on to the National Popular Vote interstate compact!
As Oregonians – across party lines – we share a value that every vote in every state should be in play during a presidential election, not just those in a handful of swing states, and that at the end of the day, the national popular vote should prevail.
Unfortunately, this is not currently the case. State legislatures hold the constitutional authority to choose how their Electoral College votes are allocated in presidential elections. The winner-take-all method that Oregon and most states use incentivizes presidential candidates to ignore heavily red and blue states, focusing exclusively on a relatively small number of closely divided swing states. Moreover, a state winner-take-all system prevents voters registered with the state’s minority party from ever influencing presidential elections.
The National Popular Vote interstate compact provides a simple and effective path forward. In 2019, Oregon joined 15 other jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia. These signers agree that together, they will allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, once enough states have signed on to have a majority of the country’s electoral votes.