Popular Will Act of 2026

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL DISCUSSION DRAFT

Popular Will Act

Proposed Constitutional Amendment and Implementing Legislation

A comprehensive model to establish direct national election of the President and Vice President, prohibit gerrymandering at every level of government, and modernize representation for a national electorate.

Prepared as nonpartisan model legislation. Official legislative counsel, committee, parliamentary, and budget review remain required before introduction.

Instrument II contains its own detailed statutory table of contents. Word navigation panes may also use the document’s hierarchical headings.

Executive overview

The Popular Will Act replaces the Electoral College with a single national election in which every eligible citizen casts an equally weighted vote for a joint presidential and vice-presidential ticket. Voters may rank tickets. If no ticket has a majority of first choices, an instant national runoff transfers votes according to those rankings until one ticket has a majority of continuing ballots. No State receives an electoral-vote allotment; no winner-take-all rule survives; no elector may substitute personal judgment; and Congress has no power to reject certified popular votes in a ceremonial counting session.

The package also creates a constitutional right to fair representation and a nationwide prohibition on partisan, incumbent-protective, racial, ethnic, and language-minority gerrymandering. Maps for Congress, State and territorial legislatures, the District of Columbia, counties, municipalities, school boards, and special districts must be drawn through independent public commissions under ranked, judicially enforceable criteria. Legislators and governors may not draw, adopt, amend, or veto their own maps. Political and incumbent data are hidden during initial map construction and may be used afterward only to test compliance.

The amendment does more than direct compliance with the existing Voting Rights Act. It independently prohibits a districting plan that has either the purpose or the material effect of diminishing a protected community’s equal electoral opportunity. It expressly authorizes consideration of race, ethnicity, language-minority status, and Tribal political community when reasonably necessary and tailored in good faith to prevent or remedy dilution. That language is designed to remain effective even after the Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which sharply limited present statutory vote-dilution doctrine.

The implementing Act creates an independent Federal Election Administration Commission; uniform national ballot access; automatic, online, same-day, and portable voter registration; accessible paper ballots; at least 15 days of early voting; no-excuse vote by mail; uniform rules for timely casting, postmarks, receipt, and ballot curing; national ranked-choice tabulation; mandatory risk-limiting audits; automatic recounts based on an outcome-determinative margin; a ministerial national certificate; expedited three-judge judicial review; and narrow emergency procedures that no President, governor, legislature, or candidate can use to cancel or selectively postpone a national election.

For congressional representation, the Act replaces the permanent 435-seat ceiling after a qualifying decennial census with a population-responsive House-size formula and a statutory floor of 435 seats. This reduces the population of congressional districts, increases representational capacity, and makes commission-drawn districts more locally coherent. It does not alter the equal suffrage of States in the Senate. Article V provides that no State may be deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate without that State’s consent, so claiming to abolish Senate malapportionment in this package would be legally misleading.

What the package changes

Core legal architecture

Instrument I — constitutional amendment

Article V requires proposal by two-thirds of both Houses and ratification by three-fourths of the States under the mode Congress chooses. The joint resolution selects ratification by State legislatures and a seven-year deadline. A constitutional-amendment resolution is not presented to the President.

The amendment is drafted to be self-executing. If Congress or an agency misses an implementation deadline, the rights and prohibitions still bind government; courts may enforce them; and statutory default rules operate. This prevents implementation delay from reviving electors or permitting an unlawful map.

Instrument II — implementing Act

The Act separates four categories of provisions:

1. Immediate provisions within existing power. Congressional redistricting rules rest principally on Article I, section 4. Federal grants, research, election-security standards attached to voluntary funds, agency preparation, census-data work, and rulemaking may begin immediately.

2. Contingent presidential provisions. Direct national election rules take effect for the first regularly scheduled presidential election held at least 36 months after ratification.

3. Contingent State and local districting provisions. Comprehensive partisan-fairness and commission mandates for State and local elections take effect under the new amendment. Before ratification, a jurisdiction may accept them voluntarily as a condition of designated federal assistance to the extent constitutionally permitted.

4. Conforming provisions. Electoral College statutes are repealed only when the amendment becomes operative. Savings clauses preserve pending prosecutions, records, appropriations, and current-term succession.

Drafting assumptions and resolved policy choices

The text makes the following choices so that critical questions are answered in the legislation rather than deferred to litigation:

The presidential election uses optional preferential rankings and an instant national runoff. A voter may rank one ticket and may not be forced to rank all tickets.

The winner is the ticket receiving a majority of continuing ballots in the final round. Ballot exhaustion is disclosed in every round report.

A genuine final-round tie survives only after a full hand recount. The House then chooses between the tied joint tickets, with one vote per Representative rather than one vote per State delegation. If no choice is made by January 20, existing presidential-succession rules apply until qualification.

All U.S. citizens age 18 or older may vote in the national election, regardless of State or territorial residence, wealth, disability, guardianship, incarceration, conviction, or failure to pay money. Citizenship, age, personal execution of the ballot, and anti-duplication rules remain enforceable.

There is no Internet return of voted ballots. Electronic registration and ballot tracking are permitted, but every vote must create a voter-verifiable paper record.

Timely mailed ballots must be cast or postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days. Missing or illegible postmarks are governed by tracking evidence and a short receipt-based presumption.

Uniform national rules are floors and ceilings for the presidential contest. A State may provide greater access for other contests, but may not make the national contest less or more burdensome in a way that changes whose presidential votes count.

The Federal Election Administration Commission has seven members, no more than two affiliated with the same political party, at least three unaffiliated with either of the two largest parties, staggered terms, cause-based removal, strict ethics rules, and a career executive director. Automatic statutory defaults prevent partisan deadlock.

Congressional, State, territorial, District, county, municipal, school-board, and special-district maps are covered. Internal elections of a federally recognized Indian Tribe are excluded unless the Tribe affirmatively opts in; districts created by a State or local government that include Tribal citizens remain fully covered.

Independent commissions—not legislatures—adopt maps. Small local governments may use a certified regional commission or the State commission rather than duplicate a full commission.

Partisan favoritism is tested through intent evidence, multiple symmetry measures, realistic vote swings, and neutral computer ensembles. No single metric is conclusive, and small delegations receive an adapted test.

Protected-community dilution requires neither proof of discriminatory purpose nor disentanglement of race from party. Proportional representation is relevant evidence but is not an automatic entitlement or ceiling.

A remedial decisionmaker may consider protected status when reasonably necessary and tailored in good faith to prevent or correct dilution. Incumbent protection and partisan advantage are not legitimate districting objectives.

Maps may not be redrawn mid-decade to gain advantage. Changes are allowed only after a census, a final legal judgment, a change in the number of districts, or a substantial annexation or boundary change.

The House-size formula begins after the next decennial census. It does not change Senate representation, Statehood, or House voting rights for territories or the District of Columbia.

Campaign finance, the presidential primary calendar, Senate structure, Statehood, and the substantive qualifications for President are outside the package except where necessary for ballot administration.

Research foundations and current-law problems addressed

Electoral College and amendment mechanics

Article II and the Twelfth Amendment establish selection through electors; the Twenty-Third Amendment adds electors for the District of Columbia. Title 3 of the United States Code implements appointment, certification, meeting, transmission, and counting of electoral votes. These mechanisms cannot be erased by redefining them in an ordinary statute. The proposed amendment therefore repeals or conforms the operative constitutional text, and the Act conditionally repeals the statutory chapter.

The National Archives’ Article V text states both the two-thirds proposal rule and the three-fourths ratification rule, and preserves equal State suffrage in the Senate absent a State’s consent. The National Archives amendment-process guidance describes federal receipt and certification. With 50 States the present threshold is 38, but the operative text uses the constitutional fraction rather than hard-coding that number, so a change in the number of States during the ratification period cannot create a gap.

Partisan gerrymandering and judicial standards

In Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 684 (2019), the Supreme Court held partisan-gerrymandering claims beyond the reach of federal courts under then-existing constitutional doctrine because the Court found no judicially manageable standard. The Court also identified congressional action under the Elections Clause and State commissions as available reform paths. The amendment supplies what Rucho said was missing: a substantive right, forbidden purposes and effects, ranked criteria, quantitative presumptions, burdens of proof, standing, and specified remedies.

Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 576 U.S. 787 (2015), sustained citizen commission-drawn congressional maps. Moore v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1 (2023), rejected the broad claim that a State legislature acts free from State constitutional review when regulating federal elections. These decisions support independent institutions, while the new amendment removes residual uncertainty for every covered jurisdiction.

Racial and language-minority vote dilution after 2026

In Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___ (Apr. 29, 2026), the Court construed section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to impose districting liability only when circumstances strongly support present intentional discrimination, required plaintiffs to control for party in racial-bloc analysis, and required an illustrative map to satisfy permissible State objectives—including specified political objectives. The Court then held Louisiana’s remedial map unconstitutional because section 2 did not require it.

The Popular Will Amendment creates a later, independent constitutional rule. It prohibits purpose or effect, declares partisan and incumbent advantage impermissible, removes the race-versus-party disentanglement requirement, and treats prevention or remediation that is reasonably necessary and tailored in good faith to equal electoral opportunity as a compelling constitutional interest. A construction clause makes the later amendment controlling over inconsistent earlier constitutional doctrine. Before ratification, any predominant use of race under the immediate congressional title remains subject to then-controlling Equal Protection requirements, including applicable narrow-tailoring doctrine.

Ballot receipt and national deadlines

Watson v. Republican National Committee, 609 U.S. ___ (June 29, 2026), held that federal election-day statutes do not themselves require a timely cast mail ballot to arrive by Election Day. The Court did not resolve the full scope of Congress’s regulatory power. The Act therefore does not assume the phrase “Election Day” silently establishes receipt or canvass rules. It states national casting, postmark, receipt, cure, audit, recount, and certification deadlines expressly.

Decentralized administration and audit gaps

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission describes canvass and certification as a decentralized process conducted across thousands of election jurisdictions. Its audit and recount clearinghouse reflects substantial variation among jurisdictions. A national election decided by a national total needs interoperable records, common definitions, paper evidence, audit escalation, and one certification calendar while preserving State and local administration.

Population and House capacity

The Census Bureau’s 2020 apportionment results allocated 435 House seats among the States. The House has remained at 435 under the statutory framework associated with the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. Population-responsive expansion is constitutionally available by statute and reduces district size, though it cannot itself guarantee proportional partisan outcomes.

The following is formatted as a Senate joint resolution. It may be introduced in the House with conforming designation changes.

119th Congress — 2d Session

S. J. RES. __

Joint Resolution

Proposing the Popular Will Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That—

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This joint resolution may be cited as the “Popular Will Amendment Resolution”.

SEC. 2. PROPOSAL OF AMENDMENT.

The following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within the period specified in section 3:

“ARTICLE —

“POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, AND FAIR REPRESENTATION

“SECTION 1. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.

“(a) All political power under this Constitution originates in the people. Government shall secure the equal freedom of the people to choose their representatives and the President and Vice President, to cast an effective vote, and to participate in elections whose rules do not systematically privilege or burden a person because of place of residence, political viewpoint or affiliation, race, color, ethnicity, language-minority status, Tribal citizenship or affiliation, or membership in another protected community.

“(b) The rights secured by this article are individual and collective rights. They include—

“(1) the individual right of every eligible citizen to vote in an election for President and Vice President and to have that vote counted once, equally, accurately, and under uniform rules;

“(2) the individual right of every person represented through districts to be represented by districts established by an independent process and not designed or maintained to entrench a political party, candidate, or incumbent or to dilute the electoral opportunity of a protected community; and

“(3) the collective right of voters, political groups, and protected communities to an electoral system that affords substantially equal opportunity to translate lawful political support into representation, subject to neutral districting criteria and without an entitlement to exact proportional representation.

“(c) A right, prohibition, duty, cause of action, or remedy established by this article is self-executing. The failure of Congress, a State, a territory, the District constituting the seat of Government, a political subdivision, an election authority, or any officer to enact legislation, issue a regulation, appropriate funds, appoint a commission, or perform a ministerial duty shall not suspend, diminish, or defeat the right or prohibition.

“SECTION 2. ONE NATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORATE.

“(a) The President and Vice President shall be elected directly by the people of the United States as a single joint ticket. The United States shall constitute one national electorate for that election. No State, territory, District, political subdivision, congressional district, or other geographic unit shall be allocated electoral votes, points, weighted votes, or a separate power to determine or alter the national result.

“(b) Every citizen of the United States who is eighteen years of age or older on or before the final day prescribed for voting is entitled to vote in the presidential election. This right extends throughout the several States, the District constituting the seat of Government, Puerto Rico, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, every other territory or possession subject to the sovereignty of the United States, and outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

“(c) Congress shall provide a uniform means for a citizen residing outside the United States, including a citizen who has never resided or established domicile in a State, territory, or the District, to register and vote without attributing greater or lesser weight to that vote by reason of an assigned place of administration. Congress may assign each voter to one administrative jurisdiction solely to issue, receive, cure, audit, and preserve a ballot and to prevent duplicate voting. Administrative assignment shall not transform a national vote into a vote of the assigned jurisdiction.

“(d) No citizen otherwise eligible under this section may be denied or abridged the right to vote for President and Vice President because of—

“(1) residence in, prior residence in, or absence of prior residence in any State, territory, the District, possession, or foreign country;

“(2) a criminal accusation, conviction, sentence, incarceration, probation, parole, or completion or noncompletion of a criminal sentence;

“(3) disability, guardianship, conservatorship, a finding concerning capacity, or use of lawful assistance to register or vote, except that the ballot must express the voter’s own choice;

“(4) wealth, property ownership, homelessness, absence of a conventional street address, failure to pay a tax, fee, fine, restitution, debt, or other monetary obligation, or inability to produce a document not reasonably available without charge;

“(5) race, color, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, language, religion, political belief or affiliation, Tribal citizenship or affiliation, national origin, or previous condition of servitude; or

“(6) failure to satisfy a durational-residence requirement.

“(e) Congress may establish reasonable, uniform, and nondiscriminatory rules to verify citizenship and age, assure that a voter personally executes the voter’s ballot except for lawful assistance directed by the voter, prevent and remedy duplicate voting, and protect election records and personal information. No such rule may impose an undue burden, operate as a wealth test, authorize differential treatment among jurisdictions, or make the right dependent on an official’s discretionary assessment of a voter’s worthiness or capacity.

“(f) Each eligible citizen is entitled to one ballot in the national election. Each valid vote and each valid ranking shall have equal weight at every stage of tabulation. The place at which a ballot is cast, received, counted, or reported shall have no effect on its weight.

“SECTION 3. JOINT TICKETS AND NATIONAL RANKED-CHOICE TABULATION.

“(a) Candidates for President and Vice President shall seek election and appear on the general-election ballot as a joint ticket. No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President is eligible to the office of Vice President. A candidate may consent to appear on only one joint ticket in the same presidential election, except as a lawful substitute under section 8.

“(b) A voter may rank one or more joint tickets in order of preference. A voter shall not be required to rank more than one ticket, and a ballot shall not be invalid because the voter does not rank every ticket. Congress shall prescribe uniform rules for a voter who skips a ranking, gives the same ranking to more than one ticket, ranks a ticket more than once, marks a declared write-in ticket, or makes another mark from which voter intent may reasonably be determined. Those rules shall favor counting every choice whose meaning can be determined without speculation and shall apply identically throughout the United States. Until superseded by uniform legislation, a ballot shall count for the unique highest-ranked continuing ticket on the ballot; a skipped rank shall be disregarded without invalidating a later distinct ranking; a repeated ranking of the same ticket shall count only at its highest position; an equal ranking of two or more highest-ranked continuing tickets shall make the ballot inactive and excluded from the denominator for that round but shall not invalidate a later round in which only one such ticket remains continuing; and an undeclared or indeterminate write-in shall be disregarded without invalidating another ascertainable ranking.

“(c) If a joint ticket receives more than one-half of all valid first preferences, that ticket is elected. Otherwise, an instant national runoff shall be conducted as follows:

“(1) The continuing ticket with the fewest votes shall be eliminated after each round.

“(2) Each ballot counting for an eliminated ticket shall be transferred to the highest-ranked continuing ticket on that ballot.

“(3) A ballot on which no continuing ticket is ranked becomes exhausted and is not included in the denominator for a later round. The number and percentage of exhausted ballots shall be separately and publicly reported for each round and jurisdiction.

“(4) Elimination and transfer shall continue until one ticket receives more than one-half of all continuing ballots or until only two tickets remain. The ticket receiving the greater number of votes in the final round is elected, subject to audit, recount, contest, and the exact-tie procedure in section 7.

“(5) If, before a ticket is elected, no ticket remains, no valid ballot was cast nationally, or no ballot remains continuing, no ticket is elected; the acting-service rules of the Twentieth Amendment apply pending a special national election conducted at the earliest administratively feasible date fixed by Congress or, in the absence of a governing law, by the three-judge court described in section 6(d). Otherwise, if only one continuing ticket remains, that ticket is elected.

“(d) If two or more tickets are tied for fewest votes, their totals shall be compared in preceding rounds beginning with the most recent round. If a preceding round gives one of the tied tickets a uniquely lowest total, that ticket shall be eliminated. If a preceding round differentiates the tied tickets but two or more share its lowest total, comparison shall continue among only those tickets in successively earlier rounds. If two or more remain tied after every preceding round is compared, one of those tickets shall be selected by a public, auditable drawing of lots conducted by the National Election Authority. Only one ticket may be eliminated under a tie-break before ballots are transferred and a new round is tabulated. Congress may supersede this default by a uniform law consistent with equal vote weight and public auditability. An elimination tie-break does not govern an exact tie between the final two tickets.

“(e) Tabulation shall be national. Ballot records may be counted initially by State, territorial, District, and local authorities, but each authority shall transmit standardized cast-vote records and aggregate totals sufficient to reproduce every round. No intermediate jurisdictional total is entitled to conclusive, weighted, winner-take-all, or unit-vote effect.

“(f) Congress may improve the ranked-choice method by legislation consistent with the principles of majority choice, equal vote weight, optional ranking, transparency, and national uniformity stated in this section. Congress shall not replace national ranked-choice voting with a State-by-State allocation, a district allocation, a plurality-only method, or a method under which votes cast in different places receive different practical or mathematical weight.

“SECTION 4. UNIFORM ADMINISTRATION AND BALLOT ACCESS.

“(a) Congress shall establish uniform national rules governing registration, ballot access, ballot design, voting opportunities, voter assistance, voter identification, provisional voting, early voting, voting by mail, ballot casting and receipt, ballot cure, tabulation, records, audits, recounts, certification, and election contests for President and Vice President. Such rules shall operate as both a floor and a ceiling for the presidential contest, except that a jurisdiction may provide greater access if the National Election Authority determines that the variation neither changes the substantive qualifications of voters or candidates nor produces unequal treatment in determining which presidential ballots are valid and counted.

“(b) Ballot access shall be nationally uniform, politically neutral, and realistically attainable by candidates of major parties, minor parties, new parties, and independent tickets demonstrating substantial public support. The law shall provide—

“(1) one national qualification process and filing calendar;

“(2) reasonable petition or demonstrated-support alternatives that do not multiply with the number of jurisdictions;

“(3) neutral ballot-order rotation and uniform treatment of party labels, fusion nominations, candidate aliases, name variants, and declared write-in tickets;

“(4) prompt notice and a meaningful opportunity to cure an administrative defect;

“(5) expedited federal judicial review completed, to the greatest extent practicable, before ballots must be made available; and

“(6) nationally uniform substitution rules consistent with section 8.

“(c) Neither a State nor another jurisdiction may add a substantive qualification for President or Vice President, exclude a federally qualified ticket, pair a presidential candidate with different vice-presidential candidates, or alter the nationally approved form or identity of a ticket. Different party-line appearances of the same ticket shall be aggregated as votes for that ticket.

“(d) Every voting system used in the presidential election shall produce or use a voter-verifiable paper ballot or paper record that preserves all valid rankings, is available for audit and recount, and is retained for a period fixed by law. No official electronic total may be treated as conclusive when reliable paper records exist. Voting methods shall be accessible to voters with disabilities and voters requiring language assistance while preserving ballot secrecy and independent verification to the maximum extent practicable.

“(e) Rules governing when a ballot is timely cast, what evidence establishes a mailing or transmission date, when a ballot must be received, and when a voter may cure a defect shall be express and uniform. The designation of a day for the election does not, without more, establish a ballot-receipt or cure deadline. A timely cast ballot shall not be rejected solely because ordinary delivery occurs after the final day for in-person voting, if the ballot is received within the uniform period prescribed by law.

“(f) Congress may require State, territorial, District, and local officers to administer the national election in accordance with this article and laws enacted under it. Congress shall also provide complete Federal fallback authority for any jurisdiction that is unwilling or unable to perform a duty. No voter’s ballot may be rejected or omitted from the national total because a government or officer failed to perform a ministerial act.

“SECTION 5. NATIONAL CANVASS AND CERTIFICATION.

“(a) Congress shall establish or designate an independent National Election Authority within the Government of the United States. Every person exercising final authority to canvass or certify the presidential election shall be appointed in conformity with Article II and shall be bound by publicly stated, objective, and ministerial rules. Congress shall structure the Authority to prevent domination by one political party, candidate, campaign, branch of Government, or participating jurisdiction and shall provide an automatic decisional rule if its members are equally divided or fail to act by a deadline.

“(b) Each administering jurisdiction shall publicly canvass and transmit its complete presidential returns, ballot-status data, and records of each ranked-choice round in the uniform manner and by the deadline prescribed by law. A State executive, legislature, court, board, or other officer may correct a return only according to law, evidence, and due process and may not substitute a preferred result for votes lawfully cast.

“(c) The National Election Authority shall aggregate all valid ballots into one national canvass, conduct the tabulation prescribed by section 3, incorporate corrections required by audits, recounts, and final judicial orders, and issue a preliminary and a final national certificate. Certification is a ministerial declaration of the result produced by this article. The Authority may not investigate or decide a legal contest except as expressly necessary to correct arithmetic, reconcile records, administer an audit or recount, or obey a final judicial order.

“(d) Until Congress establishes a National Election Authority, the Archivist of the United States shall perform every administrative or ministerial duty assigned by this article to the National Election Authority, including a ballot-access-variance determination, elimination-tie drawing, national canvass, tabulation, audit or recount supervision, certification, and application for emergency judicial approval, but not a judicial duty assigned to a court. The Archivist shall receive technical assistance from the Election Assistance Commission. If no such officer timely acts, or if the office is vacant or disabled, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, sitting as a court of three judges, shall appoint a nonpartisan special master to perform the omitted ministerial duty under the court’s supervision.

“(e) Except as provided in section 3(c)(5), section 7, or a final judgment under section 6 determining that no reliable result can be ascertained, the final national certificate, as modified by a final judgment entered under section 6, conclusively identifies the elected ticket, the President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy under section 8. A certificate of no election under section 3(c)(5), section 7(c), section 7(d), or such a final judgment shall conclusively state that no ticket was elected, identify the controlling basis for that outcome, and trigger the applicable acting-service and special-national-election rules. A certificate of exact tie conclusively identifies the two tied tickets; the House’s choice or an operation-of-law result under section 7 identifies the elected ticket, the President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy. No certificate, slate, appointment, or declaration issued by a State or other jurisdiction may compete with or supersede the controlling national certificate, certificate of no election, or House choice.

“(f) Congress may assemble in joint session on a date fixed by law to receive and publicly read the final national certificate. The joint session, the President of the Senate, the Speaker, and each House shall exercise solely ceremonial and ministerial functions. No objection, motion, vote, parliamentary ruling, or failure to assemble may reject, reduce, add to, delay, or otherwise alter the national result, and the validity of the election does not depend on a congressional declaration.

“SECTION 6. AUDITS, RECOUNTS, CONTESTS, AND FINALITY.

“(a) Before final certification, the National Election Authority shall ensure completion of a statistically rigorous, publicly observable audit capable of detecting and correcting an incorrect national outcome. The audit shall examine voter-verifiable paper records and shall expand as necessary when discrepancies exceed the tolerances prescribed by law. Congress may prescribe more protective requirements but may not authorize certification without meaningful comparison to trustworthy voter-verified records.

“(b) A nationwide recount shall be conducted when—

“(1) the difference between the final two tickets is not more than one-quarter of one percent of continuing ballots in the final round;

“(2) the margin separating a ticket eliminated in any round from the next-lowest continuing ticket is not more than one-quarter of one percent of the continuing ballots in that round;

“(3) the number of ballots subject to a documented tabulation, voter-eligibility, ballot-validity, ranking-interpretation, chain-of-custody, or transmission dispute could reasonably alter which ticket is elected;

“(4) an audit indicates a substantial possibility that the apparent outcome is incorrect; or

“(5) a Federal court so orders on a showing of material error or illegality.

“(c) A recount shall use the voter-verifiable paper ballot or record and uniform voter-intent standards. A hand examination shall be made when a machine cannot reliably interpret the record or when needed to resolve a discrepancy. If a ballot of record has been lost or damaged through no fault of the voter, an individual vote may be reconstructed only from contemporaneous official records that establish the voter’s selections without compelling disclosure by the voter. No statistical allocation, partisan inference, precinct-average assumption, or testimony revealing a secret vote may be used to assign a choice to an individual ballot. If the lawful choices cannot be established, the court shall fashion the narrowest remedy that does not presume how the missing ballots were cast. Official misconduct shall be remedied against the responsible government or person and shall not, without proof that lawful votes cannot be determined, disenfranchise the voters of an entire precinct or jurisdiction.

“(d) Congress shall provide an exclusive, expedited Federal process for a contest capable of changing the national result. A contest concerning local voting or counting may be filed in the Federal judicial district in which the events occurred. A contest concerning the national tabulation, final-round result, qualification of a ticket after voting has begun, or national certificate shall be heard by a court of three judges in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. A local action that could affect the identity of a continuing ticket, an elimination, the final-round result, or the national certificate shall be transferred to and consolidated before that three-judge court. A local district court may preserve evidence and conduct referred factfinding but may not enter an order altering the national tabulation. Congress shall provide direct, expedited review in the Supreme Court of the United States.

“(e) Courts hearing a presidential contest may order preservation and production of records, correction of registration or ballot status, counting of valid ballots, exclusion of ballots proven invalid under uniform law, audit expansion, recount, correction or issuance of a certificate, and other relief necessary to ascertain and effectuate the lawful choice of the national electorate. Relief shall be tailored to count lawful votes and shall not confer advantage on a ticket because of the place where an error occurred.

“(f) Deadlines shall afford due process and permit final resolution before the presidential term begins. Fraud or concealment not reasonably discoverable during the ordinary contest period may support certificate-changing relief only if final judgment can be entered before the presidential term begins. Evidence discovered thereafter may support criminal, civil, disciplinary, impeachment, succession, or Twenty-Fifth Amendment proceedings, but no judgment under this section may remove or replace a President or Vice President after the term begins except through a procedure expressly authorized by this Constitution. After authorized review, the final certificate and judgment bind Congress, the Executive, every jurisdiction, and their officers.

“SECTION 7. EXACT FINAL TIE.

“(a) An exact tie exists only if the final two joint tickets receive the same number of votes in the final national ranked-choice round after completion of a nationwide recount conducted by hand to the extent necessary to verify every material paper record and after final resolution of all timely contests capable of breaking the tie.

“(b) Upon certification of an exact tie, the House of Representatives chosen in the same general election shall choose one of the tied joint tickets. Each Representative chosen, sworn, and qualified shall have one vote. The vote shall not be taken by States or State delegations. A majority of the whole number of Representatives chosen, sworn, and qualified is required, and, subject to the outside deadline in subsection (c), the House shall continue to ballot until a ticket is chosen. A Representative finally entitled to be sworn and qualified may not be excluded, delayed, or omitted from the denominator for the purpose or material effect of influencing the choice.

“(c) The House may choose only between the tied joint tickets and may not separate their members, impose a condition, substitute another person, or delegate the choice. The Senate shall have no separate role in choosing the Vice President. If the House has not made a choice when the presidential term begins, the person entitled by the Twentieth Amendment and laws enacted pursuant thereto shall act as President until a tied ticket is chosen and its members qualify or until the House’s authority terminates under this subsection. If the House has not chosen a ticket within sixty days after the presidential term begins, its authority under this section terminates, no tied ticket is elected, and acting service shall continue pending a special national election conducted at the earliest administratively feasible date, and not later than one hundred twenty days after that deadline, fixed by Congress or, absent a governing law or timely action under it, by the three-judge court described in section 6(d).

“(d) Notwithstanding section 8(d) and (e), after certification of an exact tie and before the House makes its choice or its authority terminates under subsection (c), this subsection governs solely the availability and composition of the tied tickets for that choice and does not alter the national tabulation. A declination under this subsection is effective only if it satisfies section 8(e). If the presidential candidate of a tied ticket dies, files such a declination, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, that ticket’s vice-presidential candidate shall become its presidential candidate and the vice-presidential position shall be vacant. If only the vice-presidential candidate dies, files such a declination, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, the ticket remains available to the House with a vice-presidential vacancy. If neither member of one tied ticket can qualify, that ticket is unavailable and the other tied ticket is elected by operation of this article if it can supply a qualified presidential candidate. If neither tied ticket can supply a qualified presidential candidate, no ticket is elected; acting service shall proceed under the Twentieth Amendment and laws enacted pursuant thereto pending a special national election conducted at the earliest administratively feasible date fixed by Congress or, absent a governing law or timely action under it, by the three-judge court described in section 6(d). After the House makes its choice, the chosen ticket is the elected ticket for purposes of section 8(f). No event under this subsection transfers or reassigns a ballot after the exact tie has been certified.

“SECTION 8. DEATH, WITHDRAWAL, AND DISQUALIFICATION.

“(a) Each joint ticket shall, as a condition of ballot access, publicly designate a nationally authorized replacement body and an order or method of succession for a vacancy occurring before the close of voting. The method shall apply uniformly and may not be changed after the vacancy occurs except as necessary to select from persons identified through the preannounced method.

“(b) If a candidate dies, voluntarily withdraws, or is finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible before the uniform substitution deadline, the authorized replacement body may name an eligible substitute. Ballots already cast for the affected ticket shall count for the substituted ticket, and every reasonable measure shall be taken to notify voters and correct ballots not yet cast.

“(c) If a presidential candidate dies, withdraws, or is finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible after the substitution deadline but before the close of voting, the vice-presidential candidate shall become the presidential candidate of that ticket and the vice-presidential position shall remain vacant unless the preannounced method and the practical ability to provide uniform notice permit a nationally effective substitution. If only the vice-presidential candidate dies, withdraws, or is finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible during that period, the presidential candidate remains and the vice-presidential position remains vacant unless the preannounced method and the practical ability to provide uniform notice permit a nationally effective substitution. No jurisdiction may apply a different substitute.

“(d) If, after the close of voting but before final certification, the presidential candidate of a continuing ticket dies or is finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible, the vice-presidential candidate shall be treated as the presidential candidate for purposes of completing the tabulation. If that ticket is elected, the vice-presidential office shall be vacant at the beginning of the term and may thereafter be filled under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. If only the vice-presidential candidate dies or becomes finally ineligible during that period, the ticket remains continuing with a vice-presidential vacancy. Every ballot already cast remains assigned to the ticket as reconstituted under this section. A voluntary withdrawal after the close of voting does not alter the tabulation, eliminate a ticket, transfer a ballot, or reassign a ranking; it operates solely as an irrevocable declination effective if that ticket is elected, as provided in subsection (f).

“(e) If both members of a ticket die or are finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible before final certification, that ticket shall be eliminated and each ballot shall transfer to its next-ranked continuing ticket. If no ranking remains, the ballot becomes exhausted. A voluntary withdrawal or declination after the close of voting is effective only if made personally, knowingly, voluntarily, irrevocably, and in a verified public instrument and may not be induced by a promise, threat, payment, or agreement concerning succession. One or both such declinations leave the ticket in the tabulation and do not transfer a ballot.

“(f) After final certification, including certification of a ticket whose candidate filed a declination under subsection (d) or (e), if the President-elect dies, has filed an irrevocable verified declination, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, a Vice-President-elect shall become President when the term begins or, if the elected ticket is identified after the term begins, immediately upon qualification, only if that person has not died, has not filed such a declination, has not been finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, and is able to qualify as President. If the President-elect temporarily fails to qualify, a Vice-President-elect able to qualify shall act as President, beginning when the term begins or, if the elected ticket is identified after the term begins, upon qualification, until the President-elect qualifies. If the Vice-President-elect dies, has filed such a declination, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, the office of Vice President shall be vacant when the term begins or, for a ticket identified after the term begins, when a member of that ticket qualifies as President, and may thereafter be filled under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. A temporary failure of the Vice-President-elect to qualify does not by itself create a vacancy fillable under that amendment. If neither member qualifies when the term begins or, for a ticket identified after the term begins, immediately upon identification, the Twentieth Amendment and valid laws enacted pursuant thereto govern until one qualifies. If no member can later qualify because of death, irrevocable verified declination, permanent constitutional ineligibility, or the absence of a remaining member, acting service shall continue pending a special national election conducted at the earliest administratively feasible date fixed by Congress or, absent a governing law or timely action under it, by the three-judge court described in section 6(d).

“(g) A State or territorial officer or court may not finally determine a candidate’s constitutional eligibility for national ballot exclusion or national tabulation. Congress shall establish an exclusive Federal procedure, with adequate notice, an opportunity to be heard, a three-judge court, and expedited Supreme Court review. Any adjudication shall be nationally uniform. Until Congress establishes that procedure, the three-judge court described in section 6(d) has exclusive jurisdiction.

“SECTION 9. EXTRAORDINARY EMERGENCIES.

“(a) Neither the President, Congress, a State, a territory, the District, a political subdivision, nor any officer may cancel a presidential election, extend an incumbent’s term, discard the votes of an unaffected jurisdiction, or selectively change voting or counting rules to favor or disfavor a candidate or class of voters.

“(b) Congress shall provide in advance for catastrophic events, including natural disaster, armed attack, epidemic, infrastructure failure, cyberattack, and mass displacement, that materially prevent voting or reliable preservation, counting, or transmission of ballots. An emergency rule shall—

“(1) be based on objective, public findings and the least restrictive means of protecting voting and accurate counting;

“(2) apply equally to similarly situated voters and tickets without regard to expected political effect;

“(3) be geographically and temporally limited to the affected population and period;

“(4) preserve all voting already completed and provide paper, communications, staffing, and Federal-administration fallbacks;

“(5) be immediately reviewable by a three-judge Federal court; and

“(6) terminate no later than the outside date fixed by law for completing a lawful canvass before the presidential term begins.

“(c) If an event not reasonably addressed by preexisting law makes a limited modification indispensable, only the National Election Authority with approval of a three-judge Federal court may order it. An order shall be supported by clear and convincing evidence, may not be based on partial election results or expected partisan effect, and shall be no broader than necessary to permit affected citizens to vote and to count their votes reliably.

“(d) The terms of the President and Vice President end when prescribed by the Twentieth Amendment notwithstanding an emergency, pending contest, incomplete canvass, or failure to certify. If no President-elect or Vice-President-elect has qualified when the term begins, succession and acting service shall proceed under that amendment and valid laws enacted pursuant to it. No emergency authority includes power to continue an expired presidential or vice-presidential term.

“SECTION 10. RIGHT TO FAIR REPRESENTATION.

“(a) Voters have a right to fair and effective representation in every election conducted from geographic districts by the United States, a State, the District constituting the seat of Government, a territory or possession, or a political subdivision thereof.

“(b) This section applies to districts used to elect Representatives in Congress; members of a State, District, or territorial legislature; and members of a county, parish, borough, municipal, school, utility, judicial, prosecutorial, special-purpose, or other governmental body chosen from districts. It applies to single-member, multimember, at-large, numbered-post, and mixed electoral structures when lines or geographic aggregation affect representation. It does not govern an election internal to a federally recognized Indian Tribe unless the Tribe affirmatively elects coverage, but it fully governs a non-Tribal government’s district that includes Tribal lands or citizens.

“(c) No covered districting plan or electoral structure may be enacted, maintained, administered, or replaced with the purpose or material effect of—

“(1) giving a political party, incumbent, candidate, or coalition materially greater and more durable representational power than would ordinarily result from its support and geographic distribution under reasonably available plans satisfying sections 12 through 14; provided that deviation from proportional representation, standing alone, does not establish a violation;

“(2) systematically burdening voters because of political belief, association, past vote, expected vote, residence, or support for a party or candidate;

“(3) cracking, packing, submerging, fragmenting, overconcentrating, or otherwise diluting a protected community’s equal opportunity to participate in the political process, nominate or support candidates, form effective coalitions, and elect representatives of its choice; or

“(4) evading this article through the choice between districts and at-large seats, the number or magnitude of districts, staggered terms, numbered posts, runoff requirements, annexation, deannexation, or another electoral device.

“(d) A partisan-entrenchment or protected-community-dilution claim may be proved by purpose or effect. Proof of both is not required. A claimant need not prove that an entire plan was controlled by a single motive, that a challenged classification appears on the face of a law, that every voter in a group shares the same preference, or that a different plan would guarantee electoral success.

“SECTION 11. INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMMISSIONS.

“(a) Each covered jurisdiction shall establish an independent redistricting commission to draw and adopt its districts. A legislature, legislative committee, governor, other elected officer, political party, or incumbent may not draw, select, adopt, amend, approve, reject, or veto a plan. A commission’s final plan shall have the force of law upon adoption, subject only to judicial review under this article.

“(b) A commission shall have an odd number of not fewer than nine voting members. No more than one-third may be affiliated with the same political party, and not fewer than one-third shall have been unaffiliated with any political party for the preceding five years. Its membership shall reasonably reflect the geographic, racial, ethnic, gender, age, disability, language, and Tribal diversity of the jurisdiction and shall include persons with demonstrated capacity for impartial public service, data analysis, voting rights, or community engagement.

“(c) During the period fixed by law before appointment and throughout service, a commissioner and the commissioner’s immediate family may not be a candidate or elected officeholder; an officer, employee, or paid consultant of a political party, campaign, or political committee; a registered lobbyist; an employee of a legislature or elected officer; or a person with a substantial financial relationship to such a person or entity. Congress may establish additional safeguards and reasonable lookback periods.

