Colorado Cedes Voting Rights to Other 49 States

NPV is unconstitutional on many grounds. The first is that it’s facially unconstitutional as even its proponents agree that it’s an interstate compact, which are only legal with the consent of the US Congress, which NPV hasn’t gotten or even sought (Article I, Section 10).

Second, NPV violates the 14th amendment in that refusing to abide by the results of a lawful vote for presidential electors is a clear violation of Section 2 of that amendment:

“But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.”

Third, NPV violates the Guaranty Clause (Article IV, Section 4):

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”

If a state wanted to just assign its electors without holding an election it wouldn’t violate this clause, but the act of holding an election for said electors and then refusing to abide by the results is pretty much the definition of a non-republican form of government. But of course, the NPV requires a popular vote in each state, to be combined into an extra-legal popular vote total of all participating states (or is it the popular vote total of all states?), so it isn’t even possible to make it not violate this clause.