SALEM – The Oregon Senate voted on Tuesday to join a movement designed to award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote. The 17 to 12 vote on Senate Bill 870 came after an hour-long debate.

If the bill is approved by the Oregon House and signed into law, Oregon would join 14 other states and the District of Columbia in the National Popular Vote compact. The idea behind the compact is that state legislatures would award their state’s Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide.

That could mean that Oregon’s seven Electoral College votes could, in theory, be awarded to a candidate who did not win the most votes in Oregon.

The compact will only take effect when enough states have joined to collectively award a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

The magic number to reach that majority is 270. According to the National Popular Vote organization, jurisdictions representing 189 Electoral College votes have joined the compact so far. If Oregon joins, the effort would be seven votes closer.

Supporters said the proposal is about giving all voters an equal say in deciding who becomes president.

“What it means is that it doesn’t matter where I live,” said Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland. “I have as much of a chance of influencing the election as someone in any state in the country. This is what one person, one vote is all about.”

Opponents argued that the current system is working adequately, despite having awarded the presidency to the loser of the national popular vote in two out of the past five presidential elections.

Sen. Alan Olsen, R-Canby, said the bill is a thinly-veiled backlash to the election of Republican Donald Trump. “Just because we have a president we don’t like doesn’t mean that we should change a system that has worked great for 200 years,” he said.

Most of the states that have joined the National Popular Vote compact did so before Trump was elected president. But the effort has gained momentum this year, with three states joining as of early April.

The Oregon House has voted four different times over the past decade to join the compact, but each time the legislation died in the Senate. That chamber’s powerful leader, Sen. Peter Courtney, D-Salem, has blocked the bill from coming to a vote.

This year, with a majority of his caucus in favor of the plan, Courtney relented. He did not speak during the floor debate but was one of three Democrats to vote against the bill. The other two were Portland Sen. Ginny Burdick, who serves as the Senate Democratic leader, and Sen. Betsy Johnson of Scapoose.

Two Republicans voted in favor of the measure: Sen. Brian Boquist of Dallas and Sen. Chuck Thomsen of Hood River.