“(d) Commissioners shall be selected through a transparent process administered by a politically neutral screening body. That process shall create qualified pools reflecting the affiliation categories in subsection (b), permit the public to review applications and challenge ineligibility, use random selection for an initial group, and permit the initial group to select remaining members to improve diversity and expertise without altering partisan balance. No elected officer or political party may exercise a removal power. A commissioner may be removed only for incapacity, serious neglect of duty, substantial misconduct, or disqualifying conflict, after notice, hearing, and judicial review.

“(e) A small political subdivision may use a permanent regional commission, the commission of its State or territory, or a shared commission meeting this section rather than establish a separate body. If a jurisdiction fails timely to constitute a lawful commission or adopt a lawful plan, a Federal court shall appoint a temporary commission or nonpartisan special master. A legislature may not acquire mapping power by reason of that failure.

“(f) Each commission shall have independent staff, counsel, data, technical capacity, and sufficient regular funding. A jurisdiction may not abolish, defund, obstruct appointments to, or withhold information from a commission to transfer control to an interested official or preserve an unlawful plan.

“(g) For purposes of this article, the default affiliation categories are persons affiliated with the largest political party, persons affiliated with the second-largest political party, and persons unaffiliated with any political party for the preceding five years. A supermajority means two-thirds of the full authorized membership, including not fewer than three-fifths of the members in each category. Congress may adapt the first two categories for a jurisdiction lacking two political parties but may not reduce the required unaffiliated share.

“SECTION 12. DISTRICTING CRITERIA AND PROCEDURE.

“(a) A commission shall apply the following criteria in descending order of priority, except that a higher criterion may be adjusted only to the minimum extent reasonably necessary to satisfy another provision of this Constitution:

“(1) Equal population as required by this Constitution and laws consistent with it, using population data adjusted as provided by law to avoid assigning an incarcerated person’s residence to the place of confinement when the person has another last usual residence.

“(2) Compliance with the rights against racial, ethnic, language-minority, and protected-community dilution secured by this article and other provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

“(3) Contiguity by land or by a practical connection appropriate to islands and communities separated by water, without use of artificial point contiguity to connect otherwise disjoint populations.

“(4) Preservation of communities of interest defined by shared social, cultural, economic, occupational, educational, environmental, transportation, geographic, historical, or Tribal interests relevant to representation and legislation. A political party, incumbent, candidate, donor network, or relationship with an elected official is not a community of interest.

“(5) Reasonable respect for political-subdivision and neighborhood boundaries and for the cores of prior lawful districts, except where those boundaries or cores perpetuate dilution or entrenchment.

“(6) Geographic compactness measured through multiple methods suited to the jurisdiction’s natural and population geography. Compactness is a means of identifying unjustified line drawing and is not superior to protection of communities or equal electoral opportunity.

“(7) Electoral responsiveness, partisan symmetry, and absence of durable partisan or incumbent advantage, as provided in section 14.

“(b) A commission shall not consider an incumbent’s or candidate’s residence, political contributions, party registration, past election results, modeled partisan performance, or demographic proxy for party during initial construction of plans, except that protected-community information may be considered as section 13 permits. After initial plans are created using neutral criteria, political and electoral data shall be used to test, disclose, and correct partisan entrenchment, protected-community dilution, and other violations. Such data may not be used to select a more favorable plan for a party or incumbent.

“(c) The commission shall hold accessible hearings, permit community testimony and maps, publish its data and computational methods, disclose substantive communications, explain decisions under each ranked criterion, and allow time for public analysis. Deliberation and voting shall be public. Secret maps, undisclosed data, and off-record direction are prohibited.

“(d) Adoption shall require an affirmative supermajority that includes commissioners from each affiliation category. If no plan receives that vote by the deadline, a ranked vote among legally compliant finalists shall determine the plan under a neutral method fixed before plans are evaluated. No default may select a plan submitted or preferred by a legislature, governor, party, incumbent, or candidate.

“SECTION 13. PROTECTED COMMUNITIES AND ELECTORAL OPPORTUNITY.

“(a) For purposes of this article, a protected community is a racial, color, ethnic, language-minority, Indigenous, or Tribal community, including two or more such communities that have demonstrated an ability or potential to form an effective electoral coalition. Protection does not depend on citizenship in a federally recognized Tribe or on the Government’s use of a particular label for the community.

“(b) A plan or electoral structure has a materially dilutive effect when, under the totality of circumstances, it meaningfully reduces a protected community’s opportunity, compared with reasonably available lawful alternatives, to participate, form coalitions, nominate or support candidates, and elect representatives responsive to its choices. Relevant evidence includes racially or ethnically polarized voting; the community’s size, location, cohesion, and patterns of association; candidate access; responsiveness of elected officials; historical and continuing discrimination; socioeconomic barriers linked to discrimination; campaign appeals; turnout and registration barriers; the interaction of race or ethnicity with party; and alternative district configurations.

“(c) Liability does not require proof that—

“(1) discrimination was intentional, recent, or attributable to the defendant that enacted the challenged plan;

“(2) protected status can be statistically separated from political party, ideology, or another correlated characteristic;

“(3) the protected community can form a numerical majority in a single-member district;

“(4) the community is geographically compact under a predetermined formula;

“(5) voting is polarized in every election or that every community member supports the same candidates; or

“(6) the community is entitled to representation in exact proportion to population.

“(d) Preventing or remedying material dilution and securing equal electoral opportunity are compelling constitutional interests. A commission or court may consider race, color, ethnicity, language-minority status, Indigenous identity, Tribal community, and correlated political behavior when reasonably necessary to identify, prevent, or remedy dilution. Such consideration is constitutionally permissible when tailored in good faith to equal electoral opportunity, and a remedial district is not invalid merely because protected status was a substantial or predominant consideration. A jurisdiction may not invoke partisan advantage, incumbent protection, administratively convenient discrimination, or a preference for a less effective remedy as a neutral objective requiring continued dilution.

“(e) Proportionality is relevant evidence but neither an automatic entitlement nor a safe harbor. The election of some candidates preferred by a protected community does not bar a claim concerning other districts, coalition opportunity, durability, or an electoral structure that materially limits equal participation.

“SECTION 14. PARTISAN FAIRNESS AND JUDICIALLY MANAGEABLE STANDARDS.

“(a) A districting plan violates this article if partisan or incumbent advantage was a substantial purpose of material line-drawing choices or if the plan’s expected and durable effect is to give a party, incumbent class, or political coalition materially greater representational power than would ordinarily result from its level and geographic distribution of voter support under reasonably available plans satisfying the higher-ranked criteria in section 12.

“(b) Purpose may be shown by direct or circumstantial evidence, including deviations from neutral criteria, selective data, secrecy, irregular procedure, shifting explanations, unnecessary division or concentration of voters, interested-party communications, adoption of an outlier, and foreseeability. A lawful motive elsewhere does not immunize a materially tainted choice.

“(c) Effect shall be evaluated with multiple complementary forms of evidence, including partisan symmetry, expected seat share across a realistic range of statewide vote shares, responsiveness, durable bias, mean-median difference, wasted-vote analysis, cracking and packing, treatment of politically cohesive communities, comparison with prior plans, and comparison with a sufficiently large ensemble of computer-generated plans applying the same lawful criteria. No single statistic is indispensable or conclusive. Courts shall adapt the analysis for a jurisdiction electing too few members for a particular measure to be reliable.

“(d) A claimant establishes a prima facie violation by showing either a substantial improper purpose or a material and durable representational effect through the evidence in this section. The defendant must then prove by clear and convincing evidence that the challenged feature is necessary to satisfy a higher-ranked lawful criterion and that no reasonably available, materially less entrenching alternative would do so comparably. Administrative convenience, incumbent continuity, preserving a governing majority, political competitiveness for its own sake, and proportional allocation to parties are not higher-ranked criteria.

“(e) Claims under sections 10 through 14 present judicially manageable questions of constitutional right. They are not committed exclusively to a political branch and shall not be dismissed or denied on the ground that they concern politics, lack a judicially discoverable standard, require evaluation of competing maps or statistical evidence, or could also be addressed by legislation or the political process.

“SECTION 15. REDISTRICTING FREQUENCY AND EVASION.

“(a) A covered plan may be replaced only—

“(1) once following each decennial census;

“(2) when the number of districts or members allocated to the jurisdiction changes;

“(3) to comply with a final judicial judgment or a newly controlling provision of Federal law; or

“(4) to address a substantial annexation, deannexation, governmental consolidation, division, or boundary change that makes the existing plan unlawful or materially unrepresentative.

“(b) A replacement shall be limited to changes reasonably necessary for the event authorizing it. Mid-decade redistricting for partisan, incumbent, retaliatory, or pretextual advantage is prohibited. A change in political control, election results, party registration, voter preference, or the availability of more precise political data is not an authorizing event.

“(c) A jurisdiction may not evade this article by changing the size, term, election date, place designation, method of election, or powers of a body; transferring powers among offices; creating or abolishing a subdivision; manipulating census residence; or adopting another arrangement with the purpose or material effect prohibited by this article. A court shall consider substance rather than form and may restore powers, boundaries, or electoral opportunity necessary to remedy evasion.

“SECTION 16. JUDICIAL ENFORCEMENT AND REMEDIES.

“(a) An eligible voter subject to a covered plan, a candidate, a political party or association, a protected community or organization representing affected members, the Attorney General of the United States, and any person authorized by Congress shall have a cause of action in Federal court to enforce this article. The injury consists of vote denial or dilution, representational injury, discriminatory classification or burden, exclusion from a lawful process, exposure to administration under an unlawful plan, or denial of information or participation required by this article.

“(b) An action challenging a congressional, statewide, territorial, or District plan shall be heard by a district court of three judges. Congress may require three judges for another covered plan or class of claims and may provide direct review by the Supreme Court. Courts shall expedite districting cases sufficiently to permit a lawful plan and orderly election without allowing delay to reward a violator.

“(c) A court finding a violation shall grant effective relief. It may enjoin a plan or electoral device; establish deadlines; preserve records; direct a commission; appoint a temporary commission or special master; adopt a plan; alter district magnitude or election structure; reopen candidate qualification; adjust election procedures or dates; order a new election; and retain jurisdiction.

“(d) A legislature, governor, party, or incumbent shall not receive the first opportunity to replace an invalid plan. A commission may be afforded a brief opportunity if it acted independently and in good faith and can cure the violation without endangering a timely election. Any court-drawn plan shall apply the criteria in section 12 and be no more favorable to an incumbent or political party than reasonably available compliant alternatives.

“(e) Proximity to an election is a relevant administrative consideration but is not an absolute bar to relief. A court shall weigh the severity and clarity of the violation, responsibility for delay, feasibility of correction, reliance interests of voters and candidates, and the comparative harms of using an unlawful plan. A government may not create immunity by delaying enactment, disclosure, defense, appointment, funding, or compliance.

“(f) Prevailing private plaintiffs shall recover reasonable attorney’s fees, expert fees, and costs. Congress may authorize compensatory or statutory relief and civil penalties consistent with this article. No State, territory, District, political subdivision, commission, or officer has sovereign, legislative, or other governmental immunity from prospective, declaratory, or remedial relief authorized by this article.

“SECTION 17. ENFORCEMENT POWER, SUPREMACY, AND CONSTRUCTION.

“(a) Congress shall have power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation. That power includes authority to regulate every aspect of presidential elections and covered districting; establish substantive and procedural protections more protective than the constitutional minimum; require acts by State and local officers; create Federal administrative fallbacks; collect and publish data; prevent intimidation, corruption, fraud, discrimination, and foreign interference; provide civil and criminal remedies; abrogate governmental immunity; and make grants or expenditures necessary to secure the rights established herein.

“(b) This article and laws validly enacted pursuant to it are the supreme law of the land. They preempt every inconsistent provision of a State or territorial constitution, statute, initiative, referendum, compact, charter, ordinance, regulation, court rule, common-law doctrine, or official practice. No interstate compact or agreement may appoint or direct presidential electors, allocate the national vote by jurisdiction, or otherwise continue an electoral-vote mechanism after the operative date.

“(c) Nothing in this article shall be construed to narrow a right or remedy secured by another provision of this Constitution or a law of the United States, including protections against discrimination in voting. Where an earlier constitutional rule or judicial construction conflicts with an express right, standard, authorization, or remedy in this article, this article, as the later and more specific expression of the people’s sovereign will, controls to the extent of the conflict.

“(d) Congress may not enforce this article in a manner that authorizes unequal vote weight, partisan or incumbent entrenchment, protected-community dilution, cancellation of a national election, extension of an expired term, legislative adoption or veto of districting plans, or congressional rejection of the certified presidential vote.

“(e) If any provision of this article, or its application to a person, office, election, district, or circumstance, is held invalid, the remaining provisions and applications shall not be affected. A court shall preserve the direct national election, equal vote, independent redistricting, and anti-dilution purposes of this article to the maximum extent constitutionally possible.

“SECTION 18. EXPRESS REPEALS AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

“(a) On the presidential-election operative date specified in section 19—

“(1) Clauses 2, 3, and 4 of Section 1 of Article II are repealed and shall have no further force or effect;

“(2) the Twelfth Article of Amendment to this Constitution is repealed; and

“(3) the Twenty-Third Article of Amendment to this Constitution is repealed.

“(b) Section 4 of the Twentieth Article of Amendment is repealed on the presidential-election operative date specified in section 19. Section 3 of that amendment remains in force and applies to the President-elect and Vice-President-elect identified under this article.

“(c) Section 2 of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment is amended—

“(1) by striking ‘for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress’ and inserting ‘for President or Vice President of the United States, Senators or Representatives in Congress’;

“(2) by striking ‘male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States’ and inserting ‘inhabitants of such State who are citizens of the United States and eighteen years of age or older’;

“(3) by striking ‘number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age’ and inserting ‘number of such citizens shall bear to the whole number of citizens eighteen years of age or older’; and

“(4) by adding at the end: ‘The exception concerning participation in rebellion or other crime does not authorize denial or abridgment of the right to vote for President and Vice President secured by the Popular Will Amendment.’.

“(d) Section 3 of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment is amended by striking ‘, or elector of President and Vice-President’.

“(e) Section 1 of the Twenty-Fourth Article of Amendment is amended by striking ‘, for electors for President or Vice President’.

“(f) The repeals in subsection (a) abolish the offices and functions of presidential and vice-presidential electors, the meeting and voting of electors, electoral-vote certificates, contingent election by State delegations in the House, and contingent election of the Vice President by the Senate. No usage, statute, compact, practice, or implication shall preserve or recreate any such function.

“SECTION 19. EFFECTIVE DATES AND ORDERLY TRANSITION.

“(a) Except as otherwise provided, this article becomes effective upon ratification. Congress, Federal agencies, and every covered jurisdiction shall immediately undertake the planning, rulemaking, appointments, funding, acquisition, and public education necessary for timely implementation.

“(b) Sections 2 through 9 govern the entire election cycle culminating in the first regularly scheduled presidential general election held on or after the date that is thirty-six months after ratification, and every presidential election cycle thereafter. The ‘presidential-election operative date’ is the date thirty-six months before that first governed general election. The repeals in section 18(a) and (b) take effect on that date. Every nomination, filing, ballot-access, registration, voting, canvass, audit, recount, contest, certification, and preparatory act occurring on or after that date for a governed election is subject to this article. An election cycle culminating in an earlier general election, including its elector appointment, electoral-vote count, transition, and inauguration, shall be completed under the Constitution and laws applicable immediately before ratification. No repeal shall create a gap between the former method and the direct national method.

“(c) The term, qualifications, compensation, succession, powers, and duties of a President or Vice President serving when this article is ratified are not shortened, extended, or otherwise affected. The Twenty-Second and Twenty-Fifth Articles of Amendment remain in force.

“(d) The substantive rights and prohibitions in sections 10, 13, 14, 15, and 16 are enforceable upon ratification. Every jurisdiction shall establish a compliant commission not later than eighteen months after ratification and shall place a compliant plan into effect not later than thirty-six months after ratification or before the second regularly scheduled general election occurring after ratification, whichever is earlier. A court may require earlier relief when an existing plan violates the immediately effective substantive rights.

“(e) A member elected from a district before a replacement plan becomes effective may complete the term for which elected unless a court orders a new election as necessary to remedy a proven violation. No jurisdiction may use transition to conduct an additional election under an unlawful plan after a compliant plan reasonably could have been adopted.

“(f) Laws implementing this article may be enacted before or after ratification and may take effect conditionally upon ratification or an operative date. If an implementing law or appointment is absent, delayed, or invalid, the constitutional defaults, rights, duties, causes of action, and judicial remedies in this article remain operative.

“SECTION 20. RATIFICATION PERIOD.

“This article shall be inoperative unless ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission to the States by Congress.”.

SEC. 3. MODE AND PERIOD OF RATIFICATION.

(a) Mode.—Congress selects ratification by the legislatures of the several States as the mode of ratification of the proposed amendment.

(b) Period.—The proposed amendment shall be inoperative unless ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States not later than seven years after the date on which Congress submits it to the States.

(c) Transmission.—The Archivist of the United States shall promptly transmit a duly authenticated copy of this joint resolution to the Governor and presiding officers of each house of the legislature of every State and shall perform the duties prescribed by law concerning receipt, verification, publication, and certification of ratifications.

119th Congress — 2d Session

S. ____

A BILL

To implement the Popular Will Amendment, establish equal and nationally uniform procedures for the election of the President and Vice President, protect the security and verifiability of the national vote, provide for independent administration and judicial review, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

(a) Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Popular Will Act of 2026”.

(b) Table of contents.

The table of contents for this Act is as follows:

Secs. 1–5. General provisions.

Division A—Federal Election Administration Commission (secs. 101–112).

Division B—National Presidential Election.

Title I. National electorate and registration (secs. 201–210).

Title II. Candidate and joint-ticket access (secs. 221–229).

Title III. Uniform ballot and ranked-choice tabulation (secs. 241–249).

Title IV. Voting opportunities, mail, accessibility, and timeliness (secs. 261–270).

Title V. Paper records, security, and election evidence (secs. 281–287).

Title VI. Canvass, audits, recounts, and national certification (secs. 301–313).

Title VII. Contests and expedited judicial review (secs. 321–329).

Title VIII. Catastrophic emergencies (secs. 341–346).

Title IX. Death, withdrawal, substitution, and failure to qualify (secs. 351–357).

Division C—Fair Representation and the Prohibition of Gerrymandering.

Title XXXI. Immediate congressional redistricting reform (secs. 3101–3120).

Title XXXII. Post-ratification universal fair redistricting (secs. 3201–3210).

Title XXXIII. Post-ratification expansion and apportionment of the House (secs. 3301–3307).

Title XXXIV. Division-wide rules (secs. 3401–3404).

Division D—Enforcement, Rights, and Administration (secs. 401–412).

Division E—Conditional Conforming Amendments (secs. 501–508).

Division F—Ratification, Transition, and Effective Dates (secs. 601–608).

SEC. 2. CONSTITUTIONAL PREDICATES AND CONDITIONAL OPERATION.

(a) Two instruments.

Congress finds and declares that—

1. this Act is an Act of Congress and is not itself a proposal, ratification, or certification of an amendment to the Constitution;

2. the direct election of the President and Vice President, the abolition of presidential electors, the participation of citizens residing in territories by virtue of territorial residence, and the displacement of the Twelfth and Twenty-third Amendments require the ratification and operative effect of the Popular Will Amendment; and

3. no provision of this Act shall be construed to accomplish by ordinary legislation what the Constitution, before ratification, reserves to the amendment process.

(b) Conditional provisions.

For purposes of this Act, the term “contingent presidential provision” means—

1. division B;

2. sections 501 through 507; and

3. a provision of division A or D, but only to the extent that the provision is applied to conduct or enforce the direct national presidential election rather than to preparation, an independently authorized function under existing law, or a function under division C.

A contingent presidential provision shall have no force with respect to the selection of a President or Vice President before the contingent presidential-election effective date defined in section 603(a). A provision that expressly prescribes a later effective date shall have no force before that later date.

(c) Present constitutional authority.

Before that date, the Commission may prepare standards, award voluntary grants, conduct research and testing, develop secure systems, assist State and local governments, administer existing Federal election law, and take any other action independently authorized by article I, section 4, article II as then in force, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the Spending Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, or another existing source of Federal authority.

(d) No premature displacement.

Until the contingent presidential-election effective date, the appointment, meeting, voting, transmission, and counting of presidential electors for an election governed by prior law shall remain governed by the Constitution and laws then applicable, including any savings provision in division F.

SEC. 3. PURPOSES.

The purposes of this Act are to implement one equally weighted national presidential vote and majority ranked-choice result; provide uniform, accessible, secure, paper-based registration, ballot access, voting, canvass, audit, recount, contest, and certification; prevent geography, partisan control, official refusal, congressional objection, administrative deadlock, emergency, or candidate unavailability from canceling lawful votes; and supply self-executing Federal fallbacks while preserving lawful State and local administration.

SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

1. Active ballot.—The term “active ballot” means, in a tabulation round, a valid ballot containing a valid ranking for at least one continuing joint ticket and assigned in that round to the elector’s highest-ranked continuing joint ticket.

2. Amendment.—The term “Amendment” means the amendment to the Constitution proposed by the joint resolution popularly denominated the Popular Will Amendment that has become valid as part of the Constitution under article V, whether or not ministerial Federal certification has yet issued.

3. Ballot.—The term “ballot” means any lawful paper instrument, including a provisional, mail, Federal write-in, or accessible paper ballot, on which an elector records presidential preferences.

4. Ballot of record.—The term “ballot of record” means the human-readable, voter-verifiable paper ballot whose lawful marks control in an audit, recount, or contest.

5. Cast.—A ballot is “cast” when the elector timely delivers it to an authorized election official, deposits it in an authorized receptacle or mail system, or completes another act that Federal law designates as placing the ballot beyond the elector’s unilateral control, without regard to the later date on which the election official receives or canvasses it.

6. Commission.—The term “Commission” means the Federal Election Administration Commission established under section 101.

7. Continuing joint ticket.—The term “continuing joint ticket” means a certified or declared write-in joint ticket that has not been eliminated from the national tabulation.

8. Election day.—For a regularly scheduled national presidential election, the term “election day” means the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in every fourth year succeeding an election of a President and Vice President, as lawfully modified under title VIII, but does not mean that all timely cast ballots must be received or canvassed on that day. For a special national presidential election, the term means the nationally fixed final day of voting under section 244(f), 245(b), 245(f)(4), 327, 355(b), or 357, as lawfully modified under title VIII.

9. Election official.—The term “election official” means a public officer or employee responsible for administering or enforcing any part of the national presidential election.

10. Elector.—The term “elector” means an individual eligible to vote in the national presidential election and does not mean a presidential elector under the superseded electoral-vote system.

11. Exhausted ballot.—The term “exhausted ballot” means a valid ballot that is not active in a tabulation round because it contains no valid ranking for a continuing joint ticket.

12. Joint ticket.—The term “joint ticket” means, at initial certification, one candidate for President and one candidate for Vice President who have consented to appear and be tabulated together as an indivisible choice, and includes that same ticket as lawfully reconstituted under section 245(f) or title IX with a vice-presidential vacancy.

13. National presidential election.—The term means every stage of a presidential election governed by the Amendment and this Act.

14. Overseas elector.—The term “overseas elector” means an eligible citizen outside the United States on election day, whether temporarily or indefinitely, including an individual covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.

15. Protected election record.—The term “protected election record” means any record, ballot, data, code, credential, log, or physical evidence material to determining or verifying the result.

16. Rank.—The term “rank” means an elector’s expression that one joint ticket is preferred at a specified ordinal level to tickets placed at lower ordinal levels.

17. State.—Except where the context specifically concerns constitutional Statehood or representation in Congress, the term “State” includes each of the several States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and every other territory or possession subject to the sovereignty of the United States.

18. State chief election official.—The term “State chief election official” means the single officer designated in a State implementation plan to coordinate compliance with this Act, without power to alter a local return or national result except through the procedures expressly provided.

19. Valid ballot.—The term “valid ballot” means a timely ballot of an eligible elector containing a discernible presidential ranking, notwithstanding any immaterial error.

20. Voting jurisdiction.—The term “voting jurisdiction” means the governmental unit that initially canvasses ballots under State law or a lawful Commission-approved implementation plan.

SEC. 5. RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.

(a) Equal national treatment.

A State may use different procedures for an election contest other than President and Vice President, but may not impose on the national presidential contest an additional qualification, deadline, rejection rule, weighting rule, or burden inconsistent with this Act.

(b) Rights as floors; uniform rules as floors and ceilings.

The rights to register, obtain and cast a ballot, receive assistance, receive notice, and cure a defect are minimum protections. A rule governing who may vote in the national contest, which joint tickets appear, when a ballot is timely, how a ranking is interpreted, how ballots are tabulated, or how the result is audited, recounted, contested, and certified is both a floor and a ceiling and shall be uniform throughout the United States.

(c) Protection of lawful voters.

No elector’s ballot may be rejected because an election official failed to perform a duty, used an incorrect form, supplied erroneous information, or violated a deadline, unless counting that particular ballot would itself establish that the elector was ineligible, the ballot was untimely cast, the ballot was not personally executed, or the same elector would be counted more than once.

(d) Neutrality; other elections; Tribes.

Authority shall be exercised under published, candidate-neutral criteria without regard to expected political effect. This Act neither requires nor forbids ranked-choice voting for another office and does not alter a federally recognized Indian Tribe’s authority over internal elections. Eligible Tribal citizens retain full national presidential voting rights.

(e) Judicial district for a territory or possession without a Federal district court.

For purposes of this Act and the amendments made by this Act, if a person, event, or covered jurisdiction is located in a territory or possession that is not within any Federal judicial district, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia shall be deemed to be the district in which that person resides, that event occurred, and that jurisdiction is located. This subsection supplements and does not displace a provision assigning exclusive jurisdiction or venue to the District of Columbia or to another specifically identified court.

SEC. 101. ESTABLISHMENT AND STATUS.

(a) Establishment.

There is established in the executive branch an independent establishment to be known as the Federal Election Administration Commission.

(b) Limited mission.

The Commission shall administer and enforce this Act and the Federal election-administration statutes transferred or assigned to it. The Commission may not regulate campaign speech, political editorial judgment, or campaign finance except to the extent another Act expressly assigns such authority.

(c) Independence.

In performing a duty under this Act, the Commission, a commissioner, the Executive Director, and an employee may not be subject to direction or supervision by the President, an officer of the Executive Office of the President, Congress, a political party, a candidate, or a State officer, except through an appointment, appropriation, rule of general law, judicial judgment, or oversight process expressly authorized by law.

(d) Constitutional authorization.

On and after ratification of the Amendment, the independence, fixed terms, cause-based removal, ministerial certification authority, and adjudicatory functions specified in this Act shall be deemed authorized by the Amendment notwithstanding an inconsistent construction of article II made before ratification.

(e) Constitutional designation.

The Commission is the independent National Election Authority required and authorized by section 5 of the Amendment.

SEC. 102. MEMBERSHIP; APPOINTMENT; QUALIFICATIONS; TERMS.

(a) Membership.

The Commission shall be composed of 7 commissioners appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

(b) Qualifications.

Each commissioner shall—

1. be a citizen of the United States;

2. possess demonstrated expertise in at least one of election administration, voting rights, disability access, statistics and auditing, cybersecurity, public administration, or election law;

3. have a record of integrity, impartial administration, and respect for lawful voting rights; and

4. during service, hold no other office or employment and participate in no campaign, political-party management, fundraising, or endorsement of a candidate for public office.

(c) Professional diversity.

So far as practicable, the Commission shall include 2 members experienced in State or local election administration and at least 1 member experienced in each of voting rights, cybersecurity, statistical auditing, and disability access. A member may satisfy more than 1 category, but the Commission shall remain multidisciplinary.

(d) Terms.

1. A commissioner shall serve one term of 9 years and may not be reappointed.

2. Terms shall be staggered so that, to the greatest extent practicable, no more than one term expires in a calendar year.

3. A commissioner may continue to serve for not more than 1 year after expiration until a successor qualifies.

4. A person appointed to fill a vacancy shall serve the remainder of the term and may be appointed to one full term only if fewer than 3 years remained at the time of appointment.

(e) Initial appointments.

For the initial Commission, the President shall designate terms of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 years. An initial term shorter than 6 years does not count as a full term for paragraph (d)(1).

(f) Chair and vice chair.

The commissioners shall annually select a Chair and Vice Chair from different political-affiliation categories described in section 103. Neither may serve in the same office in consecutive years.

SEC. 103. POLITICAL-BALANCE, ETHICS, AND INDEPENDENCE REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Political balance.

1. Not more than 2 commissioners may be affiliated with the same political party.

2. At least 1 commissioner shall be affiliated with each of the 2 political parties whose presidential tickets received the largest and second-largest first-choice totals at the preceding national presidential election.

3. At least 3 commissioners shall, during the 5 years preceding appointment, have been unaffiliated with either party described in paragraph (2).

4. For an appointment made before the final result of the first national presidential election governed by this Act, the comparisons in paragraphs (2) and (3) shall instead use the 2 political parties whose presidential nominees received the largest and second-largest aggregate nationwide popular-vote totals in the most recent general election for presidential electors, as derived from the final official canvasses of the several States and the District of Columbia and compiled by the Election Assistance Commission or, if it is unavailable, the Archivist.

5. If the identity or order of the 2 parties cannot be determined from final official totals, the Archivist, with technical assistance from the Election Assistance Commission, shall make a public ministerial determination using the greatest aggregate nationwide presidential vote and shall resolve an exact equality by a public auditable lot. A vacancy, dissolution, or name change of a party does not permit the other largest-party category to occupy the vacant category or reduce the minimum number of commissioners unaffiliated with both categories.

6. Political affiliation shall be determined from the totality of objective evidence, including registration, party office, employment, campaign management, and substantial contributions, and not solely from a last-minute change of registration or self-description.

(b) Disqualifying interests.

During the 5 years preceding appointment, a commissioner may not have been—

1. a candidate for Federal or statewide office;

2. an officer or paid employee of a political party or candidate committee;

3. a registered Federal lobbyist;

4. a person who directed a substantial expenditure intended to elect or defeat a presidential candidate; or

5. an immediate family member or business partner of a then-serving President, Vice President, national party chair, or presidential campaign manager.

(c) Ethics.

The Commission shall adopt rules at least as protective as the criminal conflict-of-interest laws, the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, and Federal financial-disclosure law. A commissioner or employee shall recuse from a matter involving a personal financial interest, recent employer, close family member, or other circumstance in which a reasonable person would question impartiality.

(d) Post-service restriction.

For 4 years after service, a commissioner may not be a candidate for partisan elective office, serve as a compensated officer or employee of a political party or Federal candidate, or lobby the Commission.

SEC. 104. VACANCIES, QUORUM, VOTING, AND DEFAULTS.

(a) No impairment by vacancy.

A vacancy does not impair the authority of the Commission, the Executive Director, or an automatic statutory process.

(b) Quorum.

Four commissioners constitute a quorum. If fewer than 4 commissioners are in office, the Commission may continue ministerial operations through the Executive Director and may seek necessary orders from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

(c) Voting.

Except as otherwise provided—

1. final regulations and an emergency determination require 5 affirmative votes, including at least 1 commissioner affiliated with each of the 2 largest-party categories and at least 1 commissioner outside both categories;

2. adjudication of an administrative complaint requires 4 affirmative votes; and

3. routine administrative action requires a majority of commissioners participating.

If a vacancy leaves either largest-party category without a commissioner in office, the missing cross-category concurrence in paragraph (1) may not be supplied by the other category. During that vacancy, an action described in paragraph (1) requires 5 affirmative votes including at least 2 commissioners unaffiliated with both categories, or an order of the three-judge court upon clear and convincing evidence that timely neutral action is legally required and the vacancy was not created or maintained to evade the cross-category requirement.

(d) Ministerial acts not subject to vote.

The aggregation of authenticated returns, execution of the statutory ranked-choice algorithm, publication of mathematical results, initiation of a mandatory audit or recount, and issuance of a certificate conforming to those results are ministerial acts. A commissioner vote may not approve, reject, revise, stay, or delay such an act.

(e) Default upon failure to decide.

If the Commission fails to decide a petition or issue a required rule by a statutory deadline—

1. an expressly stated statutory default governs;

2. the Executive Director shall perform any ministerial duty;

3. a person aggrieved may obtain immediate review under title VII; and

4. the failure may not be construed to authorize a State rule, prior practice, or discretionary choice inconsistent with the uniform national standard.

SEC. 105. REMOVAL AND DISCIPLINE.

(a) Removal.

The President may remove a commissioner only for substantial neglect of duty, knowing violation of law, malfeasance in office, permanent incapacity, or conviction of an offense involving dishonesty or breach of public trust.

(b) Notice.

A removal shall be stated in a signed writing specifying the evidence and legal ground and shall be transmitted immediately to the commissioner, Congress, and the Inspector General and published in the Federal Register, except properly classified attachments.

(c) Review.

The removed commissioner may obtain expedited review before a three-judge court in the District of Columbia. The court may reinstate the commissioner if the stated cause is unsupported by clear and convincing evidence or is pretextual.

(d) Suspension.

The Commission, by 5 votes, may suspend a commissioner from participation for not more than 30 days upon clear evidence that continued participation presents an immediate threat to election records, confidential systems, or an impartial proceeding. A longer suspension requires a court order.

SEC. 106. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GENERAL COUNSEL, CHIEF DATA OFFICER, AND INSPECTOR GENERAL.

(a) Executive Director.

The Commission shall appoint a nonpartisan Executive Director by 5 votes for a renewable 6-year term. The Executive Director shall be the chief operating officer, administer personnel and grants, and perform ministerial functions assigned by this Act.

(b) Qualifications and removal.

The Executive Director shall possess substantial professional election-administration experience and may be removed by the Commission only for cause by 5 votes, after notice and opportunity to respond.

(c) General Counsel.

The Commission shall appoint a General Counsel by 5 votes. The General Counsel may litigate in the name of the Commission, issue publicly available legal interpretations subject to Commission review, and refer suspected criminal conduct to the Attorney General.

(d) Chief Data and Audit Officer.

The Commission shall appoint a Chief Data and Audit Officer, selected on professional qualifications without regard to political affiliation, who shall maintain the national election-data standards, supervise risk-limiting audits and recount calculations, validate tabulation software, and publish reproducibility materials.

(e) Inspector General.

There shall be an Inspector General for the Commission appointed and removable in the manner applicable to designated Federal entities, except that an investigation of national certification, protected election records, or commissioner misconduct may not be terminated or materially limited by the Commission.

(f) Career succession.

The Commission shall maintain a public order of succession of at least 5 Senate-confirmed or senior career officers. Political appointees outside the Commission and employees of the Executive Office of the President may not enter that order.

SEC. 107. DUTIES AND POWERS.

(a) Duties.

The Commission shall—

1. promulgate uniform standards and forms required by this Act;

2. certify national joint tickets and declared write-in tickets;

3. maintain the secure national registration-matching and duplicate-prevention service;

4. certify voting systems and national tabulation software;

5. receive and validate State returns and cast-vote records;

6. conduct the national ranked-choice tabulation;

7. direct and supervise audits and recounts;

8. issue the ministerial national certificate;

9. administer grants and reimburse reasonable implementation costs;

10. investigate civil violations and refer criminal violations;

11. provide technical, accessibility, language, cybersecurity, and continuity assistance;

12. maintain public election-data, decision, complaint, and audit repositories; and

13. perform transferred Election Assistance Commission functions.

(b) Powers.

The Commission may—

1. require reports and records reasonably necessary to administer this Act;

2. issue subpoenas by 4 votes, enforceable in Federal district court;

3. administer oaths and take testimony;

4. enter cooperative agreements with Federal, State, territorial, local, and Tribal entities;

5. procure independent laboratories, cybersecurity services, and audit expertise;

6. deploy nonpartisan observers and technical teams;

7. seek temporary, declaratory, mandamus, and other relief in Federal court; and

8. prescribe secure data formats, cryptographic authentication, access controls, and retention requirements.

(c) Limits.

The Commission may not—

1. direct how an elector ranks a ticket;

2. compel disclosure of a secret ballot;

3. alter a lawful ballot or authenticated return except through a canvass, audit, recount, or judgment authorized by law;

4. delay a ministerial certificate for policy, partisan, or political reasons; or

5. condition a right protected by this Act on discretionary grant participation.

SEC. 108. RULEMAKING AND GUIDANCE.

(a) Rulemaking.

Except for an emergency rule under subsection (d), a rule shall be issued under section 553 of title 5, United States Code, after not fewer than 60 days for public comment and public technical hearings reasonably accessible to election officials, voters with disabilities, language-minority communities, cybersecurity experts, statisticians, candidates, and members of the uniformed services.

(b) Evidence and response.

A final rule shall state the evidence, alternatives considered, expected administrative burden, security and access effects, and response to material comments. Source code, test data, technical specifications, and statistical methods incorporated into a rule shall be public unless a narrowly identified portion must temporarily be withheld to protect an active vulnerability.

(c) Guidance.

Guidance may explain but may not amend a substantive right, deadline, tabulation rule, recount trigger, or ground for rejecting a ballot.

(d) Emergency rule.

Upon a documented imminent threat to voting or protected election records, the Commission may issue a temporary candidate-neutral rule for not more than 90 days. The rule shall use the least restrictive effective measure, preserve paper voting, be published immediately with reasons, and receive expedited judicial review. An emergency rule may not change candidate qualification, the ranked-choice algorithm, the national winner, or the January 20 termination of a presidential term.

(e) Rule freeze.

No final rule that materially burdens registration, ballot access, casting, receipt, tabulation, or proof of eligibility may first take effect during the 180 days preceding election day, except to expand access, remedy a final judgment, or respond to an emergency under subsection (d).

SEC. 109. STATE, TERRITORIAL, LOCAL, AND TRIBAL COORDINATION.

(a) Administration preserved.

State, territorial, and local officials shall administer registration and voting, canvass ballots, and maintain custody, subject to the uniform Federal standards of this Act.

(b) Implementation plans.

Each State chief election official shall submit a public implementation plan describing responsible jurisdictions, voting opportunities, mail and cure procedures, equipment, accessibility, security, canvass, audit capacity, and continuity. Commission approval confirms compliance but is not a condition on an elector’s rights.

(c) Consultation.

The Commission shall maintain advisory bodies representing State and local administrators, Tribal governments, disability communities, language-minority communities, military and overseas voters, cybersecurity specialists, statisticians, and election workers. An advisory body may not veto a rule or certificate.

(d) Federal fallback.

