Details of The Compact Law
States join the compact by adopting it as a state law. The compact law requires that:
- The member state shall hold presidential elections by statewide popular vote.
- After the election, the state's chief election official (usually the state Secretary of State) shall certify the number of popular votes cast in the state for each candidate and report those results to the other states by a specific deadline.
- The chief election official shall then determine "national popular vote totals" for each candidate by adding up the vote totals reported by every state (including states that have not adopted the compact) and the District of Columbia. (Under current federal law, each state is required to make official reports of vote totals to the federal government in the form of Certificates of Ascertainment.)
- The state's electoral votes shall be awarded to the candidate with the highest "national popular vote total" (a plurality).
Currently, Maine and Nebraska award their electoral votes based on results at the congressional district level.
The compact specifies that it shall take effect only if it is law in states controlling a majority of electoral votes on July 20 of a presidential election year. States wishing to join or withdraw from the compact after that date would not be able to do so until after January 20 of the following year.
Read more about this topic: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Famous quotes containing the words details of the, details of, details, compact and/or law:
“Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price that a man must pay for a high station.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“If my sons are to become the kind of men our daughters would be pleased to live among, attention to domestic details is critical. The hostilities that arise over housework...are crushing the daughters of my generation....Change takes time, but men’s continued obliviousness to home responsibilities is causing women everywhere to expire of trivialities.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“The wit of man has devised cruel statutes,
And nature oft permits what is by law forbid.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)