What happens if Obama wins the Electoral College and Romney wins Popular Vote

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I have an extremely amusing and very late night.

Republicans challenge the results on legal grounds that range from 'very shaky' to 'laughable'. They lose.

The talking heads go into mind-numbing (and occasionally incorrect) detail about the mechanics of the Electoral College for weeks.

There's a fair amount of talk (and a ridiculous amount of media attention) paid to the idea of abolishing the Electoral College. It all comes to naught.

Obama gets sworn in for his 2nd term.

There are small protests in the streets which the media covers as if they're more significant than they actually are.

However... the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact gets a very large boost.  It may make it past the threshold where it will go into effect in 2016. If that happens, there will be tons of wacky election-related hijinks from both parties for the next four years, including, but not limited to: a Supreme Court challenge, efforts to get states who passed it to repeal it, attempts to stack the elector selection process and to change state laws regarding faithless electors, and last but not least, semi-serious succession threats.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Republicans wouldn't pass NPV after an Obama EC win/Romney PV win.  If they did, CA and other large blue states would just change state law to have automatic registration and mail ballots to every social security number in the state.  There would be nothing anyone out of state could do to stop it.

I mixed up my estimated levels of NPV between the two threads. XD.
I was anticipating a small boost in R support if Romney won the popular vote, but you're right, the Democrat-leaning states can easily boost turnout to levels the Republicans can't match, which pretty much removes any incentive for Rs to support NPV.