If a State is unable or unwilling to administer a material duty, the Commission shall, after notice where practicable—

1. contract with other public jurisdictions;

2. deploy temporary Federal registration, ballot, or canvass facilities;

3. appoint a nonpartisan Federal administrator or seek a judicial receiver;

4. provide equipment, personnel, and funds; and

5. take the least intrusive action necessary to preserve every lawful vote.

The fallback shall not transfer ordinary control of State elections unrelated to the national presidential contest.

SEC. 110. TRANSPARENCY, DATA, AND PRIVACY.

(a) Open proceedings.

Commission meetings, votes, calendars, written communications concerning a pending rule or national result, contracts, grants, datasets, audit seeds, statistical code, and decisions shall be public, subject only to narrowly applicable privacy, law-enforcement, procurement, and cybersecurity protections.

(b) Ex parte contacts.

A substantive communication by a candidate, campaign, party, White House official, Member of Congress, or State officer concerning certification, audit, recount, or contest shall be placed in a public log within 24 hours, with any protected personal or security information redacted.

(c) Data minimization.

The Commission shall collect only information reasonably necessary to perform a statutory function; use it only for that function, election security, or enforcement; encrypt it in transit and at rest; maintain immutable access logs; and delete personally identifiable copies when the lawful retention period ends.

(d) No national public voter file.

Nothing in this Act authorizes publication of a voter’s address, date of birth, citizenship evidence, signature, identification number, ballot-return history linked to identity, or voting choices.

(e) Privacy-preserving election data.

Public cast-vote and audit data shall be sufficient to reproduce the national tabulation while being shuffled and stripped of timestamps, sequence numbers, and geographic detail that, alone or in combination, could reasonably reveal an individual ballot. The Commission shall publish cryptographic commitments permitting verification against the protected originals.

SEC. 111. CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS AND AUTOMATIC ADMINISTRATIVE SUCCESSION.

(a) Continuity plan.

The Commission shall maintain geographically distributed secure facilities, redundant public repositories, offline paper and data backups, tested succession orders, alternative communications, and the capacity to conduct every ministerial function during a cyberattack, disaster, loss of headquarters, vacancy, or denial of appropriations.

(b) No single point of failure.

No cryptographic key, credential, database, contract, person, office, or facility may have unilateral capacity to alter, destroy, prevent publication of, or render unavailable the national result.

(c) Automatic succession.

If the Chair, Executive Director, or another responsible officer fails to perform a ministerial duty by the statutory deadline, the next available officer in the public succession order shall perform it without further appointment or vote. If every Commission officer in that order is unavailable, disabled, or refuses, the Archivist shall perform the omitted administrative or ministerial duty, with technical assistance from the Election Assistance Commission, and may make an application for emergency judicial approval where this Act requires such approval, but may not exercise a judicial duty. If the Archivist does not timely act or that office is vacant or disabled, the Inspector General or any person directly affected shall immediately petition the three-judge court for appointment of a nonpartisan special master to perform the omitted duty under the court’s supervision.

(d) No interruption from lapse in appropriations.

Functions necessary to permit voting, protect records, conduct a canvass, audit or recount, litigate a contest, or issue a certificate are emergency and excepted functions and shall continue during a lapse in annual appropriations.

SEC. 112. FUNDING AND STATE REIMBURSEMENT.

(a) Permanent funding.

Amounts necessary for the Commission to perform the ministerial national-election, cybersecurity, audit, recount, fallback, and certification duties of this Act are appropriated from the Treasury, from money not otherwise appropriated, and remain available until expended.

(b) State reimbursement.

The Commission shall reimburse each State and voting jurisdiction for reasonable, documented incremental costs of complying with this Act, including paper ballots, accessible equipment, postage, early voting, staffing, security, audit, recount, language access, and emergency facilities.

(c) No waiver of rights.

Failure to apply for, receive, account for, or repay funds does not excuse compliance or diminish an elector’s right. The Commission shall use direct procurement or Federal fallback rather than permit a funding dispute to impair voting.

SEC. 201. EQUAL RIGHT TO VOTE IN NATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

(a) Right.

On and after the contingent presidential-election effective date, every eligible citizen has the personal, fundamental, and enforceable right to register, receive a ballot, cast one equally weighted vote, have each valid ranking tabulated under the same national rule, and have the ballot included in every applicable canvass, audit, recount, and certificate.

(b) Equal weight.

No government may weight, discount, multiply, aggregate, transfer between persons, or exclude a vote because of the elector’s State, territory, District, locality, place abroad, method of lawful voting, disability, language, party affiliation, or custodial status.

(c) Joint ticket.

The vote is cast for a joint ticket for President and Vice President. No separate vice-presidential vote, presidential elector, State allocation, winner-take-all rule, congressional district allocation, or State bonus may be used.

SEC. 202. ELIGIBILITY; PROHIBITED DISQUALIFICATIONS.

(a) Eligibility.

An individual is eligible if the individual—

1. is a citizen of the United States;

2. will be at least 18 years of age at the close of election day;

3. personally executes the ballot, with lawful assistance if requested; and

4. has not already had another ballot counted in the same national presidential election.

(b) Prohibited grounds.

Eligibility may not be denied or abridged because of—

1. race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, language, religion, political belief, disability, or economic status;

2. residence in the District of Columbia, a territory or possession, an Indian reservation, public housing, an institution, a shelter, or no fixed dwelling;

3. temporary or permanent presence outside the United States;

4. guardianship, conservatorship, adjudication of disability, need for assistance, or inability to sign by hand;

5. arrest, detention, incarceration, criminal accusation, conviction, probation, parole, or unpaid fine, fee, restitution, or other monetary obligation;

6. failure to vote in a prior election; or

7. failure to satisfy a State durational-residence, property, taxpayer, documentary-identification, or party-registration requirement.

(c) Personal execution and assistance.

An elector may receive assistance from a person of the elector’s choice other than the elector’s employer or union representative, or from a trained nonpartisan official. Assistance shall be directed by the elector, may not substitute another person’s choices, and shall be recorded only as to the fact of assistance, not the selections made.

(d) No mental-capacity test.

No literacy, knowledge, reasoning, guardianship, or mental-capacity test may be imposed. An elector who can communicate a choice by any reliable means is entitled to have that choice privately and accurately recorded.

SEC. 203. RESIDENCE AND OVERSEAS VOTING RULES.

(a) Administrative residence only.

Residence determines the office that administers an elector’s ballot and any nonpresidential contests; it does not affect the weight or destination of the presidential vote.

(b) Residents of a State or territory.

An elector residing within the United States shall vote through the jurisdiction of the elector’s principal dwelling. A traditional street address, fixed duration, intent to remain permanently, or property interest is not required. A shelter, described location, institution, reservation address, or other place where the elector usually sleeps is sufficient.

(c) Overseas citizens with prior residence.

An overseas elector may register through the last jurisdiction in the United States in which the elector had a principal dwelling, without retaining an intent to return and without becoming subject, solely by voting, to a State tax or residence obligation.

(d) Citizens who never resided in the United States.

An eligible citizen who has never resided in the United States may—

1. use the last United States residence of a parent, legal guardian, or spouse; or

2. enroll in the Federal Overseas Presidential Roll administered by the Commission if no such residence can reasonably be established.

A ballot cast through the Federal Overseas Presidential Roll shall contain only the national presidential contest.

(e) Choice and consistency.

If more than one administrative residence could apply, the elector shall select one in good faith. The choice remains effective until changed prospectively and may not be used to reject a timely ballot merely because another jurisdiction also created a registration record.

SEC. 204. AUTOMATIC, ONLINE, PORTABLE, AND SAME-DAY REGISTRATION.

(a) Automatic registration.

Each Federal and State agency designated by the Commission shall securely transmit the minimum information necessary to register an apparently eligible citizen or update an existing record when the person interacts with the agency, unless the person affirmatively declines after receiving a clear, nonpartisan notice.

(b) No penalty for agency error.

A person automatically registered in good faith is not criminally or civilly liable because an agency erroneously determined eligibility. The ballot shall be counted if the person was in fact eligible when voting.

(c) Online registration.

Each State shall provide an accessible online system permitting registration, update, address change, party information if relevant to other contests, mail-ballot request, status review, and correction. The system may not require a motor-vehicle record, handwritten signature, or commercial identity account as the exclusive means of access.

(d) Same-day registration.

An eligible citizen may register and vote at any early-voting site or election-day voting site through the close of voting. The jurisdiction may use real-time duplicate checking and a provisional ballot where necessary, but may not require the elector to return on another day.

(e) Portability.

A registration remains effective upon an intrastate move. Upon an interstate or territorial move, an election official shall register the elector at the current residence and cancel only the superseded administrative record after the elector’s ballot status is reconciled.

(f) Deadline for advance processing.

A State may establish an advance-registration deadline not earlier than 30 days before election day for ordinary processing, but same-day registration under subsection (d) remains available thereafter.

(g) Confirmation.

An elector shall receive prompt confirmation, means to inspect the nonconfidential record, and notice of any deficiency with a method to cure electronically, by mail, by telephone with authentication, or in person.

SEC. 205. LIST MAINTENANCE AND PROTECTION AGAINST ERRONEOUS REMOVAL.

(a) Permissible maintenance.

A registration may be canceled only upon—

1. the elector’s authenticated written request;

2. reliable official evidence of death;

3. a final determination of loss or absence of United States citizenship after notice and opportunity to respond;

4. confirmation that the record is a duplicate of another current record for the same individual; or

5. individualized evidence that the record was created fraudulently by a person other than an eligible elector.

(b) Prohibited bases.

No cancellation or challenge may rest solely on nonvoting, returned nonforwardable mail, foreclosure, mass mail challenge, name similarity, commercial database, citizenship metadata not verified by the responsible agency, or another person’s allegation unsupported by personal knowledge and documentary evidence.

(c) Notice and hearing.

Except upon reliable evidence of death or the elector’s request, cancellation requires notice stating the evidence, at least 30 days to respond when practicable, and a free administrative appeal. A pending challenge does not prevent provisional voting.

(d) Ninety-day protection.

During the 90 days before election day, a systematic removal program may not operate, except to process death records, voluntary requests, individualized duplicate reconciliation, or a final judicial order. Corrections and additions remain permitted.

(e) Restoration.

If an eligible elector was erroneously removed, the official shall restore the registration immediately, count any timely provisional ballot, notify the elector, and preserve a record for enforcement.

SEC. 206. IDENTITY, CITIZENSHIP, AND ELIGIBILITY VERIFICATION.

(a) Attestation.

A signed or securely authenticated attestation under penalty of perjury is sufficient to establish identity and citizenship for registration absent individualized, reliable evidence to the contrary.

(b) Identification at voting.

An elector may establish identity using any one of the following:

1. a government, educational, Tribal, employer, residential-facility, or financial document bearing the elector’s name;

2. an official voter card, electronic credential, signature or identifier match;

3. an attestation by another registered elector or election official with personal knowledge; or

4. the elector’s attestation, followed where necessary by provisional verification.

No photo, fee-bearing document, fixed address, or document unavailable to the elector may be an exclusive requirement.

(c) Citizenship inquiry.

Documentary citizenship evidence may be requested only upon specific reliable information that the applicant is not a citizen. The applicant shall receive the evidence, a reasonable opportunity to correct an agency record or provide alternative proof, and a provisional ballot. Naturalization data shall be updated promptly and may not be used selectively.

(d) Materiality.

An immaterial mismatch, transposed digit, changed name, abbreviation, omitted middle name, signature variation, or clerical error does not establish ineligibility.

SEC. 207. PROVISIONAL AND FAIL-SAFE VOTING.

(a) Ballot required.

If eligibility, registration, identity, address, mail-ballot status, or voting location is disputed or cannot immediately be verified, the elector shall be offered a provisional national presidential ballot without delay.

(b) Scope.

The presidential portion shall be counted if the individual was eligible and timely cast the ballot, regardless of precinct or county. Other contests may be counted to the extent provided by applicable law.

(c) Duplicate reconciliation.

A provisional ballot may not be rejected merely because a mail ballot was issued. The official shall determine whether another ballot was counted and shall count exactly one ballot under section 209.

(d) Notice and cure.

The elector shall receive a receipt that does not reveal choices, free remote status access, notice of any curable deficiency within 24 hours after discovery, and an opportunity to cure through the tenth day after election day.

(e) Written disposition.

For each rejected provisional ballot, the official shall record a specific statutory reason and provide it privately to the elector and in deidentified aggregate form to the Commission.

SEC. 208. UNIFORMED-SERVICES AND OVERSEAS CITIZENS.

(a) UOCAVA rights preserved and expanded.

The rights in this Act supplement and may not narrow the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. Each covered elector shall receive electronic access to registration and a blank ranked presidential ballot, a paper-return option with prepaid expedited postage, ballot tracking, and the Federal ranked write-in backup under section 267.

(b) No intent to return.

No jurisdiction may require an overseas elector to maintain or express an intent to return.

(c) Dependents and citizens never resident.

Eligible dependents and citizens who never resided in a State shall be served under section 203(d), without loss of a presidential vote because State law does not recognize their domicile.

(d) Hostile or remote locations.

The Commission and Presidential designee under UOCAVA shall provide secure blank-ballot delivery, diplomatic and military collection, tracking, and expedited physical return suited to hostile, deployed, maritime, polar, and other remote locations. No voted ballot may be returned through the Internet.

SEC. 209. DUPLICATE PREVENTION AND BALLOT PRECEDENCE.

(a) One counted ballot.

An elector may not have more than one presidential ballot counted, but issuance, replacement, or provisional casting of multiple ballots is not by itself unlawful.

(b) Precedence.

If an elector lawfully casts more than one ballot, the following rules apply before separation of identity from ballot choices:

1. a later timely in-person ballot supersedes an earlier mail or provisional ballot;

2. among timely mail ballots, the last ballot affirmatively designated by the elector as a replacement supersedes an earlier ballot;

3. if order cannot be determined, the first ballot received is counted and the others are canceled unopened; and

4. no previously anonymized, validly counted ballot may be traced to reveal choices.

(c) Matching service.

The Commission shall operate a privacy-preserving interstate and territorial matching service using encrypted identifiers and human review. A probabilistic match alone may prompt investigation but may not reject a ballot.

(d) No public challenge list.

Potential duplicate data are protected and may not be furnished to campaigns or used for mass public challenges.

SEC. 210. REGISTRATION PRIVACY AND USE LIMITATIONS.

(a) Permitted use.

Registration information collected under this title may be used only for election administration, enforcement of a law protecting voting, jury administration where otherwise authorized, or research using deidentified data.

(b) Prohibited use.

Information may not be used to investigate immigration status, collect a civil debt, locate a person for a non-election criminal matter absent a warrant based on probable cause, target political activity, or commercially solicit the elector.

(c) Public lists.

Any public registration list shall omit birth date, residential address of a protected person, identification number, signature, contact information, citizenship documents, ballot-return status linked to identity, and any data that would reveal or facilitate coercion of a vote.

(d) Security and remedy.

Unauthorized access or disclosure requires prompt notice, mitigation, an Inspector General investigation, and the remedies in division D.

SEC. 221. JOINT TICKETS AND NATIONAL CERTIFICATION.

(a) One national qualification.

A joint ticket certified by the Commission under this title is qualified for the printed presidential ballot in every State and voting jurisdiction. No separate State nomination, party recognition, petition, elector slate, fee, or certificate is required.

(b) Joint filing.

The candidates for President and Vice President shall file together—

1. their legal names, requested ballot names, contact information, and signed consent to joint candidacy;

2. a sworn statement and supporting public records reasonably sufficient to demonstrate the constitutional qualifications of each candidate;

3. any party or organizational endorsements to be displayed;

4. the emergency-successor designations required by section 228;

5. an authorized national committee and agent for service of process; and

6. a certification that no candidate has consented to appear on a different joint ticket, except as a declared emergency successor.

(c) Indivisible ticket.

Votes and rankings shall attach to the joint ticket. A candidate may not appear with more than one running mate or divide votes by party label, State, or nominating organization.

(d) Ticket identifier.

The Commission shall assign a unique, permanent national ticket identifier used on ballots, cast-vote records, returns, audits, recounts, and certificates. A lawful substitution changes the displayed candidate information but not the identifier or ballots already cast for the ticket.

SEC. 222. ESTABLISHED-PARTY QUALIFICATION.

(a) Qualification.

A joint ticket qualifies without petition if nominated under publicly filed rules by a political party whose presidential joint ticket received at least 1 percent of the valid first-choice votes in the preceding national presidential election. For the first national presidential election governed by this Act, a political party qualifies under this subsection if its presidential nominee received at least 1 percent of the aggregate popular votes cast for President in the most recent general election for presidential electors, as shown by the final official canvasses of the several States and the District of Columbia.

(b) Coalition nomination.

Two or more organizations may jointly nominate one ticket. Their endorsements may be displayed separately, but qualification and votes belong to one ticket.

(c) Internal disputes.

The Commission shall recognize the nomination certified under the party rules on file 1 year before election day. A material amendment adopted thereafter applies only if adopted through the preexisting procedure and not designed to displace a nomination after voting begins.

(d) Neutrality.

The Commission may determine compliance with publicly filed rules but may not adjudicate political doctrine, membership ideology, or the wisdom of a nomination.

SEC. 223. NATIONAL PETITION QUALIFICATION.

(a) Alternative route.

The required number of valid signatures for a joint ticket not qualified under section 222 is exactly the lesser of—

1. 200,000; or

2. the whole number, rounded upward, equal to one-tenth of 1 percent of the valid first-choice ballots cast at the preceding national presidential election.

A joint ticket qualifies by timely submitting at least the required number. For the first national presidential election governed by this Act, the denominator in paragraph (2) is the aggregate popular votes cast for President in the most recent general election for presidential electors, as shown by the final official canvasses of the several States and the District of Columbia.

(b) No geographic distribution.

No minimum number or percentage of signatures may be required from a State, territory, region, congressional district, or other geographic unit.

(c) Signers.

An eligible citizen may sign petitions for more than one ticket. A signature does not constitute party enrollment, endorsement, contribution, or a public voting record.

(d) Form and collection.

Petitions may be signed on paper or through a Commission-certified accessible electronic system using privacy-protective authentication. No notarization, witness, petition-circulator residency, party affiliation, or per-signature fee may be required.

(e) Verification.

Verification shall use a statistically valid or complete review under published uniform standards. A signature is valid notwithstanding an immaterial variation in name, address, script, abbreviation, disability mark, or registration update if the signer can reasonably be identified as an eligible citizen.

(f) Fraud protection.

Knowing fabrication or alteration may be investigated individually. Suspected misconduct by a circulator does not invalidate genuine signatures collected by that person.

SEC. 224. FILING DEADLINES, REVIEW, NOTICE, AND CURE.

(a) Deadline.

A joint ticket seeking printed-ballot status shall file not later than 150 days before election day. An established party may file a provisional certification naming the date and procedure of a convention occurring not later than 100 days before election day.

(b) Initial review.

Within 5 business days after a filing, the Commission shall identify each apparent deficiency with enough specificity to permit correction. Silence is not a denial.

(c) Cure.

A ticket has 20 days after notice, but not later than 80 days before election day, to correct forms, supply evidence, replace invalid petition signatures, resolve name ambiguity, or demonstrate qualification.

(d) Decision.

The Commission shall issue a reasoned public decision not later than 75 days before election day. A denial shall advise the ticket of immediate judicial review under section 226.

(e) No discretionary waiver for favored ticket.

Deadlines and cure opportunities shall be applied uniformly. The Commission may extend a deadline only for all similarly situated tickets or to remedy official error, system failure, or a catastrophic event under title VIII.

SEC. 225. DECLARED WRITE-IN TICKETS.

(a) Declaration.

A joint ticket may qualify for nationally tabulated write-in votes by filing the materials in section 221(b), other than a petition, not later than 60 days before election day.

(b) No printing entitlement.

Declaration permits uniform recognition and tabulation but does not require printing the ticket on the ballot.

(c) Normalization.

The Commission shall publish a list of declared tickets and neutral rules for reasonable misspellings, abbreviations, transpositions, and common variants. Election officials shall assign an unambiguous voter inscription to the intended declared ticket.

(d) Undeclared write-ins.

An inscription that cannot lawfully be assigned to a declared joint ticket shall be reported in the aggregate as an undeclared write-in and shall not be assigned to a person who has not consented, supplied a running mate, demonstrated qualifications, or accepted the duties of candidacy.

SEC. 226. CONSTITUTIONAL QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPEDITED REVIEW.

(a) Uniform determination.

Only the Commission and the Federal courts under this section or title VII may determine, for national-ballot or national-tabulation purposes, whether a candidate satisfies the constitutional qualifications for President or Vice President. A State or local officer may transmit evidence but may not omit, relabel, or disqualify a nationally certified ticket.

(b) Administrative challenge.

A certified ticket, the Attorney General, or 1,000 eligible citizens may file a verified challenge supported by particularized evidence not later than 90 days before election day, or within 5 days after a genuinely later-arising fact became reasonably discoverable.

(c) Commission proceeding.

The candidate shall receive immediate notice and access to the evidence, may respond and obtain a public evidentiary hearing, and is entitled to a decision within 10 days. The burden rests on the challenger, except that a candidate shall authenticate records uniquely within the candidate’s control after a particularized showing.

(d) Judicial review.

A candidate or challenger aggrieved by the decision may file within 3 days in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. A three-judge court shall hear the matter, enter judgment as soon as practicable and not later than 45 days before election day, and permit direct expedited review by the Supreme Court.

(e) Late and post-election challenges.

A qualification objection known or reasonably discoverable before the deadline is waived if not timely filed. A later challenge is permitted only for a fact arising later, fraud on the tribunal, or a qualification that the Constitution makes incapable of waiver. After voting closes, a challenge capable of affecting the national tabulation or certificate shall proceed exclusively under title VII and remains subject to the term-start finality rule in section 313. Political disagreement, rumor, or a State’s contrary legal conclusion is insufficient.

(f) Uniform effect.

A final judgment binds every jurisdiction. If a candidate becomes ineligible after voting materials have been transmitted, title IX governs and votes already cast remain valid for the ticket.

SEC. 227. BALLOT NAMES, ENDORSEMENTS, FUSION, AND ROTATION.

(a) Names.

A candidate may use a legal name, commonly known name, or nonmisleading shortened form. Honorifics, official titles, slogans, and claims of incumbency not factually accurate are prohibited.

(b) Endorsements.

The ballot may display up to 3 certified party or organizational endorsements for a ticket in equal type. Additional endorsements shall appear in the official voter guide. No jurisdiction may substitute a local label or omit a national endorsement.

(c) Fusion.

A multiply endorsed ticket shall appear once. All rankings for that ticket shall be combined under its national identifier; no vote may be split or counted more than once because of endorsements.

(d) Rotation.

Printed-ticket order shall be rotated among ballot styles according to a publicly reproducible Commission algorithm so that, to the greatest mathematical extent practicable, each ticket appears in each ordinal position an equal number of times nationally and within each State.

(e) Equal presentation.

Typeface, target size, contrast, spacing, instructions, accessibility, translation, and placement shall not favor a ticket. Incumbents receive no privileged designation or position.

SEC. 228. CANDIDATE CONSENT, DISCLOSURES, AND EMERGENCY SUCCESSORS.

(a) Replacement body and method.

At filing, each ticket shall publicly designate a nationally authorized replacement body and an order or method of succession for a vacancy before the close of voting. The filing shall identify the body’s members or offices, voting rule, conflicts restrictions, notice method, and any consenting, constitutionally qualified successor candidates known at filing.

(b) Stability after vacancy.

The method may be amended until the first presidential ballot is transmitted. Thereafter it is irrevocable and, after a vacancy occurs, may be changed only as strictly necessary to select among persons identified through the preannounced method. It may not transfer the ticket’s votes to another national ticket.

(c) Uniform substitution deadline.

The uniform substitution deadline is 5 p.m. eastern time on the thirtieth day before election day. Before that deadline, the replacement body may name an eligible substitute under title IX. After that deadline, the constitutional defaults in section 8 of the Amendment and sections 352 through 354 govern.

(d) Notice to voters.

The official voter guide and accessible ballot information shall identify the replacement body and method and explain the legal treatment of a vote if either candidate becomes unavailable.

SEC. 229. FEDERAL PREEMPTION OF ADDITIONAL BALLOT-ACCESS BURDENS.

No State or political subdivision may impose on a national joint ticket or declared write-in ticket an additional petition, signature-distribution rule, filing fee, elector slate, convention rule, party-recognition rule, loyalty pledge, candidate label, deadline, substitution rule, qualification determination, ballot position, or other condition. A State law governing access to another office remains unaffected to that extent.

SEC. 241. UNIFORM NATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL BALLOT.

(a) Separate and identifiable contest.

Every ballot shall contain a clearly separated national presidential contest that is substantively identical in every jurisdiction, except for rotation, language, accessible presentation, and space for declared write-ins.

(b) Content.

The contest shall display each printed joint ticket, the candidate for President first and Vice President second, national identifier, authorized endorsements, ranking targets, and concise instructions prescribed by the Commission.

(c) Number of ranks.

A ballot shall permit an elector to rank every printed joint ticket and at least 3 declared write-in tickets. No jurisdiction may limit the elector to fewer rankings than printed tickets.

(d) Other contests.

The presidential contest may share a ballot with other contests if physical separation, instructions, data architecture, and audit evidence prevent a rule applicable to another contest from changing a presidential ranking.

(e) Ballot usability testing.

Before certification, each form shall undergo public usability testing, including voters with visual, motor, cognitive, and reading disabilities and voters using each required language.

SEC. 242. OPTIONAL RANKINGS AND VOTER INSTRUCTIONS.

(a) Voter choice.

An elector may rank 1, some, or all tickets. No ballot may require a complete ranking, and a ballot remains valid if the elector expresses only a first choice.

(b) Required instructions.

Instructions shall accurately state that—

1. “1” is the elector’s first choice, “2” the next choice, and so forth;

2. ranking an additional ticket cannot cause a higher-ranked continuing ticket to lose the ballot in any round;

3. ranking fewer than all tickets may cause the ballot to become exhausted if every ranked ticket is eliminated;

4. ranking the same ticket more than once does not add weight; and

5. assigning the same rank to different tickets may make the ballot temporarily inactive while 2 or more of those tickets are its highest-ranked continuing tickets, but does not invalidate a later distinct ranking.

(c) Neutral education.

The Commission shall provide a nationally uniform public-education program and sample ballots. Public funds may explain mechanics but may not encourage ranking more or fewer tickets or favor any candidate.

SEC. 243. INTERPRETATION OF RANKINGS.

(a) Governing principle.

The ballot of record shall be interpreted to give effect to the elector’s objectively discernible preferences under uniform standards, without considering the elector’s identity, location, party, or likely political intent.

(b) Blank rank.

A blank ordinal position is disregarded and later unique rankings move upward without changing their relative order.

(c) Repeated ticket.

If the same ticket is marked at more than one rank, only its highest placement is retained and later repetitions are disregarded.

(d) Overvote at a rank.

If 2 or more different tickets are assigned the same rank and the elector’s preference among them cannot be discerned, each ticket shall be retained at that rank. In a round in which 2 or more of those tickets are the ballot’s highest-ranked continuing tickets, the ballot is inactive and excluded from the denominator. In a later round, if only one of those equally ranked tickets remains continuing, the ballot reactivates and counts for that ticket; if none remains continuing, the next valid distinct ranking controls. An equal ranking does not invalidate a later distinct ranking.

(e) Stray and corrected marks.

A stray mark, erasure, correction, write-in spelling variation, or mark outside a target shall be evaluated under a published voter-intent guide. An elector’s clear correction controls. Machine inability to read a discernible ranking does not invalidate it.

(f) Presidential undervote.

A ballot with no discernible presidential ranking is excluded from presidential valid-ballot and active-ballot totals but remains valid for other contests.

(g) No local variation.

The Commission’s interpretation standard is exclusive. States may use another standard for other contests but shall preserve the original presidential ballot for national review.

SEC. 244. NATIONAL INSTANT-RUNOFF TABULATION.

(a) National dataset.

After receipt of authenticated State cast-vote records and resolution of material reconciliation errors, the Commission shall combine every valid presidential ballot into one national tabulation dataset. A State shall not conduct a separate elimination or transmit only a State winner.

(b) First round.

Each valid ballot is assigned to its highest-ranked continuing ticket. If one ticket receives more than one-half of all active ballots, that ticket is elected.

(c) Elimination and transfer.

If no ticket has a majority, the ticket with the fewest active ballots is eliminated. Each ballot assigned to the eliminated ticket is transferred to its highest-ranked ticket that continues in the next round. A ballot containing no such ranking becomes exhausted.

(d) Repetition.

Subsection (c) is repeated one ticket at a time until one ticket receives more than one-half of active ballots or 2 tickets remain.

(e) Final round.

If 2 tickets remain, the ticket with more active ballots is elected, whether or not exhausted ballots prevent that total from exceeding one-half of all valid ballots initially cast.

(f) Sole ticket or absence of an electable ticket.

Notwithstanding subsections (b) through (e), if no valid presidential ballot was cast nationally, no joint ticket remains continuing, or every valid presidential ballot has become exhausted so that no ballot remains continuing, no ticket is elected. Presidential-succession law governs acting service under section 328 pending a special national election conducted under section 357 at the earliest administratively feasible date fixed by Congress or, in the absence of a governing law or timely action under it, by the three-judge court. Otherwise, if only one joint ticket remains continuing, that ticket is elected, subject to audit, recount, and contest.

(g) Equal ballot weight.

In every round, a ballot counts for not more than one ticket and has the same numerical weight as every other active ballot. Transfer reflects a subsequent preference and does not create an additional vote.

(h) No discretionary modification.

The Commission, a State, a court, or Congress may correct the dataset or application of the algorithm but may not alter the algorithm based on the identity or political effect of a ticket’s elimination.

SEC. 245. ELIMINATION AND FINAL-ROUND TIES.

(a) Elimination tie.

If 2 or more tickets tie for the fewest active ballots—

1. the Commission shall compare the totals of the tickets then under comparison in each preceding round, beginning with the immediately preceding round;

2. if a compared round gives one such ticket a uniquely lowest total, that ticket shall be eliminated; if 2 or more share the lowest total, every ticket with a higher total in that round shall be removed from the tie comparison and comparison shall continue among only the lowest subset in successively earlier rounds; and

3. if 2 or more tickets remain tied after every preceding round is compared, the Commission shall first verify the relevant records and conduct the recount required by subsection (c), and then resolve the tie among only those remaining tickets by the public lot in subsection (d).

Only one ticket may be eliminated under this subsection before ballots are transferred and a new round is tabulated.

(b) Final-round tie.

An apparent equal final-round total triggers a nationwide full-hand recount. If equality remains after final resolution of every timely contest capable of breaking the tie, the Commission shall certify an exact tie under section 7 of the Amendment and transmit the tie certificate to the House of Representatives chosen in the same general election. Each Representative chosen, sworn, and qualified shall have one vote; a majority of the whole number chosen, sworn, and qualified is required; voting shall not be by State or delegation; the House may choose only between the 2 tied joint tickets; and the Senate has no separate role. The Clerk shall convene the House promptly after its term begins; the choice is privileged over other legislative business; and absence of a Speaker does not prevent administration of the oath or roll-call balloting. Subject to the outside deadline in this subsection, the House shall continue to ballot until a ticket is chosen. A Representative finally entitled to be sworn and qualified may not be excluded, delayed, or omitted from the denominator for the purpose or material effect of influencing the choice. If the House has not chosen when the presidential term begins, presidential-succession law governs acting service while balloting continues and until the House chooses and the selected ticket qualifies or its authority terminates under this subsection. If the House has not chosen within 60 days after the presidential term begins, its authority under this section terminates, no tied ticket is elected, and presidential-succession law continues to govern acting service. The Commission shall conduct a special national election under section 357 at the earliest administratively feasible date and not later than 120 days after that deadline, and shall fix and publish the date not later than 3 days after the deadline. If the Commission does not timely fix a lawful date, the three-judge court described in section 325 shall immediately do so upon petition by the Attorney General, an elector, a tied ticket, or the Commission.

(c) Recount before chance.

No elimination tie may be resolved by lot until all ballots capable of affecting it have undergone full-hand review under section 308 and all timely contest judgments have been applied.

(d) Public lot for elimination tie only.

For an elimination tie described in subsection (a)(3), the Commission shall conduct a nationally broadcast, physically observable and cryptographically verifiable random selection using multiple independent sources of entropy generated only after the relevant dataset is fixed. Each tied ticket and an independent auditor may observe and supply one source. The procedure may not be used to resolve an exact final tie governed by subsection (b).

(e) No State tiebreaker.

State law, candidate age, incumbency, first alphabetical name, gubernatorial choice, State legislature, or State delegation may not resolve a national tabulation tie.

(f) Candidate unavailability after an exact-tie certificate.

Notwithstanding the general timing and succession rules in sections 354 and 356, but subject to the validity requirements for a declination in section 356, after certification of an exact final tie and before the House makes its choice or its authority terminates under subsection (b), this subsection governs solely the availability and composition of the tied tickets for that choice and does not alter or reopen the national tabulation—

1. if the presidential candidate of a tied ticket dies, files an irrevocable verified declination under section 356, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, that ticket’s vice-presidential candidate becomes its presidential candidate and its vice-presidential position is vacant;

2. if only the vice-presidential candidate of a tied ticket dies, files such a declination, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, the ticket remains available to the House with a vice-presidential vacancy;

3. if neither member of one tied ticket can qualify, that ticket is unavailable and the other tied ticket is elected by operation of law if it can supply a qualified presidential candidate, and House balloting shall cease;

4. if neither tied ticket can supply a qualified presidential candidate, no ticket is elected, presidential-succession law governs acting service under section 328, and a special national election shall be held under section 357 at the earliest administratively feasible date fixed by Congress or, absent a governing law or timely action under it, by the three-judge court;

5. no event under this subsection transfers or reassigns a ballot after the exact tie has been certified; and

6. upon the House’s choice or an operation-of-law election under paragraph (3), the resulting ticket is the elected ticket for purposes of sections 354(d) and 355, and the Commission shall immediately issue a supplemental ministerial certificate identifying the elected ticket, the President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy; failure to issue that supplemental certificate does not delay or defeat the House’s choice or the operation-of-law result.

SEC. 246. CAST-VOTE RECORDS AND NATIONAL TICKET IDENTIFIERS.

(a) Complete record.

For each ballot, the voting system shall create a cast-vote record containing every mark relevant to the presidential contest, the machine interpretation, ballot-style identifier, and audit linkage necessary to locate the ballot of record without identifying the elector.

(b) Common format.

The Commission shall prescribe an open, nonproprietary, machine-readable format and a national ticket-identifier dictionary. Records shall distinguish a blank rank, overvote, repeated ticket, undeclared write-in, adjudicated mark, and exhausted status.

(c) Authentication.

Each jurisdiction shall digitally sign its dataset, publish a cryptographic hash, deposit protected copies with the State and Commission, and reconcile the number of records to ballots issued, returned, cast, rejected, duplicated, spoiled, and counted.

(d) Paper controls.

A cast-vote record is evidence and a tabulation input but does not supersede the ballot of record. Any discrepancy is resolved in favor of the lawful interpretation of the human-readable paper.

SEC. 247. OPEN TABULATION SOFTWARE AND PUBLIC REPRODUCIBILITY.

(a) Open implementation.

The Commission shall maintain at least 2 independently written, open-source reference implementations of the statutory algorithm. Source code, build instructions, test vectors, mathematical specifications, and issue history shall be publicly available under a royalty-free license.

(b) Independent computation.

The official result shall be computed independently by at least 3 isolated systems operated by separate teams. The systems must produce identical round totals from the same authenticated dataset before certification.

(c) Public mirror.

The Commission shall publish privacy-protected input data sufficient for members of the public to reproduce every round. A discrepancy reported by the public shall receive a tracking number, technical review, and public disposition.

(d) No secret algorithm.

No trade-secret, proprietary license, nondisclosure agreement, or classified designation may conceal the vote-counting rule or code used to determine the winner.

SEC. 248. ROUND REPORTS, EXHAUSTION, AND PUBLICATION.

For each round, the Commission shall publish—

1. each continuing and eliminated ticket;

2. active ballots assigned to each ticket;

3. ballots transferred from the eliminated ticket to each destination;

4. newly exhausted ballots and cumulative exhausted ballots;

5. ballots temporarily inactive because of equal highest rankings, overvotes, undervotes, and unresolved adjudications;

6. the denominator used for majority calculation;

7. any tie procedure; and

8. hashes and version information sufficient to reproduce the report.

No report may describe the winner as receiving a majority of all persons or all ballots if the ticket received only a majority of active ballots.

SEC. 249. NO CONTINGENT ELECTION OR CONGRESSIONAL COUNT.

(a) No contingent election except exact-tie procedure.

Failure of a first-choice majority does not transfer the election to Congress; title III supplies an instant runoff. Congress has no selection role except the individual-Representative House procedure for an exact final tie expressly required by section 7 of the Amendment and section 245(b), and voting may never be by State or State delegation.

(b) No congressional count.

Except for House selection between 2 tickets certified in an exact final tie, the Senate, House of Representatives, President of the Senate, and any joint meeting or session have no authority or duty to receive presidential votes for counting or approval, open or count presidential ballots, or accept, reject, object to, or approve presidential votes or the Commission’s certificate. This subsection does not prohibit informational receipt of the public certificate under subsection (c) and section 313.

(c) Ceremonial acknowledgment.

Congress may receive the public certificate for its records or adopt a nonbinding resolution acknowledging the result. Such action or inaction has no legal effect and may not delay transition, qualification, or the commencement of the term.

SEC. 261. NATIONAL ELECTION DAY AND MINIMUM VOTING HOURS.

(a) Election day.

The national election day is the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in every fourth year, except as lawfully modified under title VIII.

(b) Local hours.

Each election-day voting location shall be open for at least 13 continuous hours, including the period from 7 a.m. through 8 p.m. local time. A State may provide longer hours if uniformly available within the State and consistent with Commission rules.

(c) Voters in line.

Every elector in line, checked into an electronic queue, or present at the voting premises by closing time may vote notwithstanding the time required to complete voting.

(d) Paid time and campus access.

An employer shall provide an employee a reasonable period of paid leave, not exceeding 4 hours, when necessary to vote or cure a ballot. Large public colleges, correctional facilities, and government residential institutions shall provide accessible on-site voting or transportation.

(e) Official-results embargo.

An election official may not publish presidential tabulation totals before regular voting has closed in every United States time zone. This subsection does not regulate news reporting, exit polling, protected speech, or public observation of lawful procedures.

SEC. 262. EARLY IN-PERSON VOTING.

(a) Period.

Each jurisdiction shall provide early in-person voting during the 15 consecutive days ending on the Sunday before election day, including both weekends.

(b) Hours.

Voting shall be available at least 8 hours each weekday and Saturday, 6 hours each Sunday, and until at least 8 p.m. on 2 weekdays.

(c) Locations.

Sites shall be allocated under published measures of population, travel time, public transportation, disability access, language need, historical wait time, and expected use. Partisan composition or past vote is not a permissible factor.

(d) Vote centers.

An elector may cast the presidential ballot at any early-voting site in the elector’s State. Secure electronic poll books or provisional procedures shall prevent duplicate voting without requiring return to a home precinct.

(e) Wait times.

Jurisdictions shall plan for ordinary waits of no more than 30 minutes, publicly report longer waits in real time where practicable, deploy backup personnel and paper ballots, and conduct a post-election corrective review of systemic delays.

SEC. 263. NO-EXCUSE VOTING BY MAIL.

(a) Right.

Every elector may obtain and cast a mail ballot without stating an excuse. A voter may make a permanent request covering future Federal elections and may revoke it at any time.

(b) Application methods.

A request may be made online, on paper, by accessible electronic form, by telephone with secure authentication, or in person. A signature comparison may not be the exclusive means of authenticating a request.

(c) Mailing.

For a request received at least 45 days before election day, the jurisdiction shall transmit the ballot no later than the forty-fifth day. Later requests shall be fulfilled within 1 business day and through accessible electronic delivery of a blank ballot where physical delivery cannot reasonably arrive in time.

(d) Replacement.

An elector may obtain a replacement for a lost, damaged, spoiled, inaccessible, or undelivered ballot. Issuance of a replacement shall cancel the earlier ballot only when the replacement or an in-person ballot is timely cast, or when reliable evidence shows the earlier ballot was compromised.

(e) No automatic rejection from return method.

A timely ballot returned by mail, authorized carrier, drop box, election office, voting site, diplomatic or military channel, or lawful return assistant shall be treated equally.

SEC. 264. TIMELY CASTING AND UNIFORM RECEIPT DEADLINE.

(a) Casting deadline.

A mail ballot is timely if, not later than the close of election day, it is—

1. postmarked or accepted and scanned by the United States Postal Service or an authorized carrier;

2. deposited in an official drop box;

3. delivered to an election office or voting site;

4. placed in the custody of an authorized military, diplomatic, or overseas-return service; or

5. otherwise shown by reliable evidence to have been placed beyond the elector’s unilateral control.

(b) Receipt deadline.

A timely cast ballot shall be counted if received by the appropriate election official not later than 5 p.m. local time on the seventh day after election day.

(c) Missing or illegible postmark.

A ballot received by the third day after election day is rebuttably presumed timely cast. A later-received ballot with a missing or illegible postmark may be proved timely by tracking data, official custody record, witnessable system log, or the elector’s declaration under penalty of perjury corroborated by circumstances.

(d) Express rule after Watson.

For avoidance of doubt, election day is the deadline for the elector’s act of voting, not the deadline for official receipt or canvass. This section expressly establishes the national receipt rule and preempts a contrary State deadline; it does not rely on the word “election” alone to establish receipt.

(e) No recall after election day.

An elector may not recall, alter, or replace a ballot after the close of election day. A cure may authenticate the ballot but may not change its rankings.

SEC. 265. SIGNATURE OR IDENTIFIER REVIEW; NOTICE AND CURE.

(a) Uniform verification.

The Commission shall prescribe objective verification methods that may include a signature, personal identifier, secure electronic credential, witnessable return code, or other reliable means. No jurisdiction may require notarization or more than one witness.

(b) Signature comparison safeguards.

A ballot may not be rejected for signature mismatch unless—

1. 2 trained reviewers independently conclude that material characteristics are inconsistent after considering age, disability, language, name change, signing surface, and natural variation;

2. neither reviewer knows the elector’s party, race, neighborhood vote, or ballot choices;

3. the elector receives prompt notice stating the perceived defect; and

4. the elector fails to cure through the tenth day after election day.

(c) Notice.

Notice shall be attempted within 24 hours after discovery by every contact method authorized by the elector and shall include accessible electronic, telephone, mail, and in-person cure options.

(d) Materiality.

A ballot may not be rejected for an omitted envelope date, address already known to the official, handwriting style, use of initials, immaterial witness-address error, envelope damage caused in transit, or another omission unrelated to eligibility, timely casting, personal execution, or duplicate voting.

(e) Appeal.

An elector may obtain rapid administrative review by a different official. Unresolved ballots shall be segregated securely and included immediately upon cure or order.

SEC. 266. DROP BOXES, RETURN ASSISTANCE, POSTAGE, AND TRACKING.

(a) Drop boxes.

Each jurisdiction shall provide secure, accessible, continuously monitored drop boxes during the early-voting period and through election-day close, allocated by population, travel time, disability access, language need, and public transportation. Every county shall have at least one.

(b) Return assistance.

An elector may designate a person to return a sealed ballot. A person returning more than 10 ballots for electors outside the person’s household in one election shall maintain a custody log, except a postal worker, election official, residential-facility employee acting under a Commission protocol, caregiver, or nonprofit disability or language-assistance provider. Compensation per ballot is prohibited; reasonable salary or expense reimbursement is not.

(c) Postage.

Return envelopes shall bear prepaid First-Class postage. Overseas and uniformed-service ballots shall receive prepaid expedited return where available.

(d) Tracking.

Each mail ballot shall have a privacy-protective tracking number permitting the elector to learn issuance, mailing, receipt, acceptance, defect, cure, and counting status without revealing selections. Tracking information is not proof of party support or a public voting history.

(e) Collection logs.

Drop-box collection requires at least 2 trained persons, tamper-evident containers, time and seal logs, continuous chain of custody, and prompt delivery to a secure facility.

SEC. 267. UNIFORMED-SERVICES AND OVERSEAS BALLOT TRANSMISSION.

(a) Forty-five-day transmission.

A validly requested ballot shall be transmitted at least 45 days before election day. If a final printed ticket is unavailable because of litigation or substitution, the jurisdiction shall transmit a ranked Federal write-in ballot and later send supplemental candidate information without requiring return of a second ballot.

(b) Federal ranked write-in absentee ballot.

The Commission shall prescribe a Federal ranked write-in absentee ballot on which an elector may rank printed or declared joint tickets by name or national identifier. It is accepted in every jurisdiction and may serve simultaneously as registration, mail-ballot request, and ballot when submitted with the required attestations.

(c) Electronic delivery; physical return.

Blank ballots, instructions, status notices, and cure materials may be transmitted electronically. A voted ballot shall be printed or otherwise embodied in a voter-verifiable physical record and returned through mail, carrier, diplomatic, military, drop-box, or in-person channels; it may not be transmitted as a voted ballot over the Internet, by email, facsimile, mobile application, or network portal.

(d) Timeliness.

An overseas ballot is timely under section 264 if executed and placed in an authorized channel by election-day close at the elector’s location and received by the seventh day after election day. Military or diplomatic custody records substitute for a civilian postmark.

(e) No lesser treatment.

An overseas ballot may not be rejected because it uses a Federal form, lacks a State-only envelope requirement, is printed on different paper, or is returned through an authorized Federal channel.

SEC. 268. DISABILITY ACCESS AND LANGUAGE ACCESS.

(a) Independent and private voting.

Every voting method shall, to the maximum extent practicable, permit an elector with a disability to register, receive, mark, verify, cast, track, and cure privately and independently, with an accessible paper record and an assistance option chosen by the elector.

(b) Accessible equipment.

Each in-person site shall have functioning accessible ballot-marking equipment, headphones, tactile controls, adjustable displays, sip-and-puff or compatible interfaces, seating, curbside voting where needed, and trained personnel. Equipment failure requires immediate equivalent assistance and paper fallback, not closure.

(c) Remote accessible ballot.

An elector unable independently to mark a standard mail ballot may use a Commission-certified accessible electronic system to receive and mark a blank ballot, provided that the system produces a human-readable paper ballot for physical return and does not transmit vote choices to a remote server.

(d) Language access.

The Commission shall provide translated ballots, instructions, notices, hotlines, and assistance wherever required by the Voting Rights Act and wherever a reliably estimated language community of 5,000 voting-age citizens or 3 percent of a jurisdiction, whichever is less, has limited English proficiency. Oral assistance shall be available for unwritten and historically underserved languages.

(e) Effective communication.

Notices under this Act shall be available in accessible electronic formats, plain language, large print, Braille or audio on request, and covered languages.

SEC. 269. PROHIBITION ON INTERNET RETURN OF VOTED BALLOTS.

(a) Prohibition.

No voted ballot, vote-selection file, marked ballot image, or information sufficient to reconstruct an elector’s choices may be returned for counting through the Internet, email, facsimile, text message, mobile application, public blockchain, cloud portal, or other electronic network.

(b) Permitted electronic functions.

This section does not prohibit registration, a ballot request, delivery of a blank ballot, remote marking that stores no selections remotely, tracking, cure, public election data, or transmission of deidentified cast-vote records after a paper ballot is lawfully received.

(c) Emergency.

No emergency official may waive subsection (a). If ordinary systems fail, paper ballots, Federal write-in ballots, physical couriers, mobile voting teams, extended local hours, or a targeted extension under title VIII shall be used.

SEC. 270. VOTING-SYSTEM FAILURES AND EMERGENCY PAPER BALLOTS.

(a) Ballots available.

Every in-person site shall maintain emergency paper ballots sufficient for at least 4 hours of peak voting and a replenishment plan. A poll-book, scanner, network, power, printer, or ballot-marking-device failure may not suspend voting while paper voting remains physically possible.

(b) Check-in failure.

When electronic eligibility records are unavailable, officials shall use printed backup lists and provisional procedures. An elector may not be instructed merely to return later.

(c) Scanner failure.

A voter may deposit a voted paper ballot in a sealed, bipartisan-controlled container for later scanning and audit. The voter may not be compelled to wait for repair or surrender the ballot without secure custody.

(d) Allocation.

Emergency supplies and technical support shall be allocated by objective risk and demand, not partisan voting history.

SEC. 281. VOTER-VERIFIABLE PAPER BALLOT AS CONTROLLING RECORD.

(a) Paper required.

Every presidential vote shall produce, before casting, a durable human-readable paper ballot that the elector may privately inspect and correct. The ballot shall display every ranking in plain text; a barcode or encoded mark may not be the controlling expression of a vote.

(b) Controlling effect.

In a discrepancy among paper, electronic record, ballot image, machine total, or cast-vote record, the lawful human-readable marks on the paper ballot control.

(c) Ballot-marking devices.

A device-generated paper ballot shall permit the elector to review every candidate name and rank, offer a practical correction method, and be auditable without reliance on software that created it.

(d) Hand-marked option.

Each site shall offer a hand-marked paper option to every elector, except where an elector chooses accessible equipment.

SEC. 282. VOTING-SYSTEM CERTIFICATION AND SOFTWARE INDEPENDENCE.

(a) Certification.

No system may create, scan, interpret, or tabulate a presidential ballot unless certified by the Commission under standards at least as protective as the most current Voluntary Voting System Guidelines and the requirements of this title.

(b) Software independence.

A system shall be software independent: an undetected error or change in software must not be capable of causing an undetectable change in the election outcome. Voter-verifiable paper and a mandatory audit shall supply the independent evidence.

(c) Federal testing.

Accredited laboratories shall test functionality, accessibility, security, source-code correspondence, supply-chain provenance, RCV capacity, cast-vote-record completeness, and recovery. Reports and nonexploitative findings shall be public.

(d) Decertification.

The Commission may suspend or decertify a system presenting a material risk, but shall provide replacement equipment, paper procedures, and funding so the action does not close voting or discard ballots.

SEC. 283. NETWORK, ACCESS-CONTROL, AND SUPPLY-CHAIN REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Tabulators isolated.

Voting devices and tabulators shall not be connected to the Internet or to an unnecessary wireless, cellular, Bluetooth, or remote-administration capability while configured for an election. Any modem or radio shall be physically removed or irreversibly disabled.

(b) Least privilege.

Critical systems require unique credentials, multifactor authentication, least-privilege access, separation of duties, immutable logs, timely patching tested outside production, and prompt revocation of departed personnel.

(c) Two-person control.

No single person may alter election definitions, install software, access unvoted ballot stock, break a ballot seal, export final results, or erase a device without documented two-person authorization.

(d) Supply chain.

Vendors shall disclose beneficial ownership, foreign control, software and component provenance, subcontractors, vulnerability practices, and political financial conflicts. Critical components shall be reproducibly built or independently verified.

(e) Vendor duty.

A vendor shall report a material vulnerability or compromise within 24 hours, preserve evidence, cooperate with public authorities, and may not enforce a contract term that conceals a security defect.

SEC. 284. LOGIC AND ACCURACY TESTING; CHAIN OF CUSTODY.

(a) Public testing.

Before use, each configuration shall undergo public logic and accuracy testing using test decks that cover every ticket, rank, overvote, skipped rank, duplicate rank, write-in, exhaustion, tie, and accessible function. Expected and actual results shall be preserved.

(b) Hash and seal.

After testing, software, election definitions, and firmware shall be hashed; ports and compartments sealed; serial numbers recorded; and any later access documented and retested.

(c) Ballot accounting.

At every transfer, officials shall record the number of ballots and containers, seal identifiers, sending and receiving persons, time, location, and discrepancy. Containers shall be tamper evident and stored with monitored access.

(d) Observation.

Candidates, nonpartisan organizations, press, and public observers shall have meaningful access consistent with ballot secrecy, orderly operations, worker safety, and physical security. Observation rules shall be viewpoint neutral.

SEC. 285. PRESERVATION OF BALLOTS AND ELECTION RECORDS.

(a) Period.

Protected election records shall be preserved for 48 months after election day and longer while any audit, recount, investigation, litigation, or congressional oversight request lawfully requiring them remains pending.

(b) Original evidence.

Original paper ballots and envelopes may not be destroyed after imaging. Images and cast-vote records may not replace originals.

(c) Litigation hold.

Filing a contest, receipt of a preservation notice, or discovery of a material discrepancy automatically suspends ordinary destruction for affected records without need for a separate injunction.

(d) Transfer and disaster recovery.

Records shall have geographically separate authenticated backups, except that secret paper ballots remain in secure public custody unless a documented emergency requires witnessed relocation.

SEC. 286. CYBERSECURITY REPORTING AND RESPONSE.

(a) Reportable incident.

An election official or vendor shall notify the Commission and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within 1 hour of discovering unauthorized access, malware, credential compromise, data alteration, denial of service, supply-chain compromise, or loss of a protected system reasonably capable of affecting voting or confidence in the evidence.

(b) Response.

The Commission may isolate systems, deploy incident teams, require paper fallback, preserve forensic images, rotate credentials, and order an audit or recount. A response shall not alter ballots or conceal a material incident.

(c) Public notice.

The Commission shall disclose material facts as soon as disclosure no longer creates a substantial active risk and in all events before final certification, unless a three-judge court authorizes a narrowly limited delay.

(d) No inference from attack alone.

An attempted or successful intrusion does not itself invalidate ballots. The remedy shall follow verified effects on records and use paper evidence to determine the lawful result.

SEC. 287. BALLOT SECRECY AND CAST-VOTE-RECORD PRIVACY.

(a) Secret ballot.

No person may create or retain a link between an elector’s identity and presidential rankings after the period necessary to reconcile issuance, return, replacement, and eligibility, except under sealed court order when indispensable to investigate coercion and incapable of revealing lawful choices publicly.

(b) Pattern-voting protection.

Published cast-vote records shall be shuffled independently of scan order; omit exact timestamps and small-batch identifiers; coarsen geographic information where a distinctive ranking pattern could identify an elector; and use cryptographic proofs to preserve verifiability.

(c) No ballot selfies required.

No government, employer, union, campaign, or person providing a thing of value may require an elector to photograph, display, or prove a marked ballot. This subsection does not prohibit an elector from engaging in speech otherwise protected by law where no coercion or vote transaction occurs.

(d) Audit access.

Qualified auditors and courts may inspect protected linkage information under access logs and protective orders, but shall use the least identifying information sufficient to verify the result.

SEC. 301. COMPREHENSIVE CANVASS AND BALLOT ACCOUNTING.

The canvass shall include every timely in-person, early, mail, uniformed-services, overseas, provisional, cured, accessible, and emergency ballot. Each jurisdiction shall reconcile ballots printed, issued, spoiled, replaced, returned, rejected, cast, and counted; explain every material variance; and publish aggregate rejection reasons. An unofficial election-night report is neither a canvass nor evidence that later-counted timely ballots are suspect.

SEC. 302. LOCAL CANVASS AND STATE RETURN.

(a) Local deadline.

By the fifteenth day after election day, each voting jurisdiction shall transmit to the State and Commission its signed canvass, ballot accounting, cast-vote records, adjudication log, and unresolved discrepancy report.

(b) State deadline.

By the twenty-first day, the State chief election official shall authenticate and transmit a consolidated return. The act is ministerial and may not be withheld because of disagreement with the result.

(c) Refusal.

If an official refuses or is unable to transmit, the Commission shall use authenticated jurisdictional records and seek a receiver or special master. Refusal does not exclude the jurisdiction’s voters.

SEC. 303. PRELIMINARY NATIONAL TABULATION.

By the twenty-fourth day after election day, the Commission shall publish the reconciled national dataset, exceptions, and preliminary round-by-round result. Publication starts recount and contest periods but is not final certification. Later lawful corrections shall be versioned, explained, and reproducible.

SEC. 304. MANDATORY NATIONAL RISK-LIMITING AUDIT.

(a) Requirement.

Before certification, the Commission shall conduct a national risk-limiting audit having at least a 95-percent probability of leading to correction of a reported outcome that is wrong.

(b) Ranked-choice scope.

The audit shall test the complete ranking record and every elimination dependency capable of changing the winner, not merely the final-round totals.

(c) Procedure.

A public random seed, generated after paper commitments are fixed, shall select ballots under a published statistical protocol. Campaign and public observers may inspect without handling ballots. Comparison shall use paper as controlling evidence.

(d) Escalation.

Sampling shall expand until the risk limit is met or every relevant ballot is hand reviewed. Failure to confirm the apparent winner triggers section 306.

SEC. 305. RANKED-CHOICE MARGIN OF VICTORY.

The Commission shall compute and publish the smallest number of ballot additions, removals, or lawful interpretation changes sufficient to change the winning ticket. If exact computation is infeasible, it shall publish a mathematically certified conservative lower bound. The calculation shall examine the final margin and every alternative elimination sequence; a simple final-round difference is insufficient.

SEC. 306. AUTOMATIC NATIONWIDE RECOUNT.

A nationwide full-hand recount is automatic if—

1. the difference between the final 2 tickets is not greater than one-quarter of 1 percent of the continuing ballots in the final round;

2. the margin separating a ticket eliminated in any round from the next-lowest continuing ticket is not greater than one-quarter of 1 percent of the continuing ballots in that round;

3. the margin or conservative lower bound under section 305 is not greater than one-quarter of 1 percent of valid presidential ballots;

4. the number of ballots subject to a documented tabulation, voter-eligibility, ballot-validity, ranking-interpretation, chain-of-custody, or transmission dispute could reasonably alter which ticket is elected;

5. the risk-limiting audit fails to confirm the apparent winner;

6. reconciled paper and electronic totals contain an unexplained discrepancy at least as large as the relevant margin; or

7. a tie described in section 245 occurs.

No petition, bond, State trigger, or Commission vote is required.

SEC. 307. CANDIDATE-REQUESTED AND COURT-ORDERED RECOUNTS.

A certified ticket may demand a nationwide recount within 2 days after preliminary tabulation if the margin is not greater than one-half of 1 percent. The recount is publicly funded; a frivolous request supported by materially false representations may result in costs after hearing. A three-judge court may order a targeted evidentiary review or nationwide recount upon clear and convincing evidence that an error capable of changing the result is otherwise unexamined. No candidate may select favored States or counties for a presidential recount.

SEC. 308. FULL-HAND RECOUNT PROCEDURES.

(a) Scope.

Every presidential ballot nationwide shall be independently examined by bipartisan or multipartisan teams under uniform voter-intent rules. Every ranking shall be entered twice by separate persons and discrepancies resolved in public view.

(b) Central rerun.

Jurisdictions shall transmit corrected cast-vote records; the Commission shall rerun all rounds nationally. No State shall declare a separate recount winner.

(c) Security and pace.

The Commission may use shifts, regional facilities, and Federal teams, but shall preserve local chain of custody, ballot secrecy, candidate observation, and complete imaging and logs. Speed does not justify sampling in a required full-hand recount.

SEC. 309. CORRECTED RETURNS AND RESOLUTION OF DISCREPANCIES.

An official correction shall identify the affected records, legal basis, prior and corrected values, responsible persons, and effect on each round. The Commission shall reject an unauthenticated alteration but shall not reject lawful underlying ballots. Disputes unresolved by the forty-second day shall be submitted immediately to the three-judge court.

SEC. 310. FINAL NATIONAL TABULATION.

Not later than the forty-fifth day after election day, or within 24 hours after completion of a mandatory recount or controlling judgment, the Chief Data and Audit Officer shall freeze the authenticated dataset, execute the independently verified algorithm, and publish the final tabulation, audit record, recount record, software versions, hashes, and, as applicable, the winning joint ticket, exact-tie outcome, or no-election outcome under section 244(f). If a no-election outcome later becomes conclusive under section 245(b), 245(f)(4), or 327, the Officer shall publish that outcome within 24 hours without reopening or altering the national tabulation. A judgment entered after noon on January 20 may not produce a revised regular-election tabulation naming a different winning ticket; sections 311(c), 313, and 328 control.

SEC. 311. MINISTERIAL CERTIFICATE OF ELECTION.

(a) Issuance.

Within 12 hours after final tabulation, if a ticket has been elected, the Executive Director shall issue a certificate identifying the elected joint ticket, the President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, any vacancy, the valid-ballot and round totals, any lawful substitutions, and the controlling dataset. If the final 2 tickets remain exactly tied, the Executive Director shall instead issue a certificate identifying the 2 tied joint tickets, their current composition and any vacancy, and their equal final-round totals, and stating that no ticket has yet been elected pending section 245. No tie certificate shall issue until completion of the recount and final resolution of every timely contest capable of breaking the tie. Within 12 hours after a no-election condition under section 244(f), section 245(b), section 245(f)(4), or section 327 becomes conclusive, the Executive Director shall issue a certificate of no election stating the controlling facts and the resulting mandatory special-national-election duty. The Chair and Chief Data and Audit Officer shall attest accuracy but may not withhold any certificate required by this subsection.

(b) No discretion.

Certification is a ministerial statement of the result produced by law. Policy disagreement, allegation unsupported by evidence, pending untimely challenge, commissioner vote, or request from Congress or the President is not a basis for delay.

(c) Term-start cutoff.

Except for a certificate of exact final tie, a supplemental certificate required by section 245(f), and a certificate issued for a special national election, a certificate naming the persons elected at the regular general election shall issue or take effect by operation of law before noon on January 20 at the beginning of the term. After that time, and only if no certificate identifying an elected ticket, exact tie, or no election has become controlling, a first regular-election certificate may issue upon completion of a timely audit, recount, or contest, but only while no person elected for that term has qualified and only if the certificate does not remove or replace a President or Vice President whose term has begun. Such a certificate is an initial certificate, not an amended or certificate-changing certificate, for purposes of sections 313, 323, and 326. A later certificate may not identify a different winner from a regular-election certificate that already became controlling. This subsection does not prevent later qualification of a person identified by a controlling certificate or House choice of a tied ticket under section 245(b).

SEC. 312. REFUSAL, FAILURE, VACANCY, OR DEADLOCK.

Subject to the term-start cutoff in section 311(c), if the responsible officer does not act by the deadline, the next Commission officer in section 111 issues the certificate. If no Commission officer acts, the Archivist shall immediately issue and authenticate the certificate from the applicable published outcome under section 310—either the published final tabulation or a later published no-election outcome under section 245(b), 245(f)(4), or 327—with technical assistance from the Election Assistance Commission. If the Archivist does not act within 12 hours or that office is vacant or disabled, that applicable published outcome becomes the required certificate by operation of law upon expiration of that period, and the clerk of the three-judge court shall authenticate it. The court may appoint a special master to correct omission or sabotage. No vacancy, tie vote, denial of quorum, State refusal, or congressional inaction prevents operation of this section.

SEC. 313. LEGAL EFFECT AND TRANSMISSION OF CERTIFICATE.

Except for a certificate of exact final tie or no election, every certificate declaring an election result shall identify the elected joint ticket, the President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy. A timely regular-election certificate, including only corrections required by a judgment that became final before noon on January 20 at the beginning of the term, conclusively establishes those identifications for transition, succession, oath, compensation, records, and all Federal and State purposes, subject to the subsequent operation of sections 354 through 356. An initial regular-election certificate authorized by section 311(c) after the term begins conclusively establishes the same identifications and remains the controlling certificate for section 328, subject to the subsequent operation of sections 354 through 356. A supplemental certificate under section 245(f), whether following a House choice or an operation-of-law election, conclusively establishes the same identifications, subject to sections 354 and 355. A certificate from a special national election conclusively establishes upon issuance the elected ticket, the President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy; a person entitled under that certificate serves the remainder of the term upon qualification. A certificate of exact final tie conclusively identifies only the 2 tied tickets, their current composition and any vacancy, pending a House choice or operation-of-law result under section 245; it does not identify an elected ticket and does not reopen or alter the national tabulation. A certificate of no election conclusively establishes that no ticket was elected, states the controlling statutory basis, and triggers the applicable acting-service and mandatory special-election rules; it does not identify a President-elect or Vice-President-elect. Each certificate shall be transmitted to the candidates, Administrator of General Services, Chief Justice, Archivist, Congress for information only, and every State chief election official. No acceptance, count, objection, or vote by Congress is required for a certificate naming an elected ticket or stating that no ticket was elected. After noon on January 20, no judgment or amended regular-election certificate in a proceeding under this Act may change the identity of, remove, or replace a President or Vice President whose term has begun, except through a constitutional procedure governing removal, succession, or inability. Later-discovered evidence may support criminal, civil, disciplinary, impeachment, succession, or Twenty-Fifth Amendment proceedings without altering the regular-election certificate.

SEC. 321. EXCLUSIVE NATIONAL CONTEST.

The procedures in this title are the exclusive means of obtaining relief that could change the identity of the President-elect or Vice President-elect, the national tabulation, or certificate. A contest concerning local voting or counting may be filed in the Federal judicial district where the events occurred. If the local action could affect the identity of a continuing ticket, an elimination, the final-round result, or the national certificate, that action shall be transferred to and consolidated before the national three-judge court. The local court may preserve evidence and conduct factfinding referred by that court, but may not itself enjoin or alter the national tabulation or certificate. State courts may resolve nonpresidential disputes but may not alter the national result.

SEC. 322. STANDING AND PERMISSIBLE CLAIMS.

A certified or declared ticket, an elector whose vote is affected, the Commission, or the Attorney General may sue. Claims include unlawful inclusion or exclusion of ballots, incorrect ranking interpretation, tabulation error, material security compromise, obstruction, qualification arising too late for section 226, or other violation capable of affecting the outcome. Generalized distrust, political disagreement, and non-outcome-determinative technical error are insufficient to set aside a result.

SEC. 323. FILING PERIODS AND PLEADINGS.

A complaint shall be filed within 5 days after the preliminary tabulation or within 3 days after newly discovered facts that could not reasonably have been found earlier, but no later than January 5 absent fraud on the court. It shall identify evidence, ballots or systems affected, estimated maximum effect, requested remedy, and preservation needs. Defendants answer within 48 hours. The fraud-on-the-court exception does not authorize certificate-changing relief after noon on January 20 and is subject to section 313.

SEC. 324. BURDENS OF PROOF AND EVIDENTIARY RULES.

Ordinary record and mathematical errors are proved by a preponderance of evidence. Fraud, intentional alteration, systemic invalidation, or relief disenfranchising otherwise lawful voters requires clear and convincing evidence. Reliable paper, custody, audit, and system records are admissible on expedited foundation. Speculation, anonymous hearsay, and statistical anomaly alone do not prove an unlawful ballot.

SEC. 325. THREE-JUDGE COURT AND DIRECT REVIEW.

The District Court for the District of Columbia has exclusive original jurisdiction, through a three-judge court convened under section 2284A of title 28, over national tabulation, final-round result, post-voting qualification, and certificate claims. A local Federal court acts only as provided in section 321 and shall transfer a claim whose requested relief could have a national effect described in that section. Each action has priority over other civil matters. Final judgment and interlocutory relief affecting voting or certification are directly appealable to the Supreme Court.

SEC. 326. REMEDIES AND PROTECTION OF LAWFUL VOTERS.

The court shall use the narrowest effective remedy in this order: compel performance; correct records or algorithm; count lawful ballots; exclude individually proven unlawful ballots; order audit or recount; extend a cure or localized voting period for persons unlawfully denied; and, only if no reliable result can be determined, order a special election. Official error shall not be charged to a voter. An entire jurisdiction’s votes may not be discarded merely because an official violated law.

If a ballot of record was lost or damaged through no fault of the voter, an individual vote may be reconstructed only from contemporaneous official records that establish the voter’s selections without compelling disclosure by the voter. No statistical allocation, partisan inference, precinct-average assumption, or testimony revealing a secret vote may be used to assign a choice to an individual ballot. If the lawful choices cannot be established, the court shall use the narrowest remedy that does not presume how the missing ballot was cast. Certificate-changing relief remains subject to section 313.

SEC. 327. SPECIAL ELECTION WHERE A TRUE RESULT CANNOT BE DETERMINED.

A special national election shall be ordered when section 244(f) applies, on the date fixed under that section. Subject to sections 313 and 328, in a contest a special national election may otherwise be ordered only upon clear and convincing evidence that the number of affected ballots equals or exceeds the lawful margin and paper evidence, recount, and narrower remedies cannot determine the true winner. A final judgment lawfully ordering that election conclusively establishes that no ticket was elected at the indeterminate election and is controlling whether or not the ministerial certificate of no election required by section 311(a) has issued. For a contest-ordered election, the court shall set the earliest administratively feasible date, not more than 120 days after the judgment becomes final, use the same eligible tickets and rankings unless title IX requires substitution, and preserve January 20 succession under section 328.

SEC. 328. TRANSITION DURING UNRESOLVED CONTEST.

The incumbent President’s and Vice President’s terms end at noon on January 20. A contest judgment that has not become final by that time may not thereafter alter a controlling certificate or remove or replace a President or Vice President whose term has begun. If no persons have qualified by then, the officer designated by lawful presidential-succession law acts, without acquiring the term, until a person identified in a certificate that became final before the term began later qualifies, an initial regular-election certificate authorized by section 311(c) identifies a person who qualifies, the House chooses a tied ticket under section 245(b) and its members qualify, a tied ticket is elected by operation of section 245(f) and a qualified person from it qualifies, or a special national election identifies persons who qualify. Upon qualification, those persons serve the remainder of the term. Later-discovered evidence remains available for the non-certificate proceedings identified in section 313.

SEC. 329. FEES, COSTS, AND EXPEDITION.

The court may award reasonable fees and costs to a prevailing elector or public-interest plaintiff. A candidate or official litigating in bad faith may be assessed costs and sanctions after notice. No bond shall be required for equitable relief protecting voting rights unless necessary to cover a specific, nonpublic loss and not prohibitive of review.

SEC. 341. EXCLUSIVE EMERGENCY AUTHORITY AND DEFINITIONS.

An “extraordinary and catastrophic event” is a war or attack, natural disaster, epidemic, infrastructure collapse, or comparable sudden event that physically prevents a material number of electors from voting despite reasonable backup measures. It excludes polling forecasts, expected defeat, ordinary protest, administrative neglect, litigation, misinformation alone, or a correctable equipment failure. The President, Vice President, governor, candidate, legislature, and single election official may not cancel or postpone the election.

SEC. 342. LOCALIZED EXTENSION OF VOTING.

The Commission may, by 5 votes and with approval of the three-judge court on clear and convincing evidence, extend voting for affected electors and locations for the shortest necessary time, not exceeding 7 days. If imminent conditions make a vote impossible, the Executive Director may grant a 24-hour interim extension and seek court review immediately. If every Commission officer able to make the application is unavailable or disabled, the Archivist may apply under section 111(c), and the court may supply only the omitted approval upon the same evidentiary showing and a finding that delay would materially disenfranchise affected electors. Relief shall be geographically and personally tailored and provide substantially equal voting methods and hours.

SEC. 343. NATIONWIDE POSTPONEMENT.

A nationwide modification of the final day of voting may occur only under the authority enacted in advance by this section, upon an affirmative vote of 5 Commissioners or, if every Commission officer able to make the application is unavailable or disabled, an application by the Archivist under section 111(c), and in either case an order of the three-judge court based on clear and convincing evidence that an extraordinary and catastrophic event physically prevents a material share of the national electorate in multiple jurisdictions from voting and that localized relief under section 342 is inadequate. On an Archivist application, the court shall additionally find that Commission action is physically impossible within the available time. The modification shall be the shortest period necessary and may not exceed 21 days. Neither an emergency declaration, executive order, concurrent or simple resolution, nor post hoc action by either or both Houses may postpone the election. Congress may amend prospective emergency rules before the rule-freeze date, but may not enact a candidate- or outcome-responsive postponement after voting has begun.

SEC. 344. PROTECTION OF BALLOTS AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY.

Ballots already cast shall remain sealed, inventoried, continuously guarded, and counted with later ballots. A jurisdiction receiving additional voting time may not release official presidential totals before its voting closes. Candidate access, observers, mail acceptance, cure, and voting opportunities shall remain equal. A modification may not selectively reopen voting for persons who already voted.

SEC. 345. NO EXTENSION OF PRESIDENTIAL TERM.

No emergency, postponement, contest, failure to certify, war, or special election extends a presidential or vice-presidential term beyond noon on January 20. Succession law governs any interim period, and the incumbent has no holdover right.

SEC. 346. CONTINUITY PLANS AND EMERGENCY SUPPLIES.

Each State plan shall identify alternate sites, mobile teams, emergency paper stocks, printed registration lists, generators, secure storage, replacement workers, multilingual communications, cyber isolation, military and postal contingencies, and objective triggers. The Commission shall test plans biennially and fund remediation.

SEC. 351. SUBSTITUTION BEFORE BALLOT TRANSMISSION.

Before any presidential ballot is transmitted, the nationally authorized replacement body may substitute a consenting, qualified candidate under the method filed under section 228. Before the uniform substitution deadline, the body may do so upon death, authenticated voluntary withdrawal, or final constitutional ineligibility. The Commission shall update certification and ballot information uniformly. A substitution may not merge votes or petition signatures of separate tickets.

SEC. 352. SUBSTITUTION AFTER VOTING MATERIALS ARE TRANSMITTED.

(a) Before uniform deadline.

After ballots are transmitted but before the uniform substitution deadline, the replacement body may name an eligible substitute under its preannounced method. Existing ballots need not be reprinted; notices and electronic guides shall be updated prominently, and the ticket identifier and rank remain unchanged.

(b) After uniform deadline.

If the presidential candidate dies, validly withdraws, or is finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible after that deadline but before voting closes, the vice-presidential candidate becomes the presidential candidate. The vice-presidential position remains vacant unless the Commission determines that the preannounced method and practical ability to provide nationally uniform notice permit an effective substitute. No jurisdiction may apply a different substitute.

(c) Vice-presidential vacancy.

If only the vice-presidential candidate dies, validly withdraws, or is finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible during that period, the preannounced method may supply a substitute only if uniform national notice is practicable; otherwise the position remains vacant.

SEC. 353. VOTES REMAIN VALID.

A ballot cast before or after a lawful substitution counts for the resulting joint ticket. Death, withdrawal, disqualification, failure to reprint, or delayed notice does not invalidate the vote. This section is subject to the transfer rule for a ticket whose 2 members both die or are finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible before final certification under section 354(c).

SEC. 354. DEATH, WITHDRAWAL, OR FAILURE TO QUALIFY AFTER VOTING CLOSES.

(a) Presidential candidate before certification.

If, after voting closes but before final certification, the presidential candidate of a continuing ticket dies or is finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible, the vice-presidential candidate shall be treated as that ticket’s presidential candidate for completion of the tabulation. If elected, the vice-presidential office is vacant when the term begins and may be filled under the Twenty-fifth Amendment. A voluntary withdrawal or declination during that period does not alter the tabulation and is governed by section 356.

(b) Vice-presidential candidate before certification.

If only the vice-presidential candidate dies or becomes finally constitutionally ineligible during that period, the ticket continues with a vice-presidential vacancy. A voluntary withdrawal or declination during that period does not alter the tabulation and is governed by section 356.

(c) Both members before certification.

If both members die or are finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible before final certification, the ticket is eliminated and each ballot transfers to its next-ranked continuing ticket; a ballot with no such ranking becomes exhausted. The Commission shall rerun all affected rounds and conduct any newly triggered audit or recount. One or both post-voting declinations do not eliminate the ticket and do not transfer or reassign a ballot.

(d) After final certification.

After final certification and before the term begins, or after an elected ticket is identified after the term begins and before a member of that ticket qualifies, if the President-elect dies, has filed an irrevocable verified declination under section 356, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, a Vice-President-elect becomes President when the term begins or, if the elected ticket is identified after the term begins, immediately upon qualification, only if that person is alive, has not filed such a declination, has not been finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, and is able to qualify as President. If such a Vice-President-elect is temporarily unable to qualify either when the term begins or when an elected ticket is identified after the term begins, but later qualifies, that person becomes President upon qualification. If the President-elect temporarily fails to qualify, a Vice-President-elect able to qualify shall act as President beginning when the term begins or, for a ticket identified thereafter, upon qualification, until the President-elect qualifies; if that Vice-President-elect is also temporarily unable to qualify but later qualifies first, that person shall then act as President until the President-elect qualifies. If the Vice-President-elect dies, has filed such a declination, or is finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, the vice-presidential office is vacant when the term begins or, for a ticket identified thereafter, when a member of that ticket qualifies as President, and may be filled under the Twenty-fifth Amendment. A temporary failure of the Vice-President-elect to qualify does not by itself create a vacancy and does not prevent later qualification. If neither member qualifies when the term begins or, for a ticket identified after the term begins, immediately upon identification, section 355 governs. After the term begins, no withdrawal or eligibility adjudication under this title displaces a person then holding office except through a procedure authorized by the Constitution.

SEC. 355. FAILURE OF ANY PERSON ELECTED TO QUALIFY.

(a) Acting service during a temporary failure.

If no person identified by the controlling certificate as President-elect or Vice-President-elect qualifies when the term begins, or if no member immediately qualifies from a ticket identified after the term begins, the officer designated by section 19 of title 3 acts or continues to act as President. If at least one member of the elected ticket is alive, has not filed an irrevocable verified declination, has not been finally adjudged permanently constitutionally ineligible, and may later qualify, the acting service continues only until a member qualifies in the capacity prescribed by section 354(d). A temporary failure of either member to qualify does not by itself require a special election or create a permanent vacancy in the office of Vice President.

(b) Mandatory special election if no member can ever qualify.

If no member of the elected ticket can later qualify because of death, irrevocable verified declination, permanent constitutional ineligibility, or the absence of a remaining member, the Commission shall conduct a special national election under section 357 at the earliest administratively feasible date and not later than 120 days after that condition becomes conclusive. The Commission shall fix and publish the date not later than 3 days after the condition becomes conclusive. If no governing law supplies a lawful date or the Commission fails timely to fix one, the three-judge court described in section 325 shall immediately fix the earliest administratively feasible date upon petition by the Attorney General, an elector, a qualified prospective ticket, or the Commission, and the Commission shall administer the election on that date. The special election is mandatory and may not be canceled by an acting President or election officer. The acting officer may not exercise emergency-election authority concerning an election in which that officer is a candidate. The winners serve the remainder of the term, and acting service ends when a person elected at the special election qualifies.

SEC. 356. WITHDRAWAL AND DECLINATION.

A withdrawal before voting closes is valid only if made by a personally, knowingly, and voluntarily signed, witnessed, authenticated public filing. A declination after voting closes is valid only if the filing is also irrevocable. Before voting closes, a withdrawal invokes sections 351 or 352 and may not erase ballots already cast. After voting closes, a filing does not alter the tabulation, eliminate a ticket, transfer a ballot, or reassign a ranking; it operates solely as an irrevocable declination effective if the ticket is elected. Upon final certification, a declination by the President-elect invokes section 354(d), a declination by the Vice-President-elect creates the vacancy specified there, and declinations by both members invoke section 355. The same rule applies to a declination filed after an exact-tie certificate and before House choice under section 245(f). No withdrawal or declination may be induced by promise, threat, payment, or succession agreement. A purported withdrawal or declination by a party, family member, campaign, or guardian has no effect, and no filing under this section after the term begins vacates an office.

SEC. 357. SPECIAL-ELECTION BALLOT AND TERM.

A special election under this Act or the Amendment uses the electorate, access, ranked ballot, paper, audit, recount, contest, and certification rules of this Act on a compressed schedule prescribed by the Commission consistent with 45-day overseas transmission. The court may permit the previously certified tickets to update successors. The resulting term ends on the date the regular four-year term would have ended.

SEC. 3101. SHORT TITLE; IMMEDIATE EFFECT.

(a) Short title.

This title may be cited as the “Congressional Fair Representation and Independent Redistricting Act”.

(b) Immediate effect.

This title, and title XXXIV as applied to this title, takes effect upon enactment of the Popular Will Act of 2026. No provision of division F shall be construed to delay that effect. The post-ratification operation of titles XXXII and XXXIII is governed by those titles.

SEC. 3102. FINDINGS; PURPOSES; CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY.

(a) Findings.

Congress finds the following:

1. Article I, section 4, clause 1 of the Constitution authorizes Congress at any time by law to make or alter regulations concerning the times, places, and manner of holding elections for Representatives. Congressional districting is a regulation concerning the manner and place of holding such elections.

2. Article I, section 2 requires Representatives to be chosen by the people of the several States. Substantially equal congressional-district population is necessary to give each person’s vote equal weight.

3. Partisan and incumbent-protective gerrymandering allows officeholders to choose their voters, impairs political accountability, burdens association and representation, and predictably entrenches governing coalitions against changes in popular will.

4. In Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 684 (2019), the Supreme Court held that partisan-gerrymandering claims asserted directly under the Constitution as it then existed were nonjusticiable in Federal court, but expressly recognized Congress’s authority under the Elections Clause to address congressional gerrymandering.

5. In Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 576 U.S. 787 (2015), the Supreme Court sustained congressional maps adopted by an independent commission created through a State’s lawmaking process. In Moore v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1 (2023), the Court rejected the claim that a State legislature regulating Federal elections is exempt from the State’s ordinary constitutional restraints and judicial review.

6. Congress has previously required single-member congressional districts and has previously prescribed contiguity, compactness, and population-equality rules. Modern computing and standardized geographic data permit those requirements to be administered with substantially greater precision, transparency, and reproducibility.

7. A single geometric measure cannot reliably detect gerrymandering. Packing and cracking may occur in districts that appear compact. Reliable evaluation therefore requires multiple measures, neutral comparison plans, representative election data, and consideration of the jurisdiction’s political geography.

8. Public confidence requires that no legislature, governor, candidate, party officer, or incumbent possess approval, veto, amendment, or fallback authority over the congressional districts in which that person may seek or retain power.

9. Independent mapmaking can be defeated through captured appointment systems, sham unaffiliated status, partisan consultants, hidden data, budget starvation, strategic deadlock, temporary or retaliatory maps, manipulation of communities of interest, or reversion of authority to political branches. Uniform minimum safeguards are therefore necessary.

10. Section 2a(c) of title 2, United States Code, retains obsolete contingencies permitting at-large congressional elections. Those contingencies are inconsistent with a uniform single-member-district system and create unnecessary uncertainty when a State fails to complete redistricting.

(b) Purposes.

The purposes of this title are—

1. to transfer congressional line-drawing and plan-adoption authority from interested political officials to independent citizens;

2. to establish definite, ranked, and judicially enforceable districting requirements;

3. to prohibit partisan and incumbent-protective purposes and material partisan entrenchment;

4. to preserve equal population, protected electoral opportunity, genuine communities of interest, political subdivisions, and geographic coherence;

5. to create a complete public record, reproducible quantitative review, prompt judicial remedies, and a Federal fallback that cannot return mapmaking authority to a State legislature or executive; and

6. to preempt inconsistent State law while permitting a State to adopt and enforce requirements that provide greater independence, transparency, or representational fairness and do not impair a requirement of this title.

(c) Constitutional authority.

Congress enacts this title pursuant to article I, sections 2, 4, 5, and 8, and section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and all other powers vested in Congress. The principal and independent basis for the regulation of congressional districting in this title is article I, section 4.

SEC. 3103. DEFINITIONS.

In this title:

1. Candidate plan. The term “candidate plan” means a complete congressional districting plan generated or received for evaluation but not yet adopted.

2. Census redistricting data. The term “census redistricting data” means the tabulations and geographic products provided under section 141(c) of title 13, United States Code, and any official correction or successor product determined by the Federal Commission to be suitable for districting.

3. Commissioner. The term “commissioner” means a member selected to serve on a State congressional redistricting commission under this title.

4. Community of interest. The term “community of interest” means a geographically ascertainable population sharing substantial social, cultural, economic, educational, transportation, environmental, communications, historic, or Tribal interests relevant to effective and responsive representation. The term does not include a community defined principally by party affiliation, voting history, incumbent or candidate residence, donor or campaign network, or an asserted interest organized principally to influence a particular district boundary.

5. Covered political data. The term “covered political data” means—

1. party registration, party enrollment, or partisan-primary participation of an identifiable voter;

2. precinct, block, modeled, or individual election returns or partisan-performance estimates;

3. campaign contributions, partisan consumer files, canvass scores, or modeled political preferences;

4. the residence, proposed candidacy, electoral history, or district preference of an incumbent, candidate, party officer, or political committee; and

5. any proxy selected or materially used to reproduce information described in subparagraphs (1) through (4).

The term does not include protected-community information collected and used in good faith solely to identify, prevent, or remedy denial or dilution of electoral opportunity, unless that information is selected or used as a pretextual proxy for partisan performance.

6. Election dataset. The term “election dataset” means the prospective, public, and fixed collection of election returns and associated statistical adjustments used solely for compliance testing under section 3111.

7. Federal Commission. The term “Federal Commission” means the Commission defined in section 4 and established under section 101 of division A. Notwithstanding section 505 or another transfer provision of this Act, until the Federal Commission has a quorum and an operational Office of Fair Representation, the Election Assistance Commission, acting through its career personnel and any commissioners lawfully in office, shall continue solely as the Transition Redistricting Administration. That Administration may perform every ministerial or preparatory duty assigned by this title and shall petition a three-judge court convened under section 3120 to perform or supervise a duty requiring discretionary final action or map adoption.

8. Federal Office. The term “Federal Office” means the Office of Fair Representation within the Federal Commission.

9. Independent commission. The term “independent commission” means a body that satisfies sections 3105 through 3108 and possesses final authority to adopt a congressional districting plan without legislative or executive approval, veto, amendment, or substitution.

10. Major political party. The term “major political party” means a political party whose candidate received at least 5 percent of the statewide vote in the most recent election for President or Governor. The “two largest parties” are the two political parties receiving the greatest such vote.

11. Material partisan advantage. The term “material partisan advantage” means an advantage that is practically significant in one or more districts or in the expected composition, responsiveness, or durability of a State’s congressional delegation, as determined under section 3111.

12. Plan. The term “plan” includes every map, assignment table, geographic description, district number, technical correction, and incorporated dataset legally necessary to determine the congressional district in which each resident and geographic unit is located.

13. Political subdivision. The term “political subdivision” includes a county, parish, borough, municipality, incorporated place, census-designated place when used as a municipal equivalent, school district, Tribal reservation or trust land, and any other stable governmental boundary designated prospectively by the Federal Commission.

14. Protected electoral opportunity. The term “protected electoral opportunity” means the opportunity required by the Constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and other applicable Federal law for members of a racial, color, Tribal, ethnic, or language-minority community to participate in the political process and to elect candidates of choice.

15. Redistricting cycle. The term “redistricting cycle” means the period beginning on the date census redistricting data are released for a State and ending when the next such data are released.

16. Representative election. The term “representative election” means a contested general election held throughout a State for President, Senator, Governor, attorney general, secretary of state, or another statewide partisan office designated before line drawing under uniform Federal Commission rules.

17. State. The term “State” means each of the several States entitled to representation in the House of Representatives.

18. Substantive map change. The term “substantive map change” means a change that transfers any census block or resident between districts, changes the number or magnitude of districts, or alters a legal description in a manner capable of changing a person’s district. The term does not include correction of a clerical discrepancy that cannot affect assignment.

19. Valid neutral plan. The term “valid neutral plan” means a plan generated without covered political data that satisfies every requirement ranked above partisan-fairness evaluation and the uniform constraints registered under section 3111.

20. Compliant plan. The term “compliant plan” means a plan that satisfies every applicable substantive, procedural, adoption, disclosure, and record requirement of this division.

21. Qualifying commission. The term “qualifying commission” means an independent commission whose membership, selection, authority, voting, funding, staff, procedures, and fallbacks satisfy every provision of this division applicable to that commission.

22. Unaffiliated. The term “unaffiliated” means not registered with, enrolled in, formally affiliated with, or serving as an officer or voting member of any political party. A jurisdiction that does not record party registration shall determine affiliation from the objective evidence specified in section 3105(c).

SEC. 3104. EXCLUSIVE METHOD FOR ADOPTING CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS.

(a) Independent adoption required.

Except for a State entitled to only one Representative, congressional districts shall be prepared and adopted only by—

1. an independent commission that satisfies this title; or

2. the Federal Office or a three-judge court acting under an express fallback or remedial provision of this title.

(b) Political branches excluded.

No State legislature, legislative committee, governor, elected attorney general, secretary of state acting in a partisan or discretionary capacity, other elected official, candidate, political party, or political committee may—

1. draw or direct the placement of a district boundary;

2. approve, disapprove, veto, amend, delay, condition, or substitute a plan;

3. remove a commissioner except through the process in section 3108;

4. reduce or condition funds otherwise due to a commission;

5. compel disclosure of confidential applicant information except as authorized by this title; or

6. exercise fallback authority because of a vacancy, missed deadline, deadlock, judicial invalidation, emergency, or other event.

(c) State options.

A State may—

1. use one commission for congressional and State legislative redistricting if the commission independently satisfies this title for its congressional work;

2. provide greater public access, stricter conflict rules, a lower population deviation, or more protective neutrality requirements;

3. assign nondiscretionary election-administration duties to existing officers; and

4. obtain technical services from a nonpartisan State office if the commission controls the services, the office receives no covered political data, and every instruction and work product is public.

(d) Supersession.

This title supersedes every inconsistent State constitution, statute, initiative, referendum, regulation, order, custom, or practice concerning congressional districting. No State-law requirement shall excuse failure to meet a deadline or substantive standard under this title.

SEC. 3105. COMMISSION MEMBERSHIP AND SELECTION.

(a) Membership.

Each commission shall consist of 15 voting members selected for a single redistricting cycle as follows:

1. five members from the qualified pool affiliated with the largest political party in the State;

2. five members from the qualified pool affiliated with the second-largest political party in the State; and

3. five members from the qualified pool who have been unaffiliated throughout the preceding 6 years.

If fewer than two political parties qualify as major political parties, the Federal Office shall create two comparably sized affiliation cohorts reflecting the State’s demonstrated partisan affiliations without assigning more than five seats to persons affiliated with the same party; the third cohort shall consist exclusively of persons who have been unaffiliated throughout the preceding 6 years. No adaptation may reduce the unaffiliated cohort below one-third of the commission.

(b) Public applications.

1. Not later than September 1 of each year ending in 9, the Federal Office shall open a secure public application process of not less than 120 days.

2. The application shall request information reasonably necessary to determine eligibility, actual political affiliation, conflicts of interest, demographic and geographic diversity, relevant analytical or civic experience, and ability to act impartially.

3. An applicant shall authorize verification of public records and shall certify material facts under penalty of perjury.

4. Except for personal contact information, identity-theft-sensitive information, and information protected by Federal privacy law, applications and written responses shall be public before selection.

(c) Objective affiliation classification.

The Federal Office shall classify an applicant according to the totality of objective conduct during the preceding 6 years, including party registration, partisan-primary participation where recorded by law, party office, candidacy, campaign employment, substantial contributions, public endorsements, and compensated partisan activity. A recent registration change or self-description does not control. An applicant may seek expedited review of a classification before a Federal administrative law judge.

(d) Qualification review.

1. Career Federal Office personnel shall review applications under uniform published criteria without consulting elected officials or political parties.

2. The Federal Office shall publish a preliminary list, allow 21 days for fact-supported public objections and applicant responses, and issue a reasoned final qualification determination.

3. Each qualified pool shall contain at least 40 applicants if a sufficient number of qualified persons apply. The Federal Office shall conduct additional outreach and reopen applications if needed.

4. No elected official, legislative leader, party committee, or candidate may strike, rank, recommend, or veto an applicant.

(e) Random initial selection and member selection.

1. At a public meeting using an auditable random process fixed and tested in advance, the Federal Office shall select three initial members and at least five alternates from each qualified pool.

2. The lottery may be stratified to prevent omission of a major geographic region. On and after ratification of the Popular Will Amendment, it may also be stratified to enable the completed commission reasonably to reflect the diversity specified in paragraph (4). Before ratification, any use of a protected classification shall comply with the equal-protection requirements then in force. A stratum and its justification shall be published before random numbers are generated. Random seeds, source code, equipment specifications, recordings, and audit results shall be preserved as public records.

3. Within 21 days after the nine initial members take office, they shall select two additional members from each qualified pool. Selection of an additional member requires at least six votes, including at least two votes from the initial members of each cohort.

4. In making the six additional selections before ratification, the initial members shall improve geographic breadth and the commission’s collective capacity for impartial public service, data analysis, voting rights, and community engagement and may consider personal experience and diversity only as permitted by equal-protection requirements then in force. On and after ratification, the initial members shall cause the completed commission reasonably to reflect the geographic, racial, color, ethnic, gender, age, disability, language, Indigenous, and Tribal diversity of the State and shall improve that collective capacity. No demographic characteristic shall be used as a proxy for party, and no numerical quota is required.

5. If an additional position remains unfilled after three public votes, each initial member shall rank every remaining qualified applicant for that position. The applicant prevailing under a neutral ranked-choice method prescribed and published by the Federal Office before applications are reviewed shall be selected. If no valid method was timely published, the rankings shall be tabulated by instant runoff, eliminating the applicant with the fewest active first preferences in each round and transferring each ballot to its next-ranked continuing applicant. An exact tie after application of the controlling method shall be resolved by an auditable public lot.

6. A vacancy in a position originally selected by lot shall be filled from the next eligible alternate in the same cohort in the original random order. A vacancy in a position selected by the initial members shall be filled by the remaining commissioners from the same qualified pool under paragraphs (3) through (5); if fewer than nine commissioners remain able to act, the next eligible alternate in the same cohort shall serve until that selection is completed.

(f) Term and continuity.

A commissioner’s term begins upon taking the oath required by section 3107 and ends when all litigation concerning the cycle is finally resolved or on June 30 of the next year ending in 9, whichever occurs first. A commission remains constituted solely to defend, interpret, or make a court-ordered correction to its plan.

SEC. 3106. ELIGIBILITY; DISQUALIFICATIONS; POST-SERVICE RESTRICTIONS.

(a) Basic eligibility.

A commissioner shall be a citizen of the United States, an eligible voter of the State, and a continuous resident of the State for at least 5 years before applying. The commissioner shall possess demonstrated capacity to evaluate evidence, deliberate publicly, and discharge fiduciary duties impartially. Mapping or statistical expertise may not be required of every member.

(b) Ten-year lookback.

An applicant is ineligible if, during the 10 years preceding the application, the applicant or the applicant’s spouse, domestic partner, household member, parent, stepparent, child, stepchild, sibling, or entity controlled by the applicant—

1. held or sought partisan Federal, State, territorial, or local elective office;

2. served as an officer or voting member of the governing body of a political party or political committee;

3. was a paid employee or consultant of an elected official, candidate, campaign, political party, political committee, legislative caucus, or partisan legislative office;

4. was a legislative employee or a noncareer appointee of an elected executive;

5. was registered as a lobbyist or foreign agent, or received substantial compensation for attempting to influence legislation, districting, or election administration;

6. served as a redistricting consultant, expert witness, vendor, or attorney for a party, campaign, legislature, or advocacy organization, other than uncompensated public testimony disclosed in the application;

7. made aggregate political contributions exceeding $5,000, adjusted for inflation, in a 2-year period, or was a principal fundraiser or bundler;

8. held a government contract or financial interest whose value was materially dependent on an elected official or legislative appropriation; or

9. engaged in conduct that a reasonable person would understand to create a material obligation to a party, candidate, incumbent, or redistricting litigant.

(c) Current restrictions.

During service, a commissioner may not—

1. hold another public office or government employment;

2. hold a position in or provide services to a party, campaign, political committee, lobbying organization, or redistricting litigant;

3. make a political contribution, publicly endorse a candidate, fundraise, or participate in management of a campaign;

4. communicate ex parte concerning a plan or boundary;

5. accept a gift, honorarium, promise of employment, or thing of value from a person materially interested in districting; or

6. acquire a financial interest affected distinctively by a proposed plan.

(d) Post-service restrictions.

For 6 years after service, a commissioner may not seek or hold partisan elective office, serve as a paid legislative employee, lobby the Congress or the State legislature, or receive compensation for campaign, party, or redistricting work. A commissioner may provide uncompensated testimony, teach, publish, or perform nonpartisan public service.

(e) Continuing disclosure and recusal.

Commissioners shall file quarterly public disclosures of gifts, income sources, organizational positions, political activity of immediate household members, and material contacts. A commissioner shall recuse from a matter presenting a particularized conflict. Recusal does not alter the cross-cohort voting requirements unless the Federal Office seats an alternate.

SEC. 3107. ORGANIZATION; STAFF; FUNDING; INDEPENDENCE.

(a) Oath and fiduciary duty.

Before acting, each commissioner shall swear or affirm to support the Constitution, comply with this Act, refrain from seeking partisan or personal advantage, disclose material facts, and act as a fiduciary for the whole population of the State.

(b) Officers and voting.

The commission shall elect by at least 10 votes a chair and vice chair from different cohorts. Except where this title requires a greater vote, procedural action requires eight votes. Adoption, substantive amendment, certification, selection of executive staff or counsel, and removal of senior staff require at least 10 votes, including at least three from each cohort.

(c) Staff and vendors.

1. The commission shall appoint an executive director, mapping director, data officer, counsel, protected-opportunity counsel, public-participation officer, security officer, and inspector general through open competition.

2. Senior staff shall satisfy the commissioner disqualifications in section 3106, except that nonpartisan professional redistricting experience does not itself disqualify a person.

3. No vendor may use proprietary logic that prevents public reproduction of a map or score. A contract shall require disclosure of source code, parameters, training data material to an automated system, personnel, subcontractors, communications, and work product.

4. Commission counsel represents the commission as an institution, not an affiliation cohort or individual commissioner.

(d) Automatic funding.

1. Each State commission is entitled to a Federal payment sufficient for timely performance, calculated under a formula based on population, geographic complexity, number of districts, language-access need, and prevailing professional costs.

2. Amounts are available without fiscal-year limitation and without State matching funds, legislative appropriation, or executive approval.

3. A State may supplement but may not reduce, offset, impound, condition, or redirect commission funds.

4. If Congress fails to appropriate a specifically authorized amount, there is appropriated from the Treasury the amount necessary to carry out the nondiscretionary duties of this title, subject to public accounting and audit.

(e) Facilities and access.

The State shall provide suitable public facilities, records, and nondiscretionary administrative cooperation. Failure to do so authorizes the Federal Office to provide facilities and recover reasonable costs from otherwise available Federal election-administration payments to the State.

SEC. 3108. REMOVAL; VACANCIES; PROTECTION AGAINST CAPTURE.

(a) Exclusive grounds.

A commissioner may be removed only for substantial neglect of duty, permanent incapacity, knowing material violation of this title, conviction of a felony or crime involving corruption or dishonesty, material false statement in the application or disclosure, prohibited ex parte communication, bribery, or an unremedied conflict requiring disqualification.

(b) Procedure.

Removal may be initiated by the commission inspector general, the Federal Office, or five commissioners from at least two cohorts. After notice, discovery, and a public evidentiary hearing before an administrative law judge, removal requires clear and convincing evidence and a final order supported by at least four votes of the Federal Commission. The United States Court of Appeals for the circuit containing the State capital has exclusive jurisdiction for expedited review.

(c) No partisan suspension.

An elected official or legislative body may not suspend a commissioner. The Federal Commission may impose a temporary suspension by at least five votes only upon specific findings that continued participation presents an imminent threat to the integrity of the process, and shall seat an alternate during the suspension.

(d) Vacancies.

A vacancy does not invalidate prior lawful action. The vacancy shall be filled within 7 days under section 3105(e)(6). If neither an eligible alternate nor a sufficient qualified pool remains, the Federal Office shall reopen applications for that cohort and complete the applicable random or member-selection procedure on an expedited public schedule. No political officer receives an appointment power because of the vacancy.

SEC. 3109. RANKED DISTRICTING REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Overarching prohibitions.

No plan or district may be drawn, selected, numbered, or maintained—

1. with a material purpose of favoring or disfavoring a political party, candidate, incumbent, coalition, political viewpoint, or class of voters defined by political affiliation or viewpoint;

2. to predetermine a delegation’s partisan composition, protect an incumbent, pair or separate particular incumbents, create a safe district, retaliate for another jurisdiction’s map, or alter electoral competition for a partisan purpose;

3. with a purpose or effect prohibited by the Constitution or Federal voting-rights law;

4. using a population deviation, community-of-interest claim, subdivision boundary, compactness measure, district number, or purported technical correction as a pretext for a forbidden purpose; or

5. through an evasion device described in section 3114.

The prohibitions in this subsection are constraints and may not be traded against a criterion in subsection (b).

(b) Ranked affirmative criteria.

Subject to subsection (a), a plan shall satisfy the following criteria in descending order of priority, and the commission shall not materially impair a higher-ranked criterion to improve a lower-ranked criterion:

1. Federal compliance and population equality. Comply with the Constitution and applicable Federal law and make each district’s total population equal to the ideal district population as nearly as practicable.

2. Protected electoral opportunity. Provide protected electoral opportunity as required by applicable Federal law, using current, reliable, and functionally relevant evidence and no mechanical racial target.

3. Contiguity. Make every district contiguous. Point contiguity is insufficient. Water contiguity is permitted only where there is regular transportation, a shared governmental relationship, or no practicable land connection, under uniform prospective rules.

4. Communities of interest. Preserve communities of interest to the greatest extent practicable, based on evidence in the public record rather than partisan sponsorship or the number of duplicative submissions.

5. Political subdivisions, neighborhoods, and lawful district cores. Reasonably respect counties, municipalities, Tribal lands, other political subdivisions, neighborhoods, and the cores of prior lawful districts, counting both split units and resulting fragments, except where a boundary or core perpetuates dilution, entrenchment, or another violation.

6. Compactness and travel coherence. Achieve geographic compactness under multiple measures suited to the State’s natural and population geography and avoid unjustified tendrils, holes, unnecessary water crossings, and travel barriers. Compactness is not superior to protection of communities or equal electoral opportunity.

7. Partisan neutrality. Avoid material partisan advantage under section 3111 and, among plans comparably satisfying paragraphs (1) through (6), select a plan within the central range of neutral expected outcomes and with durable responsiveness to changes in voter preference.

(c) Population standard.

1. A commission shall make a good-faith effort to achieve mathematical equality using census redistricting data as adjusted under section 3110.

2. If a plaintiff shows that a smaller deviation was possible, the commission shall justify each remaining deviation with specificity as necessary to satisfy a criterion ranked in subsection (b)(1) or (2), or an unavoidable census or geographic limitation.

3. Administrative convenience, incumbent protection, projected population change, speculative growth, regionalism, or a generalized desire to avoid precinct splits does not justify an otherwise avoidable congressional population deviation.

(d) No competitiveness mandate.

Electoral competitiveness may be reported but is not an independent districting objective. A commission may not sacrifice a higher criterion, protected electoral opportunity, or partisan neutrality to manufacture marginal districts.

(e) Written balancing findings.

For each district and the plan as a whole, the commission shall identify material conflicts among criteria, alternatives considered, the evidence relied upon, and why any impairment of a criterion was necessary. Conclusory recitation of statutory language is insufficient.

(f) Immediate congressional protected-opportunity standard.

1. Before title XXXII becomes operative, paragraph (b)(2) prohibits a congressional plan that results, under the totality of circumstances and applicable law, in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color or membership in a language-minority group. The commission and reviewing court shall apply section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and controlling precedent in force at the time of decision, using current evidence of population, geographic configuration, political cohesion, bloc voting, discrimination, electoral practices, candidate access, responsiveness, and other probative circumstances.

2. No group is guaranteed proportional representation or electoral success. Before ratification of the Popular Will Amendment, race, color, ethnicity, Tribal status, or language-minority status may be considered in drawing a district only on a strong basis in evidence and in a manner consistent with equal-protection requirements then governing race-conscious districting. Any predominant use of race shall be narrowly tailored to compliance with or remediation of a constitutional or statutory voting-rights obligation, and the resulting district shall be reasonably configured in light of traditional districting principles that do not themselves perpetuate dilution.

3. This subsection does not purport before ratification to displace a constitutional limitation or a controlling construction of the Voting Rights Act. Upon ratification, sections 3203 and 3206 supply independent, later constitutional and statutory standards and control to the extent provided in those sections.

SEC. 3110. POPULATION DATA; INCARCERATED PERSONS; GEOGRAPHIC INTEGRITY.

(a) Controlling population base.

Total population reported in census redistricting data is the controlling base. Citizenship, voter eligibility, registration, or turnout may not replace total population for equalization.

(b) Reallocation of incarcerated persons.

1. For districting within a State, a person incarcerated in a Federal, State, or local correctional facility on the census date shall be allocated to the person’s last usual residence before incarceration if a reliable address within the State can be determined.

2. The Bureau of Prisons and every State or local correctional authority shall provide the Federal Office, under secure procedures, the minimum information needed to perform reallocation.

3. A person whose last usual residence was outside the State, cannot be determined after reasonable efforts, or was the correctional facility before incarceration shall remain allocated to the census block containing the facility solely to preserve the State’s apportioned total.

4. Individual identifying information used for reallocation is confidential and may not be used for law enforcement, immigration enforcement, eligibility determination, commercial activity, or political targeting.

5. The commission shall publish aggregate reallocations and methodology sufficient for reproduction without disclosing personal information.

(c) Other group quarters.

No person in a military installation, college residence, nursing facility, shelter, hospital, or other group quarters shall be reallocated except under a uniform rule enacted by Congress or required by a final court order.

(d) Census corrections and uncertainty.

The Federal Commission shall establish a uniform procedure for official geographic corrections, boundary discrepancies, duplicated records, and delayed data. A commission may not substitute private population estimates, projected population, or citizenship data for the controlling population base.

(e) Precincts and census blocks.

A district boundary shall follow census-block boundaries unless a block split is necessary to achieve population equality, correct a census geographic error, follow a legally controlling boundary, or protect electoral opportunity. Election precincts may be split when necessary to satisfy a higher-ranked criterion. Election-administration convenience is not categorically superior to fair representation.

SEC. 3111. PARTISAN-NEUTRALITY REVIEW; ENSEMBLES; METRICS.

(a) Separate construction and audit functions.

Covered political data may not be furnished to commissioners, mapping personnel, or a person generating neutral candidate plans. This prohibition does not withhold protected-community information that section 3103(5), section 3109(f), or section 3206 permits to be used for voting-rights compliance. After a substantial set of candidate plans has been generated under sections 3109 and 3110, a separate audit team that did not draw boundaries shall test the plans. The audit team may report pass-or-fail results, relative ranges, and identified statutory concerns, but may not recommend moving an identified population for partisan effect.

(b) Prospective election dataset.

Not later than 90 days before census redistricting data are released, the Federal Office shall publish the election dataset. It shall include every contested representative election held during the preceding 8 years or, if fewer than 6 suitable elections occurred, during the preceding 12 years. The methodology shall normalize turnout, account for uncontested or anomalous contests, avoid selective weighting, and disclose every exclusion. The dataset may not be changed after line drawing begins except to correct a demonstrated clerical error under public notice.

(c) Neutral ensemble.

1. The audit team shall generate or independently validate an ensemble of not fewer than 100,000 valid neutral plans, unless the Federal Office determines that the number of mathematically distinct valid plans or the size of the delegation makes that minimum uninformative.

2. Constraints, priorities, geographic units, algorithm, source code, software version, random seeds, stopping rules, acceptance rates, effective sample size, mixing and convergence diagnostics, and known limitations shall be registered and published before results are examined.

3. The ensemble shall implement the criteria ranked above partisan neutrality and shall not encode incumbent protection, partisan performance, a desired delegation, or a proxy for those objectives.

4. At least one independent team shall reproduce material results. A proprietary or nonreproducible ensemble is not evidence of compliance.

(d) Measures.

Each candidate plan shall be evaluated across the election dataset and a uniform range of plausible statewide vote shifts using—

1. expected seat distribution compared with the ensemble median and distribution;

2. partisan bias at an evenly divided statewide vote;

3. efficiency gap, with separate disclosure of packing and cracking;

4. mean-median vote-share difference;

5. seats-votes responsiveness and symmetry;

6. durability of advantage across elections and vote shifts; and

7. any additional peer-reviewed measure adopted prospectively by rule.

No single measure controls, and proportionality between statewide votes and seats is neither required nor a defense.

(e) Presumption of material partisan advantage.

A rebuttable presumption arises if a plan’s expected seat outcome for a party—

1. lies outside the 5th through 95th percentile of the neutral ensemble and differs from the ensemble median by at least one seat; and

2. is corroborated by at least two of the following: absolute partisan bias exceeding 2 percentage points, absolute efficiency gap exceeding 5 percentage points, absolute mean-median difference exceeding 2 percentage points, materially asymmetric responsiveness, or durable advantage in at least two-thirds of tested elections and vote shifts.

The Federal Commission may tighten but may not relax these default thresholds. No threshold is a safe harbor for a prohibited purpose, falsified constraint, manipulated dataset, or material process violation.

(f) Small delegations and multiple parties.

For a State with fewer than five districts, the audit shall emphasize district-level packing and cracking, boundary alternatives, pairwise swaps, neutral-plan frequency, and durability rather than mechanically applying statewide percentage thresholds. Rules shall test every party receiving at least 5 percent of a representative-election vote and shall address coalitions and independents without assuming a permanent two-party system.

(g) Selection rule.

The commission shall select a plan that satisfies higher-ranked criteria, does not trigger an unrebutted presumption, lies within the central range of neutral outcomes, and is not materially less responsive or more durably biased than a reasonably available plan that comparably satisfies higher-ranked criteria. The commission need not select the plan producing the closest proportional result or the mathematically smallest score.

SEC. 3112. PUBLIC PROCESS; DATA; RECORDS.

(a) Hearings and participation.

Before publishing a draft, the commission shall conduct hearings reasonably distributed by population and geography, including rural areas and communities protected by Federal language-access law. Participation shall be available in person and remotely, accessible to persons with disabilities, and supported by translation, plain-language materials, and a free public mapping portal.

(b) Open meetings.

Every substantive meeting, staff briefing, mapping session, and deliberation shall be noticed at least 7 days in advance, livestreamed, recorded, transcribed, and open to the public. An emergency meeting may address only a genuine operational emergency described with specificity and may not adopt or substantively amend a plan.

(c) Ex parte contacts.

A commissioner or staff member may receive districting information only through a public hearing, a written submission placed promptly in the public docket, or a disclosed technical communication authorized by rule. An inadvertently received ex parte contact shall be disclosed within 24 hours, including sender, recipients, substance, and responsive action.

(d) Public submissions and sponsorship.

A person submitting a map, community claim, mass comment, study, or model shall disclose the natural persons and entities that funded, directed, or materially assisted it and aggregate expenditures exceeding $10,000. Substantially identical submissions count as one evidentiary submission. Anonymous public comment may express a view but may not support an adjudicative factual finding.

(e) Required disclosure.

The commission shall publish in machine-readable form all nonconfidential census, geographic, election, community, and subdivision data; data dictionaries; source code; algorithms; constraints; random seeds; draft and submitted maps; shapefiles; assignment files; scores; legal memoranda; contracts; invoices; calendars; communications; meeting records; and version histories. Each map shall have a permanent identifier and cryptographic hash.

(f) Draft period and final changes.

At least three complete draft plans shall be published for at least 30 days of comment. A substantive change after that period shall be published for at least 7 additional days, except that a court-ordered cure may use the period allowed by the court. No undisclosed substitute or omnibus amendment may be adopted at a final meeting.

(g) Preservation.

Records shall be preserved permanently by the National Archives or under an approved records schedule that preserves them through at least two redistricting cycles. Deliberative-process, legislative, work-product, mediation, or common-interest privilege may not conceal a record required to be public by this section. Attorney-client privilege protects only confidential legal advice unrelated to factual mapmaking instructions and is waived as to any advice affirmatively relied upon to justify a plan.

SEC. 3113. ADOPTION; COMPLIANCE NOTICE; FALLBACK.

(a) State adoption.

A final plan requires at least 10 commissioner votes, including at least 3 from each cohort. The vote shall occur by roll call at a public meeting. Within 48 hours, the commission shall transmit the plan and complete record to the Federal Office and the State’s chief election officer.

(b) Certification report.

The plan shall be accompanied by a report stating, for the plan and each district—

1. population and deviation;

2. compliance with protected-opportunity requirements;

3. contiguity, community, subdivision, and compactness findings;

4. all partisan-neutrality measures, ensemble distributions, and independent validations;

5. every material alternative and tradeoff;

6. all block and precinct splits;

7. incarcerated-person reallocations in aggregate form; and

8. a certification by each voting commissioner that no prohibited information, instruction, contact, or purpose influenced the vote.

(c) Federal compliance notice; no administrative veto.

Within 30 days, the Federal Office shall publish a reasoned notice stating whether the commission and plan facially satisfy this title. Review is based on the public record, is advisory to the commission and courts, and does not condition or suspend the plan’s force. If the Office identifies a curable defect, it may give the commission not more than 21 days to adopt a voluntary cure. If a material defect is not cured, the Federal Commission or Attorney General shall promptly seek relief from the three-judge court; only that court may enjoin, invalidate, or replace a plan already adopted by a qualifying commission.

(d) Effect of adoption.

Upon adoption by the State commission, the plan has the force of Federal law for congressional elections and, to the extent provided by State law, also has the force of State law. It binds every State and local officer, subject only to judicial review. Filing, publication, a Federal compliance notice, or performance of another ministerial duty may not delay that force. No additional legislative enactment, gubernatorial signature, referendum, State-court approval, Federal administrative approval, or administrative rule is required.

(e) Ranked-vote resolution of State-commission deadlock.

If no plan receives the vote required by subsection (a) after three final votes, the commissioners shall rank every legally compliant finalist under a neutral ranked-choice method prescribed by rule and irrevocably fixed before the commission receives covered political data. If no valid method was timely fixed, the rankings shall be tabulated by instant runoff, eliminating the finalist with the fewest active first preferences in each round and transferring each ballot to its next-ranked continuing finalist. An exact final tie shall be resolved in favor of the plan closest to the median of the neutral ensemble across the measures in section 3111(d), using a prospective equal-weight composite; if that comparison also is exactly tied or unavailable, an auditable public lot controls. The prevailing plan is adopted by the State commission and has the force specified in subsection (d). A plan sponsored or preferred by a legislature, governor, party, incumbent, or candidate receives no preference. The complete ballots, tabulation, and explanation shall be public.

(f) Federal and judicial fallback.

If a commission misses a deadline, lacks a quorum for 14 days, has no legally compliant finalist for subsection (e), or is finally adjudged unable to complete its duty—

1. the Federal Office shall assume exclusive fallback authority;

2. career staff shall publish at least three compliant plans, all data and scores, and a recommendation after not less than 14 days of comment;

3. the Federal Commission may adopt a plan within 14 days only by at least five affirmative votes, including at least one commissioner in each affiliation category described in section 104(c)(1); before the first national presidential election governed by division B, those categories shall be determined from the two political parties whose presidential nominees received the largest and second-largest aggregate popular-vote totals reported by the several States and the category of commissioners affiliated with neither party; and

4. if the Federal Commission does not timely act, the three-judge district court for the district containing the State capital shall appoint a nonpartisan special master or temporary commission and shall adopt the compliant plan best satisfying the ranked criteria.

No missed deadline or deadlock authorizes an at-large election, use of an obsolete plan after reapportionment, or action by a legislature or governor.

SEC. 3114. PROHIBITION ON MID-DECADE AND EVASIVE REDISTRICTING.

(a) One plan per cycle.

After adoption, a plan may be changed before the next census redistricting data only—

1. to comply with a final judicial judgment;

2. after a change in the State’s apportioned number of Representatives;

3. to correct a clerical assignment error that demonstrably places a geographic unit in a district different from the adopted map;

4. to comply with a newly controlling provision of Federal law; or

5. after creation, dissolution, or alteration of a State boundary under the Constitution when the change makes the plan unlawful or materially unrepresentative.

Any change shall be no broader than necessary and shall follow this title. Changed political preferences, a new legislative majority, retaliation, partisan developments elsewhere, an asserted national balance, emergency declaration, or temporary duration is not a justification.

(b) Evasion devices.

No person may evade this title through an at-large election; multimember district; numbered post; residency district; staggered assignment; alteration of district magnitude or number; change in term, election date, place designation, candidate qualification, or governmental power; transfer of powers among offices; manipulation of district numbering, transition terms, census residence, or population assignment; selective creation, abolition, annexation, detachment, consolidation, or dissolution of a subdivision; delegation to a nominally private body; purported advisory map; court consent decree lacking findings; or any substantially similar device having a forbidden purpose or effect.

(c) No revival.

Invalidation of a commission, selection rule, criterion, or plan does not revive legislative mapmaking power, an at-large fallback, or a prior unlawful plan. Authority passes immediately to the next independent fallback under this title.

SEC. 3115. DECENNIAL AND TRANSITION TIMING.

(a) Ordinary cycle.

The commission shall be seated by September 1 of each year ending in 0, begin public community hearings before receipt of census redistricting data, publish initial drafts within 75 days after receipt, and adopt a final plan within 150 days after receipt. The Federal Office may extend a deadline once for not more than 30 days because of delayed or materially corrected census data, but not for partisan disagreement.

(b) Election-administration lead time.

A final plan shall be adopted at least 240 days before the first primary or general election using it. A three-judge court may permit a shorter period only upon specific findings that the shorter period is strictly necessary to remedy a violation or respond to delayed or materially corrected census data, that no equally effective remedy preserving the full period is available, and that filing, petition, primary, and administrative dates have been adjusted to minimize voter and candidate disruption. Candidate-filing, petition, primary, and administrative dates shall otherwise yield to the Federal schedule established by this title to the extent necessary. The regularly scheduled Federal general-election day shall not be changed except by Act of Congress.

(c) Initial transition.

Each State shall use a compliant plan for the first regularly scheduled congressional general election occurring at least 18 months after enactment. If enactment occurs before July 1 of a year ending in 9 or 0, the ordinary decennial timetable controls. A transition map adopted under this subsection remains effective only until the next ordinary decennial plan and is not an impermissible mid-decade map.

SEC. 3116. OFFICE OF FAIR REPRESENTATION.

The Federal Commission shall maintain an Office of Fair Representation headed by a career Director appointed for a 10-year term by at least five Commission votes, including at least one commissioner in each affiliation category described in section 104(c)(1), with the pre-direct-election categories determined under section 3113(f)(3). The Director may be removed during the term only for substantial neglect of duty, malfeasance, permanent incapacity, or knowing material violation of law, by the same vote after written notice and an opportunity to respond. A career Deputy Director selected under the same professional criteria shall act during a vacancy or incapacity without acquiring a new term. The Office shall administer applicant review and hybrid selection; issue uniform technical standards; maintain open-source mapping and ensemble systems; provide language, disability, cybersecurity, census, and statistical assistance; audit commissions; publish compliance notices; maintain the national public repository; coordinate correctional reallocation; conduct Federal fallback mapmaking; investigate compliance; and refer civil or criminal violations. Binding rules shall be adopted by the properly appointed Federal Commission, not by the Director acting alone.

SEC. 3117. EXPRESS ENFORCEMENT; JUDICIAL REVIEW; REMEDIES.

(a) Personal right and cause of action.

Every voter assigned to a district under a plan governed by this title has a personal right to use of a plan adopted and maintained in compliance with this title. An affected voter, candidate suffering a concrete burden, political party with affected voters or candidates, organization on behalf of an affected member, State commission, or the Attorney General may bring an express action for declaratory and prospective equitable relief. The right is enforceable directly under this title and under section 1983 of title 42, United States Code, and the remedies are cumulative.

(b) Jurisdiction and parties.

The action shall be heard by a three-judge court under section 2284 of title 28 and section 3120. A voter asserting district-specific injury shall reside in at least one challenged district. Relief for district-specific injury in multiple districts requires an affected plaintiff or an identified organizational member in each such district, but a plaintiff with a statewide process injury or whose own injury cannot be fully cured without changes elsewhere in the plan may obtain plan-wide relief no broader than necessary for a complete cure. An organization may establish member residence through declarations whose identifying information may be protected by appropriate order. The United States may intervene as of right. No exhaustion, abstention, or bond is required. A claim under this title presents a judicially manageable question of statutory right and shall not be dismissed or denied as a political question, for want of a judicially discoverable standard, because it requires comparison of plans or statistical evidence, or because Congress or a State could also address the subject legislatively.

(c) Limitations and consolidation.

A process, purpose, facial, or quantitative claim shall be filed not later than 180 days after plan adoption. Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, a claim based on a material violation knowingly concealed by a defendant shall be filed not later than 60 days after the plaintiff discovered or, through reasonable diligence, should have discovered the violation; the period is tolled while concealment prevents discovery. These periods are statutes of limitations and are not jurisdictional. Equitable tolling is available for extraordinary circumstances that actually prevented timely filing despite reasonable diligence. A continuing population, protected-opportunity, or erroneous district-assignment violation may be challenged at any time while the plan is in use. Related actions shall be consolidated before one three-judge court. Laches does not bar a timely claim or reward concealment or strategic delay by a defendant.

(d) Burdens.

A plaintiff bears the initial burden by a preponderance of the evidence. A prima facie case arises from direct or circumstantial evidence of forbidden purpose, use of prohibited data, a material process violation, an extreme ensemble outlier, unexplained rejection of materially superior neutral plans, or avoidable population deviation. The commission then shall demonstrate with clear and convincing record evidence that the challenged feature was necessary to satisfy a higher-ranked requirement and was no broader than necessary. Post hoc rationalizations outside the administrative record receive no weight.

(e) Relief.

Upon finding a violation, the court shall declare the defect, enjoin the plan to the extent necessary, and give an independent commission that acted in good faith not more than 30 days to cure unless immediate fallback is required. If the commission fails, the court may direct the Federal Office, appoint a temporary commission or nonpartisan special master, and adopt the plan best satisfying this title. A remedy may alter all districts when packing, cracking, population balance, or statewide partisan effect cannot otherwise be cured and may adjust candidate-qualification, filing, primary, and election dates. The legislature and governor have no remedial role.

(f) Election proximity.

Proximity to an election, standing alone, does not permit use of a plan finally adjudged unlawful when a lawful plan can feasibly be administered. The court shall make specific findings concerning ballots already cast, administrative feasibility, voter confusion, and alternative dates, and may adjust filing, petition, primary, and canvass deadlines. An unlawful plan may be used for no more than one election only upon clear and convincing proof that no lawful plan can be administered without disenfranchising voters, and never because officials delayed or resisted relief.

(g) Stays; appeals; fees.

A stay requires a reasoned finding of likely success and irreparable injury that outweighs injury to voters. An appeal shall receive priority, and a final judgment or order granting or denying an injunction is directly appealable as provided in section 1253B of title 28. A prevailing or substantially prevailing private plaintiff shall recover reasonable attorney and expert fees under section 1988 of title 42. Commissioners have no damages liability for good-faith quasi-legislative acts, but immunity does not bar prospective relief. Against a State, this immediate title authorizes relief consistent with Ex parte Young and, before ratification of the Popular Will Amendment, does not rely on Article I to abrogate sovereign immunity or impose damages liability.

(h) Relation to division D.

Sections 401 through 409 supplement this title only to the extent consistent with the standing, jurisdiction, remedies, immunity, and limitations expressly stated in this section. Before ratification, no general provision of division D shall be construed to create State damages liability or an abrogation of sovereign immunity unavailable under then-operative constitutional authority.

SEC. 3118. CIVIL ENFORCEMENT; OFFENSES.

The Attorney General may seek declaratory, injunctive, and civil relief. A person who knowingly bribes a commissioner, falsifies a required adoption certificate, destroys or conceals a required record, transmits covered political data to line-drawing personnel, or acts under color of law to implement a plan known not to have been adopted by a body authorized under this division shall be subject to a civil penalty not exceeding $100,000 per violation, adjusted for inflation. Whoever corruptly gives or receives a thing of value to affect a boundary, or knowingly destroys a material record to obstruct a proceeding, shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. Good-faith methodological disagreement is not an offense.

SEC. 3119. AMENDMENTS TO TITLE 2, UNITED STATES CODE.

(a) Repeal of obsolete fallback.

Section 2a(c) of title 2, United States Code, is repealed.

(b) Single-member commission districts.

Section 2c of title 2, United States Code, is amended to read:

Ҥ 2c. Congressional districts

“A State entitled to more than one Representative shall be divided into the same number of single-member districts, and one Representative shall be elected from each district. Each district shall be established and maintained under title XXXI of division C of the Popular Will Act of 2026. No Representative from such a State may be elected at large. Failure to establish a timely State plan invokes the Federal fallback under that title and does not authorize an at-large election or continued use of districts inconsistent with the current apportionment.”.

(c) Clerical amendment.

The table of sections for chapter 1 of title 2 is amended by striking the item relating to section 2c and inserting “2c. Congressional districts.”.

SEC. 3120. THREE-JUDGE COURTS AND DIRECT REVIEW.

(a) Three-judge court.

Section 2284(a) of title 28, United States Code, is amended by inserting before the period at the end the following: “, or when an action is filed under division C of the Popular Will Act of 2026 challenging a districting plan, electoral structure, commission, commission-selection process, adoption, compliance notice, certification, apportionment, or remedy”.

(b) Direct review of final judgments and injunction orders.

Chapter 81 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 1253 the following:

Ҥ 1253B. Direct appeals in fair-representation cases

“Any party may appeal directly to the Supreme Court from a final judgment, or from an interlocutory or permanent order granting or denying an injunction, entered by a district court of three judges in an action under division C of the Popular Will Act of 2026. The notice of appeal shall be filed not later than 30 days after entry of the judgment or order. The Supreme Court may expedite briefing, argument, and disposition.”.

The table of sections for chapter 81 of title 28 is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 1253 the following:

“1253B. Direct appeals in fair-representation cases.”.

(c) Venue, assignment, and expedition.

An action concerning a congressional or statewide plan shall be filed in the Federal judicial district containing the State capital. An action concerning a territorial, District of Columbia, or local plan shall be filed in the district in which the covered jurisdiction is located, except as otherwise expressly provided for an apportionment action under section 3307. Panel assignments shall be made promptly under neutral procedures and without regard to the appointing President. A three-judge court hearing a division C action shall establish an expedited schedule, issue findings and judgment not later than 120 days after the record is complete when practicable, and retain jurisdiction through implementation of the remedy.

SEC. 3201. CONTINGENT OPERATION; SOURCE OF AUTHORITY.

(a) Operative date.

This title becomes operative immediately upon ratification of the Amendment defined in section 4 and proposed by the separate joint resolution accompanying this Act, without need for reenactment, presidential proclamation, or State implementing law. Preparatory grants, data work, applications, conditional rulemaking, and voluntary State or local compliance may occur before ratification, but no provision of this title shall be construed before ratification to compel a State or local government beyond Congress’s then-existing constitutional authority.

(b) Authority.

This title enforces the Popular Will Amendment and is also enacted under sections 5 and 2, respectively, of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, article I, section 4, and all other applicable congressional powers. The rights created by the Popular Will Amendment and this title are independent of and cumulative to rights arising under the Constitution or another Act of Congress.

(c) Self-execution and no implementation veto.

Failure by Congress, the Federal Commission, a State, or a political subdivision to issue a rule, appropriate funds, appoint a member, or perform a ministerial duty does not suspend a right or prohibition. The defaults and independent fallbacks in this division apply automatically.

SEC. 3202. UNIVERSAL COVERAGE AND ADDITIONAL DEFINITIONS.

(a) Covered electoral plan.

The term “covered electoral plan” means any geographic allocation, district, subdistrict, ward, zone, place, numbered post, residency area, multimember constituency, at-large arrangement, or combination used to nominate, elect, retain, or select by popular vote—

1. a Representative, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner to Congress;

2. a member of a State, District of Columbia, Commonwealth, or territorial legislature;

3. a county, parish, borough, municipal, township, village, educational, library, transit, utility, water, conservation, judicial, prosecutorial, law-enforcement, special-purpose, or other governmental officer or governing-body member; or

4. a person who exercises governmental power and whose selection depends materially on the residence or geographic assignment of voters.

The term includes a change in the number of seats, district magnitude, residency rule, stagger, electoral method, subdivision boundary, annexation, or transition arrangement when the change can affect the weight, aggregation, or representational opportunity of votes.

(b) Covered jurisdiction.

The term “covered jurisdiction” means a State, the District of Columbia, a Commonwealth, territory, possession, county, parish, borough, municipality, school district, special district, political subdivision, home-rule entity, governmental instrumentality, or combination thereof conducting an election under a covered electoral plan.

(c) Protected community.

The term “protected community” means a racial, color, ethnic, language-minority, Indigenous, or Tribal community, including two or more such communities that have demonstrated an ability or potential to form an effective electoral coalition. Protection does not depend on citizenship in or recognition of a federally recognized Indian Tribe, on the Government’s use of a particular label, or on proof that every member shares the same political preference. “Language-minority status” includes Spanish heritage, an American Indian or Alaska Native language, an Asian American language, and any language group designated by Congress or shown to encounter material language-related barriers to political participation.

(d) Tribal elections and State-created districts.

This title does not govern an internal election of a federally recognized Indian Tribe unless the Tribe affirmatively opts in by its own law. The exclusion does not apply to a State or local district, school district, special district, or other non-Tribal governmental election merely because the jurisdiction includes Tribal citizens, trust land, a reservation, or an Alaska Native community.

(e) Senate and statewide offices.

Nothing in this division changes the equal suffrage of States in the Senate. A genuinely statewide single-member office has no district boundary, but its electoral method remains subject to otherwise applicable voting-rights law and may not be combined with residency or numbered-post devices to evade this title.

SEC. 3203. PERSONAL RIGHTS; PROHIBITED CONDUCT.

(a) Rights.

Every person lawfully entitled to vote in a covered jurisdiction has an individual and judicially enforceable right—

1. to substantially equal voting power based on total population;

2. to assignment under a plan adopted by a genuinely independent commission through the public process required by this division;

3. to a plan free from a material purpose or effect of favoring or disfavoring a party, candidate, incumbent, coalition, political viewpoint, or class of voters defined by political affiliation or viewpoint; and

4. to an electoral plan or method that does not deny or materially dilute a protected community’s equal opportunity to participate, form effective coalitions, nominate or support candidates, and elect representatives responsive to its choices.

An injury under this subsection is personal to each governed voter and is not merely a generalized interest in lawful government. A voter need not prove that a different plan would have changed a completed election.

(b) Purpose or effect independently sufficient.

A prohibited purpose and a prohibited material effect are independent grounds of liability. A claimant need not prove both. A purpose may be shown through direct or circumstantial evidence, procedural departures, selective data, secret communications, pretext, foreseeable consequences, rejection of neutral alternatives, or sequence of events; it need not be the sole or predominant purpose.

(c) No lawful partisan or incumbent objective.

Partisan advantage, retaliation, preservation of an existing delegation or governing majority, incumbent protection, pairing or separation of officeholders, manufactured competitiveness, and offsetting a map adopted elsewhere are not legitimate districting interests under the Popular Will Amendment or this title.

SEC. 3204. APPLICATION OF INDEPENDENT-COMMISSION REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Incorporation.

Sections 3103, 3104, 3106 through 3114, and 3116 through 3118 apply functionally to every covered electoral plan, substituting the applicable governmental body and covered jurisdiction only where the context requires. Commission membership and selection are governed by subsections (b) and (c) of this section; population and criteria adaptations by sections 3205 through 3207; and transition deadlines by section 3208. No mechanical substitution may impose a congressional-delegation metric on an inapplicable local body, treat a local boundary as a State boundary for preserving the State’s total population under section 3110(b)(3), alter a State’s apportionment population, require a 15-member local commission, or narrow a right secured by the Popular Will Amendment. The overarching prohibitions, conflict rules, public-record duties, neutral-data separation, ranked criteria, no-mid-decade rule, and independent fallback are minimum national requirements.

(b) State commission as universal backstop.

Each State shall maintain a 15-member independent fair-representation commission selected under sections 3105 through 3108 with authority to draw State legislative plans and to act for every covered jurisdiction in the State that lacks a qualifying local or regional commission. The District of Columbia and each territory shall maintain an equivalent 15-member commission with cohorts adapted by the Federal Office to local political affiliation while preserving the one-third unaffiliated minimum, the hybrid random-and-member selection process, and the diversity requirements in section 3105.

(c) Local and regional commissions.

1. A covered jurisdiction may establish a local commission of 9 or 15 voting members. No more than one-third may be affiliated with the same political party, and at least one-third shall have been unaffiliated with every political party throughout the preceding 5 years. The commission shall use proportionally equivalent cross-cohort voting, objective screening, random selection of an initial group, selection of the remaining members by that initial group to improve the diversity and expertise specified in section 3105(e)(4), and all conflict protections in this division.

2. A jurisdiction too small to support a qualified applicant pool shall use the State commission or a qualifying regional commission. The Federal Office shall publish an advisory compliance notice, and any dispute over qualification is resolved by the three-judge court. Cost, size, home rule, or special-purpose status does not permit political-branch map adoption.

3. A regional commission may serve multiple jurisdictions but shall create separate public records, hearings, findings, and plans for each.

(d) Existing commissions.

An existing commission may continue if, after public review, its membership, selection, authority, independence, transparency, voting rule, funding, criteria, and fallback demonstrably equal or exceed this division and section 11 of the Popular Will Amendment. A Federal Office notice of compliance is advisory and may be reviewed in the three-judge court; it is not a license to use a constitutionally deficient commission. A legislative advisory commission, politically appointed tie-breaker system, commission subject to political veto, or staff plan requiring legislative approval does not qualify.

(e) Federal and judicial fallback.

If no qualifying commission exists, the State commission acts. If the State commission cannot act, the Federal Office exercises fallback authority. If the Federal Commission does not timely adopt a fallback plan, the appropriate three-judge court appoints a temporary commission or nonpartisan special master and acts. Authority never passes to an elected political branch, and no Federal administrative notice vetoes a plan adopted by a qualifying commission.

SEC. 3205. UNIVERSAL CRITERIA; POPULATION; FREQUENCY.

(a) Population equality.

1. Congressional districts remain subject to the standard in section 3109(c).

2. For a State, territorial, or local body elected from districts, the maximum total deviation from ideal population may not exceed 5 percent unless each additional deviation is proved necessary to satisfy protected-community opportunity or an unavoidable geographic condition and is the smallest practicable deviation.

3. Within the 5-percent ceiling, deliberate population shifts for partisan, incumbent, regional favoritism, or unequal representation are prohibited. A numerical ceiling is not a safe harbor.

4. Total population is controlling. Sections 3110(b) through (e), including incarcerated-person reallocation, apply to all covered plans. For a local plan, reallocation to a last usual residence in another jurisdiction within the same State adjusts the local jurisdiction totals accordingly while preserving the State total; it is not treated as an out-of-State address under section 3110(b)(3). The Federal Commission shall prescribe uniform rules for cross-jurisdiction records and reconciliation.

(b) Ranked criteria.

The criteria and prohibitions in section 3109 apply. For a multimember or alternative electoral system authorized as a remedy, the commission shall additionally consider district magnitude, ballot structure, threshold of election, ballot exhaustion, equal voter access, and whether the design permits cohesive communities to obtain fair electoral opportunity.

(c) Communities and subdivisions.

A commission shall distinguish genuine representational communities from political sponsorship. It may consider Tribal reservations, trust lands, Native villages, language-access areas, school-attendance patterns, transportation networks, watersheds, economic regions, disability-service areas, and historic neighborhoods. It may not defer mechanically to a subdivision boundary drawn or altered for a forbidden purpose.

(d) Redistricting frequency.

A covered plan may be replaced once after each decennial census. An additional plan is permitted only following a final legal judgment; a newly controlling provision of Federal law; a change in legally fixed seats; creation of a new jurisdiction; or a substantial annexation, deannexation, detachment, consolidation, division, dissolution, or boundary change making the existing plan unlawful, materially unrepresentative, or materially malapportioned. The change shall be the narrowest adequate adjustment unless the whole plan no longer complies. Political change, emergency rhetoric, temporary duration, new political data, or another jurisdiction’s conduct never suffices.

(e) Seat-number and structural changes.

A covered jurisdiction may alter the size or electoral structure of a body only under a prospective general rule, after independent commission review, and without a forbidden purpose or material dilutive effect. A change made during a redistricting cycle takes effect at the next ordinary decennial plan unless required sooner by population equality, protected-community opportunity, or creation of a new government.

SEC. 3206. PROTECTED-COMMUNITY EFFECTS STANDARD; SUPERSESSION OF CONTRARY RULES.

(a) Results test.

A violation is established when, under the totality of current circumstances, a covered electoral plan or method meaningfully reduces a protected community’s opportunity, compared with reasonably available lawful alternatives, to participate in the political process, form effective coalitions, nominate or support candidates, and elect representatives responsive to its choices. Proof of discriminatory purpose, subjective animus, or a strong inference of present intentional discrimination is not required.

(b) Relevant showing.

A claimant may establish unequal opportunity through evidence that—

1. the protected community is sufficiently numerous and geographically configured that a reasonably constituted district or alternative electoral method could afford effective opportunity;

2. community members are politically cohesive, alone or in lawful coalition with another protected community;

3. bloc voting, district boundaries, an at-large or multimember system, numbered posts, majority-vote requirement, stagger, runoff, candidate-access rule, or interaction of practices ordinarily impairs the community’s candidates of choice; and

4. history, discrimination, socioeconomic conditions, campaign appeals, access barriers, candidate slating, responsiveness, representation, and other probative circumstances confirm unequal opportunity.

Those considerations guide a functional inquiry and are not rigid prerequisites where the challenged structure or a feasible remedy is not a single-member district.

(c) Race and party.

Correlation between protected status and party preference is not a defense. A claimant need not statistically control for party in a manner that erases or discounts polarized voting experienced by the protected community. A jurisdiction may not characterize racial, ethnic, Tribal, or language-minority sorting as permissible partisanship or use protected status as a proxy for party.

(d) Illustrative plans.

An illustrative plan may consider protected status to demonstrate a feasible remedy. It shall reasonably satisfy population equality, contiguity, and genuinely applicable neutral criteria, but need not reproduce partisan advantage, incumbent protection, a predetermined delegation, or any other political objective. The illustrative plan need not be the plan ultimately ordered.

(e) Compelling interest and tailoring.

Preventing or remedying material dilution and securing equal electoral opportunity under this section are compelling constitutional interests. A commission or court may consider race, color, ethnicity, language-minority status, Indigenous identity, Tribal community, and correlated political behavior when reasonably necessary to identify, prevent, or remedy dilution. Such consideration is constitutionally permissible when tailored in good faith to equal electoral opportunity, and a remedial district is not invalid merely because protected status was a substantial or predominant consideration. The commission or court shall conduct a functional analysis, use current reliable evidence, avoid unnecessary sorting, and respect higher-ranked neutral criteria to the extent consistent with an effective remedy. Partisan advantage, incumbent protection, administratively convenient discrimination, or preference for a less effective remedy is not a neutral objective requiring continued dilution.

(f) No quota; proportionality probative.

No protected community is guaranteed electoral success, a fixed number of seats, or proportional representation. The relationship between population share and realistic electoral opportunity is relevant evidence and is neither an automatic entitlement nor a ceiling on relief.

(g) Historical and current evidence.

Current conditions receive substantial weight, but probative historical discrimination, continuing socioeconomic effects, evasive practices, and the jurisdiction’s response to minority political participation remain relevant. Success of prior remedies does not by itself prove that protection is no longer needed.

(h) Express supersession.

The standards announced in Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___ (2026), or any other decision interpreting a constitutional or statutory provision predating the Popular Will Amendment do not limit a claim under the later amendment or this section to the extent inconsistent with subsections (a) through (g). In particular, no claimant under this section must show a strong inference of intentional discrimination, draw an illustrative plan without protected-status information, preserve a jurisdiction’s political objectives, or disentangle polarized voting from party affiliation.

(i) Cumulative protections.

Nothing in this section narrows section 2 or another provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a treaty, the Indian Citizenship Act, or a Federal or State constitutional protection. A claimant may obtain relief under the most protective applicable source without duplicative recovery.

SEC. 3207. PARTISAN-EFFECT STANDARD FOR ALL ELECTORAL STRUCTURES.

Section 3111 applies to State, territorial, and local plans. The Federal Commission shall adapt ensemble and metric rules to delegation size, nonpartisan ballot labels that function as partisan systems, multimember districts, ranked-choice or proportional methods, coalitions, and jurisdictions lacking sufficient statewide elections. An at-large or alternative method shall be tested for representational threshold, cohesive-group exclusion, durable control, and interaction with numbered posts, runoffs, staggered terms, or residency requirements. No jurisdiction may avoid review by omitting party labels while using political information to entrench an identifiable coalition.

SEC. 3208. UNIVERSAL ADOPTION; TRANSITION.

(a) Adoption, filing, and compliance notice.

A covered electoral plan adopted by the appropriate qualifying independent commission has the force of law upon adoption, subject only to judicial review. The commission shall file the plan and record with the Federal Office, which shall publish an advisory compliance notice under section 3113(c). Absence, delay, or an adverse conclusion in that notice does not suspend the plan or create an administrative veto. Certification by the adopting commission binds ministerial election officers but does not create immunity or a conclusive presumption in court.

(b) Initial post-ratification plans.

Every covered jurisdiction shall constitute or designate a qualifying commission not later than 18 months after ratification, and every jurisdiction lacking one on the operative date shall begin that process within 180 days. Each jurisdiction shall place a compliant plan into effect not later than 36 months after ratification or before the second regularly scheduled general election occurring after ratification, whichever is earlier. A court may require earlier use when a compliant plan reasonably can be adopted or when necessary to remedy an immediately enforceable violation. No jurisdiction may conduct an additional election under an unlawful plan after a compliant plan reasonably could have been used.

(c) Ordinary cycle.

State commissions shall adopt State legislative plans within 180 days after census redistricting data. Local plans shall be adopted within 270 days, except that the Federal Office may establish grouped deadlines based on election calendars. Failure invokes automatic State, Federal, and judicial fallback in that order.

(d) Ministerial implementation.

Every election officer shall implement the adopted plan notwithstanding contrary local charter, home-rule provision, initiative, referendum, statute, or order. Refusal or delay is subject to immediate mandamus and the enforcement provisions of this division.

SEC. 3209. ENFORCEMENT; IMMUNITY; REMEDIES AFTER RATIFICATION.

(a) Express action.

Section 3117 applies to this title. An affected voter, candidate with a concrete burden, protected community, political party or association, organization with an affected member, commission, the Attorney General, or a State or territorial attorney general may sue. Congress expressly creates personal rights and a cause of action directly under this title and section 1983 of title 42. Enforcement does not depend on implying a remedy under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Claims under sections 3203 through 3207 present judicially manageable questions of constitutional and statutory right and shall not be dismissed or denied as political questions, for want of judicially discoverable standards, because adjudication requires comparison of plans or statistical evidence, or because a political branch could also act.

(b) Sovereign immunity.

Pursuant to the enforcement power of the Popular Will Amendment, no State, territory, political subdivision, instrumentality, officer, or employee is immune under the Eleventh Amendment or any doctrine of sovereign immunity from an action for declaratory, injunctive, mandamus, or other prospective relief under this title. This subsection unequivocally abrogates immunity to that extent. It does not create damages liability for a good-faith mapping judgment.

(c) Remedy.

A remedy shall fully cure the proven purpose, effect, process, population, or opportunity violation; use the narrowest changes consistent with a complete cure; and respect lawful higher-ranked criteria. The court may enjoin a plan or evasion device; establish deadlines; preserve and compel records; direct a qualifying commission; appoint a temporary commission or nonpartisan special master; adopt a plan; alter district magnitude, an electoral method, a runoff, stagger, numbered post, or another electoral structure; reopen candidate qualification; adjust election procedures or dates; order a new election; and retain jurisdiction. The commission receives no more than 30 days for a first cure only if it acted independently and in good faith and time is sufficient, after which the judicial fallback acts, with technical assistance from the Federal Office as ordered. No remedy returns authority to an elected political branch.

(d) Election relief.

A court may alter filing, petition, primary, runoff, special-election, and term-transition dates; order a special election where equitable; preserve governmental continuity temporarily; and prohibit use of a finally adjudged unlawful plan. Reliance on the proximity of an election requires specific feasibility findings and cannot reward strategic delay. No unlawful plan may be used for two successive elections after judgment.

(e) Evidentiary access.

The required public record is admissible without custodial testimony. No State legislative privilege, deliberative-process privilege, or mapmaking common-interest agreement may conceal factual instructions, political data, draft maps, or communications required to be public. A court shall protect voter-identifying and legitimately confidential legal material narrowly.

SEC. 3210. REGULATIONS AND NATIONAL TECHNICAL STANDARDS.

Within 18 months after enactment, and again within 12 months before each decennial census date, the Federal Commission shall issue prospective rules governing commission compliance notices, affiliation evidence, conflicts, hybrid random-and-member selection, total-population adjustments, protected-community functional analysis, communities of interest, contiguity, compactness, political datasets, ensemble validation, small jurisdictions, multimember systems, records, cybersecurity, accessibility, language access, remedies, and transition. A rule issued before ratification may be final as a conditional rule but has compulsory effect for State and local districting only when this title becomes operative. Rules may clarify but may not weaken an express right, criterion, threshold, deadline, fallback, or cause of action. Failure to update a rule leaves the existing rule and statutory defaults in force.

SEC. 3301. SHORT TITLE; DEFINITIONS; CONTINGENT EFFECT.

(a) Short title.

This title may be cited as the “People’s House Expansion Act”.

(b) Definitions.

In this title:

1. Apportionment population. The term “apportionment population” means the population used by the Secretary of Commerce and the President to apportion Representatives among the several States under section 2a(a) of title 2, United States Code.

2. Contingent presidential-election effective date. The term “contingent presidential-election effective date” means the date on which the direct national presidential-election provisions first have operative legal effect under section 603.

3. Covered apportionment. The term “covered apportionment” means the apportionment based on the first decennial census whose census date occurs after the ratification date and for which the contingent presidential-election effective date occurs not later than transmission of the presidential apportionment statement. If the condition in the preceding sentence is not satisfied for the first such census, the term means the apportionment based on the first later decennial census for which it is satisfied.

4. Covered census. The term “covered census” means the decennial census on which the covered apportionment is based.

5. Presidential apportionment statement. The term “presidential apportionment statement” means the statement transmitted to Congress under section 2a(a) of title 2, United States Code.

6. Ratification date. The term “ratification date” has the meaning given in section 601.

(c) Contingent effect.

This title becomes operative only for a covered apportionment. Preparatory estimates, facilities planning, software development, and nonbinding rules may occur before that apportionment, but no estimate changes the membership of the House.

SEC. 3302. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

Congress finds that the fixed 435-seat House causes district populations to grow without a population-responsive correction; that a larger House reduces average constituency size and improves representational capacity; and that applying the formula in section 3303 to the official 2020 apportionment populations would have produced 574 Representatives, 139 more than 435. The purpose of this title is to establish an automatic, neutral House size related to the population of the least-populous State while preserving at least one Representative for every State and the method of equal proportions.

SEC. 3303. SIZE OF THE HOUSE.

(a) Formula.

For each covered apportionment, the number of voting Representatives, denoted H, shall be—

H = max(435, ceiling(P / S)),

where P is the total apportionment population of all States and S is the apportionment population of the least-populous State. “Ceiling” means the smallest whole number not less than the quotient. The Secretary of Commerce shall calculate and publish P, S, the quotient, and H with sufficient precision for independent reproduction.

(b) No discretionary adjustment.

Neither the President, Congress acting by resolution, the Secretary of Commerce, the Clerk of the House, nor a State may alter H except by a subsequently enacted law. A census correction finally adopted before the President’s apportionment statement shall be included; a later correction affects the next apportionment unless a final court judgment directs otherwise.

SEC. 3304. APPORTIONMENT BY EQUAL PROPORTIONS.

(a) One seat per State.

Each State shall first receive one Representative. If N is the number of States included in the covered apportionment, the remaining H minus N seats shall be distributed among the States by the method of equal proportions using the official apportionment populations for the covered census.

(b) Priority values and ties.

The Secretary of Commerce shall publish the priority values, precision rules, source data, code, and complete allocation table. A numerical tie affecting the final seat shall be resolved under a prospective neutral rule established by Act of Congress; absent such a rule, the State with the larger unrounded priority value at the greatest available precision receives the seat, and an exact tie is resolved by a public auditable lot.

(c) Presidential statement and Clerk’s certificate.

At the time prescribed by section 2a(a) of title 2, United States Code, the President shall transmit P, S, H, and the number of Representatives apportioned to each State. Within 15 calendar days, the Clerk of the House shall transmit a certificate to each State. These duties are ministerial.

SEC. 3305. AMENDMENT TO SECTION 2a OF TITLE 2.

Effective for a covered apportionment, section 2a(a) of title 2, United States Code, is amended—

1. by striking “the then existing number of Representatives” and inserting “the number of Representatives calculated under title XXXIII of division C of the Popular Will Act of 2026”; and

2. by inserting after “method known as the method of equal proportions” the following: “, after first allocating one Representative to each State”.

Section 2a(b) shall be administered using the resulting number of Representatives. Section 2a(c) remains repealed under section 3119; no increase, decrease, delay, or districting failure authorizes an at-large election.

SEC. 3306. TRANSITION TO THE EXPANDED HOUSE.

(a) First election and Congress.

The new apportionment and H take effect for the first regular congressional election occurring after transmission of the presidential statement and for the Congress beginning the following January 3. The existing House continues with its previously lawful membership until that Congress begins.

(b) Redistricting.

Every State receiving more than one seat shall establish the corresponding number of single-member districts under title XXXI. Failure to complete a State plan by the deadline in section 3115 or a prospective rule validly issued under that title invokes Federal fallback. A State may not elect additional or remaining Representatives at large.

(c) Administrative preparation.

The House, Architect of the Capitol, General Services Administration, Commission, and election authorities shall prepare facilities, technology, staffing, committee capacity, ballot systems, and security for the projected range of H before the covered census. Administrative inconvenience may not delay or reduce the calculated House.

(d) No effect on other representation.

This title does not alter equal suffrage in the Senate, create Statehood, or independently confer a House vote on a Delegate or Resident Commissioner. Rights created elsewhere in the Popular Will Amendment or this Act remain unaffected.

SEC. 3307. JUDICIAL REVIEW.

An action challenging the calculation of P, S, H, priority values, or a State allocation shall be filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia within 45 days after the presidential apportionment statement and heard by a three-judge court. The court may order correction of a ministerial or legal error but may not select a different House size formula or apportionment method. A final judgment or injunction order is directly appealable under section 1253B of title 28.

SEC. 3401. RELATION TO MORE PROTECTIVE LAW.

A State or political subdivision may enforce a more protective rule concerning independence, transparency, population equality, protected electoral opportunity, partisan neutrality, or public participation if the rule does not conflict with this division, delay a Federal deadline, impair an individual Federal right, or restore political-branch control. Compliance with State law is not a defense to violation of this division.

SEC. 3402. SEVERABILITY; NO REVIVAL; FALLBACK.

If any provision of this division, an amendment made by it, or its application is held invalid, the remainder and every other valid application shall not be affected. A court with jurisdiction shall preserve the self-executing constitutional rights and apply the closest lawful independent substitute consistent with the ranked criteria and fallback hierarchy. Before ratification of the Popular Will Amendment, an invalid commission-selection provision shall be replaced by a selection conforming as nearly as possible to section 3105 and the Constitution then in force. On and after ratification, the court shall direct a selection conforming as nearly as possible to section 11 of the Amendment. In either period the court may appoint a temporary independent commission or nonpartisan special master when timely compliant selection is not feasible. If an administrative fallback is invalid or unavailable, judicial fallback applies immediately. The Commission may propose a lawful administrative substitute but receives no power from this section to waive or rewrite a substantive right, composition rule, criterion, deadline, cause of action, or remedy.

No invalidity revives an at-large fallback, political-branch mapmaking, legislative or executive approval, a superseded or malapportioned map, or section 2a(c) of title 2. Repeal of section 2a(c) and the single-member requirement remain effective independently to the maximum extent permitted by law. The purpose and effect prohibitions, protected-community standard, personal rights, express cause of action, attorney-fee remedy, no-administrative-veto rule, and Federal and judicial fallbacks are independently severable.

SEC. 3403. SAVINGS AND CONTINUITY.

An election validly completed before a new plan’s required use is not annulled solely by this division. Records, investigations, pending actions, and accrued rights survive transition. An incumbent has no right to preservation of a district or term beyond that provided by the Constitution and applicable law. During a remedial transition, a court may preserve governmental continuity only for the shortest period consistent with effective relief.

SEC. 3404. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

This division shall be construed liberally to protect voters and strictly against self-interested control, concealment, evasion, and reversion to political mapmaking. No canon disfavoring implied rights applies because the rights, causes of action, standing interests, remedies, and congressional intent to permit private enforcement are express.

SEC. 401. PRIVATE RIGHT OF ACTION.

An elector, candidate, or organization whose members are affected may sue an election official or government for declaratory, injunctive, mandamus, or other appropriate relief. Registration and access claims may be filed where the plaintiff resides; national-result claims are governed by title VII. Organizational standing and the injury of unequal treatment or threatened vote loss are expressly recognized.

SEC. 402. ENFORCEMENT BY ATTORNEY GENERAL AND COMMISSION.

The Attorney General and Commission may investigate and bring civil actions. The Commission may issue compliance orders after notice and hearing, but only a court may imprison, invalidate a ballot, or remove an elected person. Emergency relief shall protect voters rather than merely penalize officials after the election.

SEC. 403. ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLAINTS.

The Commission shall provide a free accessible complaint process, 24-hour election-period intake, notice to respondents, public tracking, whistleblower confidentiality, and resolution within 90 days or before the relevant election deadline. Exhaustion is not required where delay could impair voting.

SEC. 404. FEDERAL PREEMPTION.

This Act supersedes every State constitution, statute, regulation, judicial rule, contract, or practice inconsistent with the national presidential contest. Greater access is permitted only where it does not alter uniform eligibility, ballot access, timeliness, interpretation, tabulation, audit, recount, contest, or certification.

SEC. 405. PROTECTION AGAINST OFFICIAL NONFEASANCE.

A court may compel performance, appoint a receiver, authorize another official, accept authenticated lower-level returns, and order Federal fallback when an officer refuses, delays, abandons, or sabotages a duty. No official has a lawful “negative veto” over registration, voting, canvass, or certification.

SEC. 406. CRIMINAL OFFENSES.

Whoever knowingly and with intent to affect an election—

1. alters, fabricates, destroys, conceals, or substitutes a ballot or protected record;

2. causes an ineligible or duplicate ballot to be counted, or a lawful ballot not to be counted;

3. makes or authenticates a materially false return or certificate;

4. obtains unauthorized access to an election system or discloses a secret vote;

5. intimidates, coerces, pays, or retaliates against an elector or election worker; or

6. obstructs an audit, recount, lawful observer, court, or ministerial certificate,

shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both. Good-faith error, protected advocacy, ordinary recount litigation, and authorized security research complying with disclosure rules are not offenses.

SEC. 407. CIVIL PENALTIES.

After notice and hearing, a court may impose a civil penalty not exceeding $25,000 per knowing violation or $250,000 for a pattern, adjusted for inflation, and may order training, monitoring, restitution, system replacement, or disqualification from election administration. Penalties may not be paid from funds otherwise necessary to conduct voting.

SEC. 408. WHISTLEBLOWER AND WITNESS PROTECTION.

An employee, contractor, observer, or elector who lawfully reports suspected misconduct, preserves evidence, or testifies is protected against discharge, threat, harassment, license action, contract retaliation, and disclosure of identity. Relief includes reinstatement, double back pay, compensatory damages, fees, and protective orders.

SEC. 409. WAIVER OF IMMUNITY; FEES AND COSTS.

Congress abrogates the sovereign immunity of States, territories, subdivisions, and officers for relief under this Act pursuant to the Amendment and applicable constitutional powers. Ex parte Young relief remains independently available. A prevailing plaintiff other than the United States ordinarily receives reasonable fees and expert costs.

SEC. 410. RELATION TO OTHER VOTING RIGHTS.

This Act supplements the Voting Rights Act, National Voter Registration Act, Help America Vote Act, UOCAVA, Americans with Disabilities Act, Rehabilitation Act, and constitutional rights. The law providing greater protection to the voter controls unless it would create a nonuniform national tabulation rule.

SEC. 411. SEVERABILITY AND ANTI-REVIVAL.

If a provision or application is held invalid, the remainder remains effective and the court shall use the narrowest remedy consistent with equal voting. After the Amendment’s elector provisions cease to operate, no judgment concerning an implementing detail revives presidential electors, a congressional count, or State vote weighting; the self-executing Amendment and valid statutory defaults govern.

SEC. 412. AUTHORIZATION AND PERMANENT APPROPRIATION.

In addition to section 112, such sums as are necessary to secure ballots, remedy a violation, operate Federal fallback, protect election workers, and comply with a final judgment are appropriated from the Treasury and remain available until expended. The Commission shall publish quarterly obligations and independent audits.

SEC. 501. CONDITIONAL AMENDMENTS TO TITLE 3, UNITED STATES CODE.

On the contingent presidential-election effective date—

1. sections 1 through 18 and section 21 of title 3, United States Code, and the table items for those sections, are repealed;

2. every duty to appoint presidential electors, prepare or transmit an elector certificate, meet and vote as electors, transmit electoral votes, convene a joint session, count electoral votes, entertain an objection, or conduct a contingent election under the Twelfth Amendment ceases for elections governed by the Amendment, without impairing the exact-tie procedure in section 7 of the Amendment;

3. chapter 1 of title 3 is redesignated “Presidential Election, Qualification, and Vacancy”; and

4. the table of chapters for title 3 is amended by adding after the item for chapter 5 the following:

“6. National Presidential Election ........................................ 601”; and

5. division B is transferred to and enacted as chapter 6 of title 3; each section in that division is redesignated as a section of title 3 by adding 400 to its Act section number, so that, for example, sections 201, 221, 241, 261, 281, 301, 321, 341, and 351 become sections 601, 621, 641, 661, 681, 701, 721, 741, and 751 of title 3, respectively. The title and heading structure of division B is retained as the subchapter structure of chapter 6. A reference in this Act or another law to a transferred section is deemed a reference to its redesignated title 3 section, and the Office of the Law Revision Counsel shall make the resulting clerical changes to internal cross-references without substantive alteration.

No repeal affects a prosecution, record-preservation duty, appropriation, or completed selection under an election governed by prior law.

SEC. 502. PRESERVATION AND CONFORMITY OF PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION LAW.

On the contingent presidential-election effective date, sections 19 and 20 of title 3 remain in force. In section 19, a reference to failure of both a President-elect and Vice President-elect to qualify includes death, declination, permanent constitutional ineligibility, or an unresolved national contest under this Act. An acting officer serves only until a person qualifies under a final certificate that became conclusive before the term began, a House choice or operation-of-law result under section 7 of the Amendment and section 245, or a special election, and does not thereby acquire the presidential term.

SEC. 503. AMENDMENTS TO THE UNIFORMED AND OVERSEAS CITIZENS ABSENTEE VOTING ACT.

(a) National presidential voting by uniformed and overseas citizens.

On the contingent presidential-election effective date, chapter 203 of title 52, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

Ҥ 20312. National presidential election

“(a) Coverage.—The national presidential election, including a special national presidential election, is an election for Federal office for every purpose of this chapter. Each duty imposed by this chapter applies to the ranked joint-ticket ballot and to every State, territory, possession, and administrative jurisdiction participating in that election.

“(b) Citizens without prior domestic residence.—A citizen of the United States who is outside the United States and is eligible to vote for President and Vice President under the Constitution and Federal law may register and vote under this chapter notwithstanding that the citizen has never resided or been domiciled in a State, territory, possession, or the District of Columbia. Such a citizen shall be assigned to the Federal Overseas Presidential Roll under section 607 of title 3 or another administrative jurisdiction under uniform Federal law solely for ballot administration, without acquiring residence, domicile, or tax consequences from that assignment.

“(c) Ballot transmission and Federal write-in ballot.—

“(1) The ranked presidential ballot shall be transmitted to a voter eligible under this chapter or subsection (b) not later than 45 days before the final day prescribed for voting, including in a special national election.

“(2) The Federal write-in absentee ballot under section 20303 shall permit the voter to rank every printed joint ticket and at least 3 declared write-in joint tickets and shall preserve each ranking in a form capable of national tabulation.

“(3) Electronic delivery of a blank ballot and voting information remains authorized, but a voted presidential ballot may not be returned by internet portal, electronic mail, facsimile, or another electronic-transmission method. A voter shall be provided a postage-paid paper-return method and an accessible paper-ballot method.

“(d) Uniform timeliness rule.—A State receipt deadline does not govern the presidential portion of a ballot covered by this section. Timely casting, receipt, and cure are governed exclusively by sections 664 and 665 of title 3.

“(e) Definitions.—For purposes of this section, ‘State’ includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and every other territory or possession subject to the sovereignty of the United States. A term defined in the Popular Will Act of 2026 has the same meaning in this section.”.

(b) Table amendment.

The table of sections for chapter 203 of title 52, United States Code, is amended by adding after the item relating to section 20311 the following:

“20312. National presidential election.”

SEC. 504. AMENDMENTS TO THE NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION ACT.

(a) National presidential registration.

On the contingent presidential-election effective date, chapter 205 of title 52, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

Ҥ 20512. National presidential registration

“(a) Nationwide application.—This chapter applies to registration for the national presidential election in each of the several States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and every other territory or possession subject to the sovereignty of the United States.

“(b) Uniform Federal procedures.—For the national presidential election, each jurisdiction shall provide automatic, online, portable, and election-day registration and correction under sections 604 through 610 of title 3. Those procedures supersede a less protective or inconsistent procedure under this chapter or State law.

“(c) No prohibited cancellation or qualification.—A registration for the national presidential election may not be canceled or made inactive solely because the registrant did not vote, failed to respond to a notice not returned as undeliverable, changed address within the United States, or lacks a qualification prohibited by the Constitution or section 602 of title 3. Removal and correction are governed by uniform Federal law and require the notice, evidence, and restoration protections in section 605 of title 3.

“(d) Other elections.—This section does not by itself change eligibility or registration for an election other than the national presidential election.”.

(b) Table amendment.

The table of sections for chapter 205 of title 52, United States Code, is amended by adding after the item relating to section 20511 the following:

“20512. National presidential registration.”

SEC. 505. AMENDMENTS RELATING TO THE ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION.

(a) Transfer.

On the later of the contingent presidential-election effective date or the date on which the Federal Election Administration Commission has a quorum and an operational Office of Fair Representation, the Election Assistance Commission established under section 20921 of title 52 is transferred to and continued within the Federal Election Administration Commission. Until that date, nothing in this section terminates or impairs the Transition Redistricting Administration established by section 3103. On and after that date, a reference in Federal law, regulation, contract, grant, or record to the Election Assistance Commission is deemed a reference to the Commission.

(b) Continuity.

Existing voting-system certifications, voluntary guidelines, grants, contracts, advisory boards, and career personnel remain effective until lawfully superseded. Sitting commissioners may serve as nonvoting transition advisers for not more than 1 year after the transfer date but do not displace commissioners appointed under section 102.

SEC. 506. AMENDMENTS TO TITLE 28, UNITED STATES CODE.

On the contingent presidential-election effective date, title 28, United States Code, is amended as follows:

(a) Jurisdiction.

Chapter 85 is amended by inserting after section 1344 the following:

Ҥ 1344A. National presidential-election jurisdiction

“(a) The district courts have original jurisdiction, without regard to amount in controversy, of a civil action arising under the Popular Will Act of 2026 or the presidential-election provisions of the Popular Will Amendment.

“(b) The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has exclusive original jurisdiction of an action concerning national presidential candidate qualification after voting has begun, national tabulation, a nationwide audit or recount, a contest capable of changing the national result, a certificate of election or exact tie, House choice following an exact tie, or nationwide emergency modification. A claim initially filed elsewhere that could grant such relief shall be transferred to that court and consolidated with a pending national action.

“(c) A district court for the district in which an event occurred may preserve evidence, protect voting access, adjudicate an individual registration or ballot-status claim, and conduct factfinding referred by the court described in subsection (b), but may not enter an order altering a national elimination, tabulation, certificate, or winning ticket.

“(d) This section does not withdraw Supreme Court jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution or another Act of Congress.”.

The table of sections for chapter 85 is amended by adding after the item relating to section 1344 the following:

“1344A. National presidential-election jurisdiction.”

(b) Three-judge court.

Chapter 155 is amended by adding at the end the following:

Ҥ 2284A. Three-judge court for national presidential-election cases

“(a) A district court of three judges shall be convened for—

“(1) an action capable of changing the identity of a continuing or winning national presidential ticket, an elimination, a final-round result, or a national certificate;

“(2) an action seeking to enjoin or invalidate a nationally applicable presidential-election rule during the 180 days preceding the final day of voting;

“(3) an application to approve or review a localized extension or nationwide modification of presidential voting; and

“(4) an action for which the Popular Will Act of 2026 or the Popular Will Amendment expressly requires a three-judge court.

“(b) The composition and procedure of the court are governed by section 2284(b) and (c), except that assignment shall be made immediately by a publicly documented randomized procedure, one judge shall be a circuit judge, and assignment may not consider which President appointed a judge.

“(c) Before the three-judge court is convened, a single judge may preserve evidence and prevent irreparable loss of voting opportunity, but may not postpone the election nationwide, alter a national tabulation or certificate, or enter judgment on the merits of a claim described in subsection (a).

“(d) The court shall give the action priority over other civil matters, set the shortest schedule consistent with due process, and issue findings and conclusions sufficient for expedited review.”.

The table of sections for chapter 155 is amended by adding after the item relating to section 2284 the following:

“2284A. Three-judge court for national presidential-election cases.”

(c) Direct review.

Chapter 81 is amended by inserting after section 1253 the following:

Ҥ 1253A. Direct appeal in national presidential-election cases

“A party may appeal directly to the Supreme Court from a final judgment, or from an interlocutory order granting or denying declaratory or injunctive relief, entered by a three-judge court convened under section 2284A. Notice of appeal shall be filed within 48 hours after entry of the judgment or order. The Supreme Court or a Justice thereof may extend that time for good cause. An appeal does not stay the judgment or order unless the three-judge court, the Supreme Court, or a Justice orders a stay under standards that account for the fixed election calendar and injury to lawful voters.”.

The table of sections for chapter 81 is amended by adding after the item relating to section 1253 the following:

“1253A. Direct appeal in national presidential-election cases.”

SEC. 507. REFERENCES IN FEDERAL LAW TO ELECTORS AND ELECTORAL VOTES.

On the contingent presidential-election effective date, a reference concerning an election governed by the Amendment to presidential electors, appointment of electors, electoral votes, or the electoral-vote count is either inapplicable or, where context reasonably permits, deemed a reference to eligible national electors, direct votes, the national tabulation, or the Commission certificate, respectively. No deeming may preserve State weighting or congressional power to reject the result.

SEC. 508. TECHNICAL AND CLERICAL AMENDMENTS.

The Office of the Law Revision Counsel, in consultation with the Commission and Archivist, shall submit within 180 days a bill identifying obsolete cross-references and technical redesignations. Failure to enact that bill does not delay or narrow this Act; sections 501 through 507 control.

SEC. 601. RATIFICATION CERTIFICATION.

(a) Actual ratification date.

The “ratification date” is the calendar date on which valid ratifications by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States then entitled to participate in article V ratification have occurred within the period prescribed by the proposing resolution. Ratification occurs upon the constitutionally sufficient State legislative act that completes that three-fourths requirement and is not postponed by transmission, receipt, publication, or Federal certification.

(b) Ministerial Federal certification.

The officer designated by law to perform the functions in section 106b of title 1 shall, not later than 7 days after authenticated evidence sufficient to establish the constitutionally sufficient ratification completing the three-fourths requirement is received by that officer or publicly filed by the ratifying State, whichever occurs first, issue, transmit, and publish a certificate stating the actual ratification date and the number of States entitled to participate and validly ratifying as of that date. The certificate is conclusive evidence for administrative purposes unless modified by a final judgment, but issuance is not a condition of the Amendment’s validity or this Act’s deadlines. The officer may verify authenticity and whether the facial requirements of article V and the proposing resolution are satisfied, but may not add a substantive ratification condition.

(c) Withheld or disputed certification.

If the officer fails to publish a certificate by the deadline in subsection (b), the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia shall publish in the Federal Register and a permanent public repository the authenticated State instruments then on file and a notice identifying the apparent date and number of State ratifications that constitutionally completed the three-fourths requirement. A State, either House of Congress, the Attorney General, or a person whose rights or duties turn on the date may seek an expedited declaratory judgment from a three-judge court in that district. The court shall determine the validity and date of disputed ratifications under article V and the proposing resolution and shall direct publication of the controlling date; direct expedited review lies in the Supreme Court. Pending judgment, the actual date described in subsection (a), rather than an officer’s delay or refusal, controls.

SEC. 602. IMMEDIATE PREPARATORY PROVISIONS.

Sections 1 through 5, division A, title XXXI, title XXXIV as applied to title XXXI, section 508, and division F take effect on enactment. Division D takes effect on enactment to the extent that it enforces those immediately effective provisions, division C, or a security, research, grant, or other function independently supported by existing law. The Commission may immediately issue proposed rules, award grants, and build and test systems. Before the contingent presidential-election effective date, however, no officer may certify a direct-election winner, displace presidential electors for an election governed by prior law, compel territorial presidential voting, or enforce a contingent presidential provision solely by virtue of this Act.

SEC. 603. CONTINGENT PRESIDENTIAL-ELECTION EFFECTIVE DATE.

(a) Governed election and operative date.

The first governed presidential general election is the first regularly scheduled presidential general election held on or after the date that is 36 months after the ratification date. The “contingent presidential-election effective date” is the date exactly 36 months before that first governed general election.

(b) Simultaneous operation.

Sections 2 through 9 of the Amendment and the contingent presidential provisions govern the entire election cycle culminating in the first governed presidential general election and every presidential election cycle thereafter. Every nomination, filing, ballot-access, registration, voting, canvass, audit, recount, contest, certification, and preparatory act occurring on or after the contingent presidential-election effective date for a governed election is subject to those provisions. The conditional conforming repeals take effect on that date. No elector provision is repealed for an election unless the direct-vote provisions govern that election.

(c) Self-executing fallback.

Failure of Congress, the Commission, or a State to complete preparation does not postpone the effective date. The express statutory rules control, the Commission shall use interim forms and open reference software, and courts may compel or directly supervise performance.

SEC. 604. REGULATIONS AND STATE IMPLEMENTATION PLANS.

The Commission shall issue proposed comprehensive rules within 270 days after enactment and final rules within 18 months or, if later, 12 months before the first governed election. State plans are due 18 months before that election and shall be approved, conditionally approved with funded corrections, or referred for Federal fallback within 60 days.

SEC. 605. PENDING ELECTION AND CURRENT-TERM SAVINGS.

An election cycle culminating in a regularly scheduled presidential general election earlier than the first governed presidential general election under section 603(a), including elector appointment, electoral-vote counting, transition, and inauguration, remains governed by the constitutional and statutory elector rules applicable immediately before ratification. Nothing in this Act disturbs the title, term, succession, compensation, official acts, records, or lawful investigations of a President or Vice President selected through such an election. Prior electoral records remain preserved under prior law.

SEC. 606. TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS, PERSONNEL, RECORDS, AND PROPERTY.

The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall plan and, on the transfer date prescribed by section 505(a), coordinate the orderly transfer of Election Assistance Commission personnel, appropriations, records, property, contracts, and liabilities, subject to Commission independence and the interim bridge in section 3103. Career status, collective-bargaining rights, pay, leave, and whistleblower protections are preserved. No transfer permits access to secret ballots beyond statutory duties.

SEC. 607. NO INFERENCE FROM DELAYED OPERATION.

Conditional or delayed operation reflects constitutional necessity and implementation time, not doubt about Congress’s power after ratification, the self-executing force of the Amendment, or the validity of immediate provisions under existing authority.

SEC. 608. REPORTS TO CONGRESS AND THE PUBLIC.

Every 6 months through the first certification and annually thereafter, the Commission shall publish readiness, spending, accessibility, security, registration, mail-timeliness, rejection, cure, audit, recount, incident, litigation, and continuity reports. Reports to Congress are for oversight and legislation only and confer no authority to approve, reject, stay, or alter a national presidential certificate.

Instrument I — Joint Resolution and Popular Will Amendment

Instrument I uses the procedure prescribed by Article V of the Constitution. It is a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment, not an ordinary bill. Accordingly, it requires the concurrence of two-thirds of each House, is not presented to the President, and becomes part of the Constitution only after ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States within the specified period. The instrument separates the constitutional proposal from the companion implementing Act because constitutional amendments and ordinary legislation follow different enactment procedures.

The proposed amendment addresses two related subjects. First, it replaces selection of the President and Vice President through State-appointed electors with one direct national election using a joint-ticket ranked-choice ballot. Second, it creates an express right to fair representation, bars partisan and protected-community vote dilution, and assigns redistricting to independent commissions. Detailed constitutional standards are included to make both sets of rights judicially enforceable even if implementing legislation is delayed or incomplete.

Joint resolution section 1 — Short title

Section 1 designates the proposal as the “Popular Will Amendment Resolution.” The short title applies to the joint resolution rather than attempting to characterize the constitutional article as an ordinary Act. This distinction reinforces that Instrument I is an Article V proposal and that Instrument II supplies the separately enacted implementing legislation.

Joint resolution section 2 — Proposal of amendment

Section 2 contains the formal language by which Congress proposes the amendment. The recital that the proposal becomes valid “to all intents and purposes” upon timely ratification tracks Article V practice. It identifies ratification by State legislatures as the chosen mode and incorporates the period stated in section 3.

The section does not provide for presidential approval. Under settled Article V practice, proposal of an amendment is a constituent act of Congress rather than legislation subject to presentment. Nor does it provide for a national advisory referendum, which would not substitute for ratification by the constitutionally selected State institutions.

Joint resolution section 3 — Mode, period, and transmission

Subsection (a) selects ratification by the legislatures of the several States. Article V permits Congress to choose either State legislatures or State conventions. Selecting legislatures provides a defined institution in every State and avoids the need for Congress and the States to establish convention machinery.

Subsection (b) establishes a seven-year ratification period measured from congressional submission. The fixed start, duration, and mode reduce uncertainty about late ratifications. Section 20 of the proposed amendment repeats the deadline within the constitutional text so that the temporal condition is part of the proposal submitted to the States.

Subsection (c) directs the Archivist to transmit authenticated copies and perform existing statutory duties respecting ratifications. The Archivist’s receipt, verification, publication, and certification functions are ministerial; the amendment becomes effective upon the constitutionally sufficient final ratification rather than upon discretionary executive approval.

Proposed Popular Will Amendment

Amendment section 1 — Popular sovereignty and fundamental rights

Section 1 states the amendment’s organizing principle and defines the nature of the rights it creates. Subsection (a) connects popular sovereignty to two operative guarantees: equal participation in presidential elections and fair representation through districts. The enumerated grounds identify the principal forms of geographic, partisan, racial, ethnic, language-minority, and Tribal disadvantage addressed by later sections.

Subsection (b) recognizes both individual and collective injuries. An individual voter may challenge denial, unequal counting, or placement in an unlawfully designed district. Political groups and protected communities may challenge systematic dilution that cannot be fully described as the loss of a single ballot. The reference to substantially equal opportunity does not establish a right to exact proportional representation; it permits consideration of representational effects while preserving neutral geography and other legitimate criteria.

Subsection (c) makes every right, prohibition, duty, cause of action, and remedy self-executing. Current constitutional voting provisions often depend on legislation for administrative detail, which can create uncertainty when Congress or a State fails to act. This subsection prevents an implementation failure, appropriation dispute, vacancy, or missed appointment from suspending the underlying right. Later sections provide constitutional defaults and judicial remedies to give that rule practical effect.

Amendment section 2 — One national presidential electorate

Section 2 replaces separate State elector constituencies with one national electorate. Under the present Article II structure, a State may decide whether and how to use a popular vote to appoint electors, and existing Supreme Court doctrine does not recognize an independent Federal right to cast a presidential vote before a State grants that franchise. Subsection (a) creates the affirmative right and prohibits not only formally designated electors but also functional substitutes such as State points, weighted regional votes, or presidential districts. This closes a route by which ordinary legislation could recreate geographic weighting after formal abolition of the Electoral College.

Subsection (b) establishes an affirmative presidential franchise for every United States citizen who is eighteen by the final voting day. Current law does not give residents of the territories a general-election vote for President merely by virtue of territorial residence. The section includes citizens in every listed territory, the District of Columbia, other possessions, and foreign countries. Citizenship, rather than the broader status of United States nationality, is the eligibility boundary stated in the text.

Subsection (c) addresses overseas citizens who lack a current or former State domicile. Congress may assign those voters to an administrative jurisdiction, but the assignment cannot affect vote weight or convert the vote into a State vote.

Subsection (d) eliminates State-by-State disparities based on conviction, incarceration, guardianship, disability, wealth, homelessness, conventional address, or durational residence for the presidential contest. Subsection (e) preserves reasonable uniform verification, personal-execution, anti-duplication, assistance, privacy, and record-security rules, while forbidding wealth tests and discretionary capacity judgments. Subsection (f) constitutionalizes one person, one equally weighted national vote, including equal treatment of each valid ranked preference.

Amendment section 3 — Joint tickets and national ranked-choice tabulation

Section 3 defines the constitutional voting method rather than leaving the choice between plurality, majority runoff, and ranked choice entirely to later legislation. Subsection (a) requires a single President–Vice President ticket and carries forward the present rule that a Vice President must be eligible to serve as President. A candidate ordinarily may appear on only one ticket, preventing different running-mate pairings across jurisdictions.

Subsection (b) permits, but does not compel, a voter to rank multiple tickets. The command to count ascertainable voter intent establishes a uniform pro-counting rule while authorizing Congress to refine skipped, duplicate, equal, and write-in rankings. If Congress has not acted, the constitutional default counts the unique highest-ranked continuing ticket, disregards skipped ranks and repeated appearances without invalidating later ascertainable choices, treats an equal highest ranking as temporarily inactive and outside that round’s denominator rather than void, and disregards an indeterminate or undeclared write-in without invalidating another ascertainable ranking. A ballot remains valid if it contains only a first preference.

Subsection (c) provides an instant runoff. A majority of first preferences wins immediately. Otherwise, the lowest continuing ticket is eliminated, ballots transfer to the next continuing preference, and the process continues until a ticket has a majority of continuing ballots or the final two remain. Exhausted ballots are excluded from later-round denominators but must be reported, making the degree of exhaustion transparent. A sole remaining ticket wins unless no valid national ballot exists or every valid ballot has become exhausted. If no ticket remains, no valid ballot was cast, or no ballot remains continuing, the amendment uses acting service and an expedited special national election—dated by Congress or, absent governing law, the District of Columbia three-judge court—instead of manufacturing a winner or sending a zero-vote tie to the House.

Subsection (d) supplies a default for elimination-round ties. The comparison moves backward through prior rounds and, if no prior round differentiates the tied tickets, uses a public auditable drawing of lots. Only one ticket is eliminated before transfer and retabulation, preventing a multi-ticket tie-break from predetermining later transfers. The separate exact-final-tie procedure in section 7 is not affected. Subsection (e) requires reproducible national tabulation using standardized records. Subsection (f) permits technical improvements but bars Congress from substituting plurality-only voting, State or district allocation, or unequal weighting.

Amendment section 4 — Uniform administration and ballot access

Section 4 supplies express national regulatory authority for a contest that currently depends heavily on State law. Subsection (a) requires uniform rules for registration, ballot access, voting methods, ballot validity, cure, counting, audit, recount, certification, and contests. Treating those rules as both a floor and a ceiling prevents unequal national vote validity while allowing a carefully reviewed access-enhancing variation that does not change voter or candidate qualifications.

Subsections (b) and (c) replace the present State-by-State presidential ballot-access system with one neutral national process. The provision protects realistic access for major-party, minor-party, new-party, and independent tickets, requires cure and expedited review, aggregates fusion lines, and prevents a State from adding qualifications or altering a nationally approved ticket.

Subsection (d) requires a voter-verifiable paper record preserving all rankings and usable for audit and recount. It also protects accessibility, language assistance, ballot secrecy, and independent verification. Subsection (e) responds to the distinction between casting and receipt confirmed in Watson v. Republican National Committee: merely naming Election Day does not establish a mail-ballot receipt or cure deadline. Congress must state those deadlines expressly and uniformly.

Subsection (f) authorizes Congress to use State and local election officials while requiring a complete Federal fallback. The final sentence protects voters from disenfranchisement caused by an official’s failure to perform a certification or other ministerial duty.

Amendment section 5 — National canvass and certification

Section 5 replaces the current process of State elector certificates, electoral votes, and a congressional count under title 3 with one national canvass. The Electoral Count Reform Act presently makes the Vice President’s role ministerial but retains State certificates, electoral votes, objections by Members of Congress, and separate votes of the Houses. Subsection (a) instead requires an independent National Election Authority and makes final canvassing and certification duties objective and ministerial. Appointment must comply with Article II, avoiding an appointments defect if the Authority exercises significant Federal power. Structural protections and an automatic deadlock rule reduce the risk that partisan division can prevent certification.

Subsections (b) and (c) preserve decentralized initial administration but require uniform public returns and one national aggregation. A jurisdiction may correct genuine legal or arithmetic error but cannot substitute a preferred outcome. The Authority may reconcile records, administer audits and recounts, and obey courts; it may not become the tribunal for broad legal contests.

Subsection (d) makes the provision operational if Congress has not yet created the Authority. The Archivist, assisted by the Election Assistance Commission, serves as the first default for every administrative or ministerial Authority function, including ballot-access variances, elimination-tie drawings, emergency applications, tabulation, audit and recount supervision, and certification. Judicial functions remain with the courts. A three-judge court may appoint a special master if a ministerial duty remains unperformed.

Subsection (e) gives the controlling national certificate conclusive effect, subject to timely final judicial modification. An ordinary certificate identifies the elected ticket, the President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy; an exact-tie certificate instead identifies the two tied tickets until the House choice or operation-of-law result identifies the elected ticket. When complete ballot exhaustion, absence of an electable ticket, expiration of the House’s exact-tie authority, unavailability of both tied tickets, or a final contest judgment finding that no reliable result can be ascertained means that no ticket was elected, a certificate of no election states that legal outcome without inventing a President-elect and activates the applicable acting-service and special-election rules. Subsection (f) permits a public joint session but removes the present objection and rejection functions. Neither chamber, the Vice President, parliamentary procedure, nor failure to assemble can alter the certified popular result.

Amendment section 6 — Audits, recounts, contests, and finality

Section 6 creates safeguards appropriate to a single national margin. Subsection (a) requires a public, statistically rigorous audit comparing reported totals with voter-verified paper evidence and escalating when discrepancies appear. Congress may strengthen but not eliminate the meaningful paper comparison.

Subsection (b) requires a nationwide recount when the final-round margin is no more than one-quarter of one percent or an elimination-round margin between the eliminated and next-lowest ticket is within that threshold. It also covers documented disputes over tabulation, voter eligibility, ballot validity, ranking interpretation, custody, or transmission that could change the winner, an audit revealing substantial risk, and a Federal court order. Extending the trigger to a close elimination recognizes that changing which ticket leaves the count can change every later transfer and the final pair. The national trigger prevents a patchwork in which recounts occur only in politically selected jurisdictions.

Subsection (c) makes paper evidence controlling and requires hand review when necessary. A missing individual ballot may be reconstructed only from contemporaneous official records that establish its selections without compelling the voter to reveal a secret vote. Statistical allocation, partisan inference, precinct averages, and testimony disclosing the voter’s choice cannot be used to manufacture ballot content. If lawful choices cannot be established, the court must use a remedy that does not presume how missing ballots were cast. The anti-disenfranchisement rule directs remedies against official misconduct rather than automatic cancellation of an entire precinct’s lawful votes.

Subsection (d) establishes exclusive expedited Federal review. Local disputes may begin locally, but any action capable of changing a continuing ticket, elimination, final round, or national certificate must be transferred to and consolidated before the three-judge court in the District of Columbia. A local court may preserve evidence and conduct referred factfinding without altering the national tabulation. Subsection (e) enumerates effective vote-counting and certificate remedies. Subsection (f) requires certificate-changing litigation to end before the presidential term begins. That finality rule prevents displacement of a President or Vice President whose term began; it does not require indefinite acting service when no pre-term certificate identified any winner and a timely audit, recount, or contest later permits the first lawful certificate. Later-discovered fraud may support criminal, civil, disciplinary, impeachment, succession, or Twenty-Fifth Amendment proceedings, but the election-contest process cannot become an extra-constitutional means of removing an inaugurated President or Vice President.

Amendment section 7 — Exact final tie

Section 7 creates a narrow contingent procedure only after an exact national tie survives a recount and all outcome-relevant contests. This definition prevents preliminary, machine, or unresolved totals from triggering congressional selection.

The newly elected House chooses between the two tied joint tickets. Unlike the Twelfth Amendment, each Representative has one vote rather than each State delegation having one vote. The House cannot split the ticket, select a third candidate, impose conditions, or delegate its responsibility, and the Senate has no separate choice of the Vice President. Requiring a majority of Representatives chosen, sworn, and qualified accommodates genuine vacancies while forbidding exclusion, delayed swearing, or manipulation of the denominator to influence the choice. House balloting may continue after the presidential term begins, with acting service under the Twentieth Amendment, but only through the fixed sixty-day outside period. The House taking office on January 3 ordinarily has about seventy-seven days to deliberate, while the cutoff prevents an expiring House from leaving an acting successor in place indefinitely. Failure to choose by the cutoff terminates that House’s authority, produces a certificate of no election, and sends the decision back to the national electorate in a special election held within the following 120 days.

Subsection (d) closes the interval between an exact-tie certificate and the House’s choice or the sixty-day cutoff and is a narrow exception to section 8’s general post-close declination rule. It governs only ticket composition and availability for the House choice before that cutoff, not national retabulation, and a declination must satisfy section 8’s personal, voluntary, irrevocable, and verified requirements. A deceased, declining, or permanently ineligible presidential candidate is replaced on the tied ticket by that ticket’s vice-presidential candidate, while a lone vice-presidential vacancy leaves the ticket available. If neither member of one ticket can qualify, the other tied ticket is elected by operation of the amendment if it can supply a qualified President. If neither ticket can do so, acting service, a certificate of no election, and a prompt special national election replace an indefinite House process. After the House chooses, section 8(f) governs the elected ticket, including a choice made after the term began. Once the House’s authority terminates, no later candidate event can revive either tied ticket or displace the pending special election. Ballots are never retransferred after an exact tie has been certified.

Amendment section 8 — Death, withdrawal, and disqualification

Section 8 resolves contingencies that the present elector system and Twelfth Amendment do not comprehensively settle. Chiafalo v. Washington expressly left unresolved the extent to which an elector could be compelled to vote for a deceased candidate. Direct election removes the elector question but still requires rules for which ticket receives votes after a vacancy. Subsection (a) requires every ticket to announce a replacement body and succession method before voting, preventing post-event invention of favorable rules.

Subsections (b) and (c) distinguish vacancies before the substitution deadline from later vacancies before voting closes. Timely substitutions inherit votes already cast and must receive uniform notice. For a later presidential vacancy, the running mate moves to the presidential position. A late vice-presidential vacancy leaves that position open unless the preannounced process and practical ability to give uniform notice permit one nationally effective substitution; no jurisdiction may create its own substitute.

Subsections (d) and (e) govern the period after voting but before final certification. A surviving running mate succeeds a presidential candidate who dies or is adjudged ineligible, while a sole vice-presidential death or ineligibility leaves the ticket continuing. If both members die or are finally adjudged ineligible, the ticket is eliminated and ranked ballots transfer. Outside the exact-tie availability rule in section 7(d), a voluntary withdrawal after voting closes operates only as an irrevocable declination if the ticket is elected: it cannot eliminate the ticket before certification or redirect a ballot to a favored rival. A declination must be personal, knowing, voluntary, verified, and free of an improper promise, threat, payment, or succession agreement.

Subsection (f) coordinates later events, including a post-voting declination that becomes operative upon election and any ticket identified after January 20, with the Twentieth and Twenty-Fifth Amendments. Its general post-term language reaches a first lawful late certificate, a House choice, an operation-of-law tie result, and a special-election certificate. Succession to the presidency is conditional on an available, eligible, nondeclining Vice-President-elect who can qualify; for a ticket identified after the term began, succession or acting service begins upon the appropriate member’s qualification rather than retroactively. A temporary failure of the President-elect produces acting service, and a temporary failure of the Vice-President-elect does not itself create a permanent vacancy. A permanent vice-presidential vacancy may be filled after a President qualifies under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. If no elected member can ever qualify, acting service continues only pending a mandatory special national election, whose date has a judicial fallback if Congress fails to act. Consistent with the national-uniformity concern applied to Federal qualifications in Trump v. Anderson, subsection (g) creates one Federal eligibility process and prevents conflicting State exclusions from changing the national result. Until Congress legislates, the District of Columbia three-judge court is the exclusive default tribunal.

Amendment section 9 — Extraordinary emergencies

Section 9 authorizes narrow continuity measures while denying any power to cancel the national election, discard unaffected votes, extend an incumbent’s term, or manipulate rules selectively. Subsection (b) requires Congress to legislate prospectively for disasters, attacks, epidemics, infrastructure failures, cyberattacks, and displacement. Emergency measures must rest on public findings, use the least restrictive means, treat similarly situated voters alike, preserve completed voting, remain geographically and temporally limited, and receive immediate judicial review.

Subsection (c) addresses an unforeseen emergency not covered by preexisting law. A modification requires both the National Election Authority and a three-judge court, clear and convincing evidence, and a rule no broader than necessary. Partial returns or expected partisan effect cannot justify the order.

Subsection (d) treats succession, rather than extension of an expired term, as the constitutional backstop if an emergency prevents qualification by January 20. It preserves the Twentieth Amendment’s fixed end to the incumbent term and removes a potential incentive to delay certification.

Amendment section 10 — Right to fair representation

Section 10 creates the substantive anti-gerrymandering right. It extends beyond congressional and State legislative maps to territorial, District, county, municipal, school, utility, judicial, prosecutorial, and special-purpose bodies. It also reaches multimember, at-large, numbered-post, and mixed systems when geography affects representation. Internal elections of federally recognized Tribes remain outside mandatory coverage unless a Tribe opts in; non-Tribal districts containing Tribal communities remain covered.

Subsection (c) prohibits four categories of purpose or material effect: durable representational power materially exceeding what voter support and its geographic distribution would ordinarily produce under reasonably available compliant plans; burdens based on political association or expected vote; protected-community cracking or packing; and evasion through structural devices such as at-large seats, staggered terms, numbered posts, runoffs, or annexations. The provision expressly states that disproportionality alone is not a violation. Subsection (d) makes purpose and effect independent bases of liability. It therefore supplies an express constitutional standard and cause of action not recognized under existing Federal doctrine in Rucho v. Common Cause and protects community effects without requiring proof of a single controlling motive.

Amendment section 11 — Independent redistricting commissions

Section 11 assigns map adoption to independent commissions and removes legislatures, governors, parties, and incumbents from approval or veto. The commission’s map becomes law directly, subject to judicial review. This structure prevents officials from selecting their own electorates and makes independence a constitutional requirement rather than a revocable statutory preference.

Subsection (b) requires an odd commission of at least nine members, limits any one party to one-third, reserves at least one-third for persons unaffiliated with a party for five years, and requires demographic and geographic breadth. Subsection (c) excludes recent candidates, officeholders, party and campaign personnel, lobbyists, legislative employees, and financially connected persons, while allowing Congress to add safeguards.

Subsection (d) uses neutral screening, public applications, affiliation pools, initial random selection, and commissioner selection of remaining members. Removal is for cause with process and review, not political disagreement. Subsection (e) permits smaller governments to share qualified commissions and provides a judicial special-master fallback; legislative power does not revive through default. Subsection (f) protects staffing, technical capacity, information access, and regular funding against indirect political control. Subsection (g) supplies self-executing defaults: largest-party, second-largest-party, and genuinely unaffiliated affiliation categories; a two-thirds full-commission vote with three-fifths support in each category; and authority to adapt the first two categories in a jurisdiction lacking two parties without reducing the unaffiliated share.

Amendment section 12 — Districting criteria and procedure

Section 12 gives commissions and courts a ranked set of criteria. Equal population comes first, with authority to avoid treating an incarcerated person’s prison location as residence when another usual residence exists. Protection against racial, ethnic, language-minority, and protected-community dilution follows. Contiguity, communities of interest, subdivision boundaries and prior lawful cores, compactness, and partisan responsiveness then apply in stated order. Party organizations, incumbent relationships, and donor networks cannot be designated communities of interest.

Subsection (b) separates map construction from compliance testing. Incumbent residences and political-performance data are withheld during initial construction, reducing intentional manipulation. Political data must then be used to test and correct entrenchment and dilution. Protected-community data may be considered from the beginning as section 13 permits.

Subsection (c) constitutionalizes hearings, community map submissions, open data and methods, disclosed communications, written explanations, and public voting. Subsection (d), read with section 11(g), requires two-thirds support across the whole commission and three-fifths support in every affiliation category, then supplies a neutral ranked-vote default if no plan receives that vote. The default cannot select an interested official’s preferred plan.

Amendment section 13 — Protected communities and electoral opportunity

Section 13 establishes an independent constitutional vote-dilution standard for racial, ethnic, language-minority, Indigenous, and Tribal communities, including effective coalitions. Subsection (b) asks whether a plan materially reduces electoral opportunity compared with reasonably available lawful alternatives under the totality of circumstances. It identifies polarized voting, cohesion, historical and continuing discrimination, socioeconomic barriers, candidate access, official responsiveness, turnout barriers, party correlation, and alternative maps as relevant evidence.

Subsection (c) deliberately does not require proof of current intentional discrimination, statistical separation of race from party, a geographically compact numerical majority, universal cohesion, or an entitlement to proportional results. These rules make the new later constitutional protection independent of narrower prerequisites that may govern claims under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or prior constitutional doctrine, including the limitations applied in Louisiana v. Callais.

Subsection (d) declares prevention and remediation of material dilution to be compelling constitutional interests. Commissions and courts may consider protected status and correlated political behavior when reasonably necessary and tailored in good faith. A remedial district is not invalid merely because protected status was a substantial consideration. Partisan advantage and incumbent protection are expressly rejected as neutral reasons for a less effective remedy. Subsection (e) treats proportionality as relevant but neither conclusive nor a safe harbor.

Amendment section 14 — Partisan fairness and judicially manageable standards

Section 14 supplies substantive and evidentiary standards for partisan-entrenchment claims. Subsection (a) covers both substantial improper purpose and expected durable effect. The comparison is to reasonably available maps satisfying higher-ranked criteria, not to abstract proportional representation.

Subsection (b) identifies conventional direct and circumstantial evidence of purpose, including procedural irregularity, selective data, unnecessary voter concentration, interested-party communications, outlier selection, and foreseeability. Subsection (c) provides multiple measures for effect: symmetry, seat share across realistic vote swings, responsiveness, durable bias, mean-median difference, wasted votes, cracking and packing, prior plans, and neutral computer ensembles. No single metric controls, and courts must adapt for small delegations.

Subsection (d) establishes a burden-shifting framework. Once a claimant shows substantial improper purpose or material durable effect, the jurisdiction must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the challenged feature is necessary to a higher-ranked criterion and lacks a comparably effective, less entrenching alternative. Subsection (e) directly addresses the justiciability holding in Rucho: it makes these claims judicially manageable and rejects dismissal as political questions merely because adjudication requires statistical evidence, alternative maps, or evaluation of politics.

Amendment section 15 — Redistricting frequency and evasion

Section 15 limits replacement of a valid map to the decennial census, a change in district allocation, a final legal command, or a substantial boundary or governmental reorganization that makes replacement necessary. Even then, changes must be limited to the authorizing event. Changes in partisan control, voter preference, election results, or political-data precision do not justify mid-decade redistricting.

Subsection (c) applies an anti-evasion rule to changes in body size, terms, election dates, governmental powers, subdivisions, census residence, and other structural arrangements. Courts are directed to examine substance and may restore boundaries, powers, or electoral opportunity. The provision prevents a jurisdiction from accomplishing through institutional redesign what it could not lawfully accomplish through district lines.

Amendment section 16 — Judicial enforcement and remedies

Section 16 identifies plaintiffs with concrete election or representational injuries, including voters, candidates, parties, protected-community organizations, and the Attorney General. It expressly recognizes vote dilution, representational injury, discriminatory burden, unlawful-process exposure, and denial of required participation or information.

Statewide and congressional cases receive a three-judge district court, with authority for Congress to extend that procedure and provide direct Supreme Court review. Courts must expedite cases without allowing a violator to benefit from delay.

Subsection (c) authorizes remedies adequate to the violation, including injunctions, corrected or court-adopted maps, temporary commissions, special masters, structural changes, adjusted election procedures, and new elections. Subsection (d) denies a legislature or incumbent the ordinary first opportunity to replace an invalid plan; an independent good-faith commission may receive a brief cure opportunity. Subsection (e) treats election proximity as relevant but not an automatic bar and prevents strategic delay from creating immunity. Subsection (f) provides fees and costs and removes governmental immunity from prospective and remedial relief, while allowing Congress to provide additional monetary and civil remedies.

Amendment section 17 — Enforcement power, supremacy, and construction

Section 17 gives Congress express power to implement both presidential-election and districting provisions. The enumeration covers State-officer duties, Federal fallback administration, data, election security, civil and criminal remedies, governmental immunity, and funding. This avoids relying solely on implied presidential-election power or on Article I authority that applies only to congressional elections.

Subsection (b) expressly preempts conflicting State constitutions, statutes, initiatives, compacts, charters, and practices. It also prevents an electoral-vote compact from continuing electors or jurisdictional allocation after the operative date. Subsection (c) preserves more protective constitutional and statutory voting rights while making the later, specific amendment controlling over inconsistent earlier doctrine.

Subsection (d) limits the enforcement power itself: Congress cannot use implementation to restore unequal vote weight, entrenchment, dilution, election cancellation, term extension, legislative map control, or congressional rejection of presidential votes. Subsection (e) provides severability and instructs courts to preserve the amendment’s central structures if a subsidiary provision or application is invalid.

Amendment section 18 — Express repeals and conforming amendments

Section 18 performs the constitutional changes that an ordinary Act cannot. On the presidential operative date, subsection (a) repeals Article II, section 1, clauses 2 through 4; the Twelfth Amendment; and the Twenty-Third Amendment. Those are the provisions governing State electors, elector timing and voting, electoral counting, House and Senate contingent election, and District of Columbia electors.

Subsection (b) repeals Twentieth Amendment section 4 on the same operative date, preserving it during any transition election still governed by contingent-election procedures. Twentieth Amendment section 3 remains available for death, failure to choose, and failure to qualify under the new system.

Subsection (c) conforms Fourteenth Amendment section 2 by replacing references to electors, adding Senators, and updating its sex- and age-specific wording. It does not insert Delegates into a provision whose operative representation penalty applies to States and House apportionment. It also makes clear that section 2’s rebellion-or-crime exception cannot limit the new universal presidential franchise. Subsection (d) removes the obsolete elector office from Fourteenth Amendment section 3. Subsection (e) removes the elector reference from the Twenty-Fourth Amendment while preserving its tax prohibition for direct presidential elections. Subsection (f) forecloses implied survival or recreation of elector and contingent-election functions.

Amendment section 19 — Effective dates and orderly transition

Section 19 makes the amendment generally effective upon ratification while separating preparation from operation. Subsection (a) authorizes immediate planning, funding, appointments, acquisition, rulemaking, and public education.

Subsection (b) defines the presidential-election operative date as the date thirty-six months before the first regularly scheduled presidential general election occurring at least thirty-six months after ratification. On that date, sections 2 through 9 and both the principal elector repeals and the Twentieth Amendment section 4 repeal take effect together. Every nomination, filing, ballot-access, registration, voting, canvass, audit, recount, contest, certification, and preparatory act from that date forward is governed by the direct-election article. An election cycle culminating in an earlier general election proceeds from elector appointment through inauguration under the former rules. This rule supplies a concrete cross-reference for section 18, governs pre-election administration rather than only Election Day, and prevents a gap in presidential selection.

Subsection (c) protects current terms and preserves the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Fifth Amendments. Subsection (d) makes the substantive fair-representation rights immediately enforceable, requires commissions within eighteen months, and generally requires compliant maps within thirty-six months or before the second general election, whichever is earlier. Courts may remedy an existing violation sooner.

Subsection (e) generally permits members already elected to complete their terms but preserves judicial power to order a new election when necessary. Subsection (f) permits advance contingent implementing legislation and reiterates that missing or invalid legislation does not suspend constitutional defaults or remedies.

Amendment section 20 — Ratification period

Section 20 places the seven-year ratification condition in the amendment text itself. The period runs from congressional submission and requires approval by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States. The provision complements joint resolution section 3 and makes clear to every ratifying legislature that timely ratification is a condition of the proposal. If the threshold is not reached within seven years, the proposed article is inoperative.

Instrument II — National Election Administration and Implementation

Overview

Instrument II implements the presidential-election provisions of the Popular Will Amendment. Because ordinary law cannot abolish electors, repeal constitutional text, or constitutionally enfranchise territorial residents, the Act separates immediately authorized preparation from contingent provisions governing the first regular presidential election held on or after 36 months from ratification. The election-cycle rules become operative exactly 36 months before that first governed election, as Amendment section 19 requires.

Administration remains State and local, but Federal law uniformly governs the electorate, tickets, ballot, RCV algorithm, deadlines, evidence, audit, recount, contest, and certificate. The Federal Election Administration Commission supplies national data, fallback, and ministerial functions. Complete ranking records, privacy protection, early-round recount sensitivity, and national ballot access address unitary-election risks. The receipt calendar is express after Watson, and Congress has no ordinary count, retaining only the Amendment’s role after a verified exact final tie.

General provisions

Section 1 — Short title; table of contents

Section 1 adopts the unified short title “Popular Will Act of 2026” and provides a compact roadmap. The table expressly identifies Division C’s four titles and their section ranges, while locating presidential administration in Divisions A and B and common enforcement, conformity, and transition in Divisions D through F.

Section 2 — Constitutional predicates and conditional operation

Section 2 is the principal constitutional gate. It disclaims any attempt to use an ordinary Act as a substitute for Article V and identifies direct election, abolition of electors, territorial participation, and displacement of the Twelfth and Twenty-third Amendments as ratification-dependent. It precisely defines the contingent presidential provisions as Division B, sections 501 through 507, and the presidential applications of Divisions A and D, while preserving preparatory, existing-authority, and redistricting functions. Before the operative date, the Commission may undertake work independently supported by existing powers. Subsection (d) preserves the electoral-vote system for a cycle still governed by prior law.

Section 3 — Purposes

Section 3 states the integrated statutory objectives without treating findings as a source of power. It links equal national voting to ranked majority selection, accessible paper-based administration, resistance to official nonfeasance, and Federal fallback. The stated purposes guide construction of ambiguous implementation details, particularly where a proposed remedy would discard lawful votes or recreate geographic weighting.

Section 4 — Definitions

Section 4 supplies terms needed for a unitary ranked election. “Elector” means a citizen voter rather than a member of the former Electoral College. “Active” and “exhausted” ballots identify the denominator in each ranked-choice round; temporary equal-rank inactivity is not exhaustion. “Ballot of record” makes human-readable paper controlling, and “cast” separates the voter’s timely act from later official receipt. “Joint ticket” includes the same ticket after a lawful reconstitution leaves the vice-presidential position vacant, so a vacancy does not remove an otherwise continuing ticket from tabulation. “Election day” means the regular November date for an ordinary election and the nationally fixed final voting day for a special election, allowing every age, filing, substitution, casting, audit, and contest deadline to operate on the compressed special-election calendar. The administrative definition of “State” includes the District, every named territory, and every other United States territory or possession where context permits, while preserving the constitutional distinction when Statehood or congressional representation is at issue. Ratification validity does not depend on delayed ministerial certification.

Section 5 — Rules of construction

Section 5 distinguishes voting-access floors from rules that must also operate as national ceilings. A jurisdiction may make participation more convenient, but may not create a different presidential electorate, candidate list, receipt rule, ranking interpretation, or recount standard. The voter-protection rule assigns the consequences of official error to government rather than an eligible voter unless counting the ballot would itself violate a substantive condition. The section also confines presidential RCV to that contest and preserves Tribal authority over internal elections. Because American Samoa and any similarly situated possession are covered but lie outside every Federal judicial district, subsection (e) deems the District of Columbia to be the relevant district for persons, events, and jurisdictions there. That default applies throughout the Act and its amendments without disturbing provisions already assigning exclusive national matters or another specifically identified case to a particular court.

Division A — Federal Election Administration Commission

Section 101 — Establishment and status

Section 101 creates the Federal Election Administration Commission as an independent establishment in the executive branch and expressly designates it as the Amendment section 5 National Election Authority. It is not a general speech, campaign-finance, or political-content regulator. Pre-ratification independence must rest on then-existing constitutional doctrine; after ratification, the Amendment expressly supports fixed terms, cause removal, and ministerial national certification.

Section 102 — Membership; appointment; qualifications; terms

Section 102 uses presidential appointment with Senate consent, conforming to the Appointments Clause. Seven staggered, nonrenewable terms reduce synchronized partisan replacement and incentives to curry favor for reappointment. Professional criteria ensure that election administration, access, cybersecurity, statistics, and disability concerns are represented. Short initial terms establish staggering, and limited holdover service prevents an ordinary confirmation delay from immediately eliminating a quorum.

Section 103 — Political balance, ethics, and independence

Section 103 prevents domination by either of the two largest parties, requires at least one commissioner from each, and requires at least three commissioners unaffiliated with both. Before the first direct national election, final State and District popular-vote canvasses from the last elector-era election supply the baseline. The Archivist uses a ministerial public rule and auditable lot for any indeterminacy or exact party-total tie; dissolution, renaming, or vacancy cannot let one category capture the other. Objective five-year affiliation evidence closes nominal re-registration, while conflict, recusal, and post-service rules protect impartiality.

Section 104 — Vacancies, quorum, voting, and defaults

Section 104 prevents vacancy or strategic abstention from becoming a negative veto. Important policymaking requires five votes and cross-affiliation support; if a largest-party seat is vacant, the other category cannot impersonate the missing concurrence, and a neutral five-vote/two-unaffiliated default or narrowly supported three-judge order applies. Complaints use a lower four-vote threshold, while tabulation, mandatory audit, recount initiation, and certification are ministerial and not submitted to a political vote.

Section 105 — Removal and discipline

Section 105 confines removal to specified cause, requires a public written basis, and permits expedited three-judge review. A temporary suspension is available where access to records or proceedings presents an immediate threat, but a court must approve extended exclusion. These procedures protect independence while retaining accountability for neglect, incapacity, dishonesty, and malfeasance.

Section 106 — Senior officers and Inspector General

Section 106 establishes a career operating structure beneath the commissioners. The Executive Director carries out ministerial functions; the General Counsel litigates and publishes legal interpretations; and the Chief Data and Audit Officer supervises national formats, audit methods, and reproducibility. An Inspector General may investigate the certification process without Commission suppression. A public career succession order prevents a vacancy, disaster, or politically controlled acting appointment from capturing certification.

Section 107 — Duties and powers

Section 107 collects the Commission’s operational assignments and grants records, subpoena, contracting, observer, and litigation powers needed to perform them. The limitations are equally significant: the Commission cannot direct voter preferences, expose a secret ballot, alter authenticated returns outside a lawful correction procedure, or delay certification for political reasons. State and local custody thus remains real, while national standards remain enforceable.

Section 108 — Rulemaking and guidance

Section 108 requires ordinary notice-and-comment procedure, accessible technical hearings, disclosure of incorporated methods, and reasoned responses. Guidance may explain but not rewrite voting rights or outcome rules. A narrowly limited emergency rule may respond to an imminent operational threat, but cannot change ticket qualification, the RCV algorithm, the winner, or expiration of the presidential term. The 180-day rule freeze reduces late manipulation while allowing access-expanding, judicial, and genuine emergency corrections.

Section 109 — Intergovernmental coordination and Federal fallback

Section 109 preserves ordinary State and local administration under public implementation plans and advisory consultation. The decisive feature is the Federal fallback: if a jurisdiction is unwilling or unable to perform, the Commission may supply contractors, facilities, personnel, equipment, a Federal administrator, or a judicial receiver. The fallback is limited to the national presidential contest and is remedial rather than punitive; its purpose is to prevent a governmental refusal from erasing residents’ votes.

Section 110 — Transparency, data, and privacy

Section 110 makes meetings, contacts, contracts, methods, audit seeds, and result-related communications presumptively public. It also recognizes that maximum raw disclosure can compromise ballot secrecy. Cast-vote records must permit public reproduction while removing order, timing, and granular geography capable of identifying a distinctive ranking pattern. Cryptographic commitments permit verification against protected originals. Public voter files may not expose addresses and identifiers or become a national surveillance system.

Section 111 — Continuity and automatic administrative succession

Section 111 requires geographically redundant facilities, offline backups, alternative communications, and elimination of single points of failure. An automatic public succession order replaces discretionary acting appointments for time-sensitive duties. If every Commission officer is unavailable, disabled, or refuses a ministerial act, the Archivist performs the omitted duty with Election Assistance Commission support and may seek required emergency judicial approval. If the Archivist cannot act, the Inspector General or an affected person obtains a court-supervised nonpartisan special master. Election-protection and certification work continues during an appropriations lapse.

Section 112 — Funding and State reimbursement

Section 112 provides permanent funding for indispensable national functions and reimbursement of documented State and local implementation costs. The funding design supports both practical compliance and the Amendment’s command that failure to appropriate may not defeat a right. A jurisdiction’s grant error does not excuse compliance; direct procurement or Federal fallback is preferred to disenfranchisement.

Division B — National Presidential Election

Section 201 — Equal right to vote

Section 201 translates the Amendment’s equal-vote principle into enforceable statutory entitlements at every stage: registration, issuance, casting, tabulation, canvass, audit, recount, and certification. It rejects electoral-vote allocation, district bonuses, and separate vice-presidential voting. The section supplies a cause of action when nominal ballot access exists but a later administrative step gives unequal practical weight.

Section 202 — Eligibility and prohibited disqualifications

Section 202 implements the Amendment’s nationally uniform adult-citizen electorate. State felony-disfranchisement, guardianship, wealth, documentary, durational-residence, and fixed-address rules do not govern this contest. Assistance is permitted but must communicate the elector’s choice. Eliminating a mental-capacity test avoids discretionary judgments about worthiness while retaining the requirement that some reliable means convey the voter’s own preference.

Section 203 — Residence and overseas rules

Section 203 treats residence solely as an administrative assignment. Persons without conventional housing may use the place they ordinarily sleep; overseas citizens retain a last domestic jurisdiction without tax or return-intent consequences; and citizens never resident domestically may use a qualifying family residence or the Federal Overseas Presidential Roll. The choice rule avoids competing registrations while confirming that no assigned jurisdiction owns or weights the vote.

Section 204 — Automatic, online, portable, and same-day registration

Section 204 combines agency-based automatic registration with an opt-out, accessible online service, same-day registration, and portability. Agency error does not create liability for a citizen acting in good faith. Real-time matching or provisional voting addresses duplicate risk without requiring a citizen to leave and return. The advance-processing deadline remains useful for administration but cannot close registration before election day.

Section 205 — List maintenance

Section 205 permits individualized cancellation for request, death, final citizenship determination, verified duplication, or fraud. It rejects nonvoting, returned mail, name similarity, and unsupported mass challenges as sole grounds. Notice, response, appeal, and a 90-day systematic-removal quiet period reduce erroneous late purges. Immediate restoration and provisional counting provide a remedy capable of protecting the current election rather than only future registration.

Section 206 — Identity, citizenship, and eligibility verification

Section 206 uses sworn attestation as the ordinary rule while allowing documentary inquiry upon individualized reliable contrary evidence. Multiple forms of non-fee identification avoid a single photo-document bottleneck. Immaterial discrepancies do not establish ineligibility, and a challenged citizen receives the evidence and a provisional path. These provisions balance verification against selective or wealth-based documentary demands.

Section 207 — Provisional and fail-safe voting

Section 207 requires a provisional presidential ballot whenever an eligibility or administrative issue cannot be resolved immediately. The presidential portion follows the elector throughout the State rather than failing for a wrong precinct. A receipt, remote tracking, rapid defect notice, cure through day 10, and a recorded rejection reason make the remedy auditable. Issuance of a mail ballot alone is not proof that another vote was counted.

Section 208 — Uniformed-services and overseas citizens

Section 208 preserves UOCAVA as a protective floor and adds ranked-ballot delivery, paper-return channels, tracking, and the Federal write-in fallback. Citizens need not express an intent to return. Federal administration covers persons never resident in a State and remote military, diplomatic, maritime, and similar circumstances. Blank materials may travel electronically, but voted ballots may not return through the Internet.

Section 209 — Duplicate prevention and ballot precedence

Section 209 separates issuance of multiple ballots from counting more than one. It establishes a deterministic precedence rule, generally honoring a later in-person ballot and an expressly designated replacement. Matching uses encrypted identifiers and human review; a probabilistic match may initiate inquiry but cannot itself reject a vote. Potential-duplicate lists are kept from campaigns to prevent mass targeting.

Section 210 — Registration privacy

Section 210 limits registration data to election administration, voting-rights enforcement, authorized jury use, and deidentified research. It forbids collateral use for immigration investigation, debt collection, political targeting, or commercial solicitation. Sensitive fields and ballot-return status linked to identity are excluded from public lists. Unauthorized disclosure activates the enforcement remedies in Division D.

Section 221 — Joint tickets and national certification

Section 221 replaces State-by-State presidential access with one Federal filing and one national ticket identifier. The joint filing establishes consent, qualifications, endorsements, successors, and service of process. An indivisible identifier prevents different running mates, labels, or State lines from fragmenting a national vote and allows a lawful replacement to inherit votes without rewriting historical ballot records.

Section 222 — Established-party qualification

Section 222 gives automatic printed access to a party that demonstrated at least one percent first-choice support in the prior national election. For the first governed election, aggregate final State and District canvasses from the last elector-era presidential election provide the baseline, eliminating an impossible reference to a prior direct national contest. Coalition nominations remain one ticket with multiple endorsements, and internal disputes are resolved by prefiled party rules rather than Commission review of ideology.

Section 223 — National petition qualification

Section 223 supplies an exact petition threshold: the lesser of 200,000 signatures or one-tenth of one percent of prior valid first-choice turnout, rounded upward. The first cycle again uses aggregate final elector-era canvasses. Stating a fixed minimum, rather than only a ceiling, prevents administrative reduction or inflation. No geographic distribution requirement recreates separate access regimes; signers may support multiple petitions, and electronic and paper collection, materiality protection, and preservation of genuine signatures protect legitimate support.

Section 224 — Filing, review, notice, and cure

Section 224 places the filing sufficiently before 45-day overseas transmission while allowing a later established-party convention. Rapid deficiency notice and a 20-day cure reduce litigation over remediable clerical failures. The final decision and review calendar seeks resolution before ballot production. Extensions must apply to similarly situated tickets or respond to official failure, preventing selective deadline forgiveness.

Section 225 — Declared write-in tickets

Section 225 permits a ticket to receive nationally aggregated write-in votes without meeting the printed-ballot petition threshold. Declaration supplies consent, a running mate, qualifications, and uniform identity normalization. Misspellings may be counted when intent is unambiguous. Undeclared inscriptions remain reportable but are not assigned to an unwilling or unqualified person, avoiding post-election invention of a ticket.

Section 226 — Qualifications and expedited review

Section 226 prevents conflicting State determinations of national constitutional eligibility. The Commission conducts a prompt evidentiary process, followed by a three-judge District of Columbia court and expedited Supreme Court review. Once voting closes, nationally consequential qualification claims proceed exclusively under Title VII and are subject to the January 20 certificate-finality rule. Deadlines bar strategic withholding while preserving genuinely later-arising facts and fraud, and a final ruling binds every jurisdiction.

Section 227 — Names, endorsements, fusion, and rotation

Section 227 standardizes candidate names and presentation while permitting multiple genuine endorsements. Fusion tickets appear once and their votes cannot split by label. A public rotation algorithm distributes positional advantage rather than allowing an incumbent State officer to choose order. Usability and visual equality rules extend neutrality to font, target size, translation, contrast, and placement.

Section 228 — Replacement body and method

Section 228 implements Amendment section 8 by requiring each ticket to disclose a nationally authorized replacement body and a preannounced succession method before voting. The method freezes once ballots are transmitted and cannot be rewritten after a vacancy to produce a favored successor. The uniform substitution deadline is 30 days before election day; later events follow constitutional defaults. Voter guides disclose that a ranking carries the published replacement consequences.

Section 229 — Federal preemption of additional burdens

Section 229 closes the principal ballot-access circumvention route. States may not add petitions, fees, elector slates, loyalty pledges, labels, deadlines, qualification rulings, positions, or replacement rules. The limitation is contest-specific and leaves State access law for other offices intact.

Section 241 — Uniform national ballot

Section 241 requires a visibly separate presidential contest with uniform substantive content, complete ranking capacity, declared-write-in space, and national identifiers. Other contests may share the physical ballot only if their rules and data cannot alter presidential preferences. Usability testing with disability and language communities treats ballot design as an election-control issue rather than a cosmetic matter.

Section 242 — Optional rankings and instructions

Section 242 confirms that ranking remains voluntary. The mandated instructions explain later-choice noninterference, exhaustion, repeated tickets, and the precise effect of duplicate ranks: the ballot may be temporarily inactive while multiple equally highest tickets continue, but later distinct preferences remain usable. The instructions do not urge voters to rank more or fewer candidates.

Section 243 — Interpretation of rankings

Section 243 gives effect to every objectively discernible preference under one national standard. Blank positions are compressed and repeated tickets count only at their highest placement. An equal ranking does not invalidate lower preferences: the ballot is excluded from the denominator only while two or more equally highest-ranked tickets continue, reactivates for the sole survivor of that rank, and advances to the next distinct rank if none survives. Clear corrections and write-in variants receive voter-intent review, and paper controls over scanner limitations.

Section 244 — National instant-runoff tabulation

Section 244 combines every authenticated cast-vote record into one dataset and forbids State elimination rounds. Ballots count once for the highest-ranked continuing ticket; the lowest ticket is eliminated one at a time; transfers continue until a majority of active ballots or a final-two plurality emerges. A sole remaining ticket wins only if a valid national ballot was cast and at least one ballot remains continuing. If no ticket remains, no valid ballot exists, or every valid ballot has exhausted so that no ballot remains continuing, no one is elected; succession supplies acting service, and Congress—or the three-judge court if governing law or timely action is absent—sets the earliest feasible special election. Temporarily inactive equal-ranked ballots are not exhausted and may still reactivate under section 243. No official may alter the algorithm based on political effect.

Section 245 — Elimination and exact-final ties

Section 245 resolves a multiway low tie by comparing prior rounds, narrowing the comparison whenever multiple tickets share the lowest earlier total, and eliminating only one ticket before retabulation. If the narrowed subset never separates, a nationwide hand review precedes a public auditable lot. A verified final tie invokes Amendment section 7: the newly elected House votes by individual Representative, may continue after January 20, and may not manipulate the denominator by withholding a member entitled to qualify. Its authority ends sixty days after the presidential term begins if no choice has been made; that interval ordinarily gives the House taking office January 3 about seventy-seven days while preventing its eventual expiration from producing indefinite acting service. At the cutoff, a certificate of no election issues and a national special election occurs at the earliest feasible date and within 120 days, with a three-judge fallback if the Commission does not timely set the date. Before choice or cutoff, section 245(f), rather than the general post-voting rules, governs only the availability and composition of the tied tickets and never reopens the national tabulation. A presidential death, verified declination, or permanent ineligibility elevates the tied running mate; a lone vice-presidential vacancy leaves the ticket available. If only one ticket can supply a qualified President it wins by operation of law; if neither can, succession, a no-election certificate, and a court-backed special election apply. No post-tie event transfers ballots. Once the House chooses, or a ticket wins by operation of law, sections 354(d) and 355 govern the elected ticket—including a ticket identified after January 20—and a ministerial supplemental certificate records the elected persons and any vacancy without constituting the source of the result.

Section 246 — Cast-vote records and identifiers

Section 246 requires a complete electronic interpretation of every ranking in an open common format, tied to the national ticket dictionary. Digital signatures, hashes, deposits, and ballot accounting identify altered or missing datasets. The record remains subordinate to paper; it is the national tabulation input and audit index, not irrebuttable evidence.

Section 247 — Open software and reproducibility

Section 247 prevents a proprietary algorithm from determining the presidency. Two independent open reference implementations, test vectors, and reproducible builds make the rule inspectable. Three isolated computations must agree, and privacy-protected public inputs support mirror calculations. Trade-secret and classification claims cannot conceal the counting rule, although genuine system vulnerabilities remain protectable under other provisions.

Section 248 — Round reports and exhaustion

Section 248 requires publication of each assignment, transfer, elimination, exhaustion count, denominator, tie procedure, dataset version, and ballots temporarily inactive because of equal highest rankings. It prevents misleading claims that a winner obtained a majority of every ballot when the legal result is a majority of continuing ballots. The detailed reports make an early-round error observable and support the recount-margin calculation.

Section 249 — No contingent election or congressional count

Section 249 makes ranked transfer, rather than the Twelfth Amendment, the response to absence of a first-choice majority. Congress has no ordinary count, objection, acceptance, or rejection role. Its only selection authority is the Amendment’s exact-final-tie procedure. Informational receipt and ceremonial acknowledgment of the public certificate remain permissible, but neither transition nor legal validity depends upon them.

Section 261 — Election day and voting hours

Section 261 retains the traditional November date while prescribing a 13-hour minimum and protecting every person in line at closing. Paid voting leave and institutional access address practical exclusion. Election officials must withhold presidential totals until ordinary voting closes nationwide, reducing official information asymmetry across time zones; the rule does not purport to restrain news organizations, exit polls, or private speech.

Section 262 — Early in-person voting

Section 262 guarantees 15 consecutive days, weekend and evening hours, statewide early vote centers, and objective site allocation. Demand, transportation, disability, language, and wait-time data replace partisan voting history as placement criteria. A 30-minute planning standard triggers reporting and correction but does not invalidate ballots or close a site when an unexpected line develops.

Section 263 — No-excuse voting by mail

Section 263 makes mail voting available to every elector, including through a permanent request, multiple accessible application channels, prompt fulfillment, and replacement. Ballots requested early receive 45-day transmission. A blank ballot may be delivered electronically when necessary, but the completed vote remains subject to physical-return rules. Issuing a replacement does not cancel the first ballot unless another ballot is actually cast or compromise is shown.

Section 264 — Timely casting and receipt

Section 264 expressly separates casting by election-day close from official receipt through day 7. Postal scans, carrier acceptance, drop boxes, election offices, and military or diplomatic custody establish casting; a three-day receipt presumption addresses missing postmarks. This is a direct response to Watson: the statute states a Federal receipt rule rather than assuming the word “election” silently supplies one. After election-day close, an elector may authenticate but not change the vote.

Section 265 — Verification, notice, and cure

Section 265 permits several authentication methods and confines signature mismatch rejection to two trained independent reviewers. Reviewers may not know partisan or neighborhood voting information. Notice must issue promptly through authorized channels, and cure remains open through day 10. The materiality clause prevents envelope details unrelated to eligibility, timeliness, personal execution, or duplication from defeating the ballot.

Section 266 — Drop boxes, return assistance, postage, and tracking

Section 266 supplies accessible drop boxes, prepaid return, privacy-protective tracking, and lawful assistance. A custody log for a person returning numerous unrelated ballots addresses organized interception without criminalizing household, caregiver, disability, language, postal, or institutional help. Two-person collection, seals, and logs create auditable custody from box to canvass.

Section 267 — Uniformed-services and overseas transmission

Section 267 implements the UOCAVA 45-day rule with a ranked Federal write-in ballot when the final printed ballot is delayed. The Federal form may combine registration, request, and vote and cannot be rejected for State-only formalities. Electronic blank-ballot delivery and military custody records accommodate deployment, but every completed ballot returns physically. The national seven-day receipt deadline remains uniform.

Section 268 — Disability and language access

Section 268 treats accessible voting as an end-to-end obligation covering registration, marking, verification, casting, tracking, and cure. In-person sites require functioning adaptive equipment and paper fallback. Remote accessible marking may produce a paper ballot but may not transmit choices to a server. Language thresholds supplement existing Voting Rights Act coverage and include oral assistance for unwritten or underserved languages.

Section 269 — No Internet return of voted ballots

Section 269 is categorical because a remote electronic return presently lacks an independently auditable secret physical record. It reaches email, facsimile, applications, cloud portals, and nominally decentralized ledgers. Registration, blank-ballot delivery, local nonnetworked marking, tracking, and deidentified result transmission remain permitted. No emergency official may waive the prohibition; physical couriers, paper fallback, or a targeted extension must be used instead.

Section 270 — System failure and emergency paper ballots

Section 270 prevents electronic poll-book, scanner, network, power, printer, or ballot-marking failure from stopping voting. Sites must maintain emergency paper stock, printed lists, secure unscanned-ballot containers, and replenishment. An elector receives a provisional or securely deposited paper ballot rather than an instruction to return later. Allocation of backup resources may not track partisan voting history.

Section 281 — Controlling paper ballot

Section 281 makes a durable, human-readable, voter-verifiable paper ballot the controlling expression of each ranking. Encoded marks may assist scanning but cannot override readable candidate names and ranks. Ballot-marking devices must allow review and correction, and every site offers a hand-marked option. This supplies evidence independent of the software that reports the result.

Section 282 — Certification and software independence

Section 282 requires Commission certification at least as protective as current voluntary voting-system guidelines. Software independence means an undetected code error cannot produce an undetectable outcome change; paper and mandatory audit provide that check. Testing covers access, security, supply chain, RCV records, and recovery. Decertification must be paired with funded replacement or paper procedures so a security remedy does not disenfranchise voters.

Section 283 — Networks, access, and supply chain

Section 283 isolates voting and tabulation equipment from unnecessary networks and radios, imposes unique credentials and least privilege, and requires two-person control over consequential changes. Vendor ownership, component provenance, vulnerabilities, and conflicts are disclosed. A 24-hour vendor reporting duty and prohibition on contractual concealment close the gap between discovery of a defect and public authority’s ability to respond.

Section 284 — Testing and chain of custody

Section 284 requires public logic-and-accuracy testing of every RCV mark condition, write-in, exhaustion, tie, and accessible function. Hashing and sealing preserve the tested configuration. Ballot counts, container seals, persons, times, and discrepancies follow each transfer. Meaningful neutral observation supports confidence without allowing observers to handle ballots, compromise secrecy, or impede workers.

Section 285 — Preservation

Section 285 extends preservation to 48 months and longer while a relevant audit, recount, investigation, or case remains pending. Images cannot substitute for original paper. A contest or preservation notice creates an automatic litigation hold, avoiding destruction during the time needed to obtain a separate injunction. Authenticated geographic backups protect data, while original secret ballots ordinarily remain in secure public custody.

Section 286 — Cybersecurity reporting and response

Section 286 requires rapid notice to the Commission and CISA of access, malware, credential, denial, supply-chain, or record incidents. Response authority includes isolation, forensics, credential rotation, paper fallback, and expanded audit. Material facts must become public before final certification absent a narrow court-approved delay. An intrusion alone does not invalidate votes; verified effects are tested against paper evidence.

Section 287 — Ballot secrecy and record privacy

Section 287 requires destruction of identity-to-choice linkage once issuance and duplicate reconciliation no longer need it. Shuffling, removal of timestamps, and geographic coarsening protect against pattern voting in published RCV records, while cryptographic proofs preserve verification. Auditors may receive controlled access under logs and protective orders. Government and private actors may not demand proof of a vote as a condition of benefit or employment.

Section 301 — Comprehensive canvass

Section 301 requires the canvass to include every timely voting method and reconcile issuance through counting. Public aggregate rejection reasons reveal systematic error without exposing voters. Election-night totals are expressly unofficial; later inclusion of timely mail, provisional, cured, and overseas ballots is ordinary administration rather than an exceptional alteration.

Section 302 — Local canvass and State return

Section 302 sets day 15 for jurisdictional records and day 21 for the consolidated authenticated State return. State transmission is ministerial. If a chief official refuses, the Commission uses authenticated lower-level records and seeks a receiver or special master rather than excluding the State. This removes the certification veto while retaining a documented correction process.

Section 303 — Preliminary national tabulation

Section 303 requires a public reconciled dataset and round report by day 24. The preliminary result begins recount and contest periods but does not freeze errors. Every correction must be versioned and reproducible, preventing silent replacement of data while allowing lawful cure, audit, and judicial changes.

Section 304 — National risk-limiting audit

Section 304 requires at least a 95-percent probability of leading to correction if the reported winner is wrong. The audit examines ranking records and every elimination dependency capable of changing the outcome, not only the final two totals. A seed generated after paper commitments prevents sample manipulation. Sampling expands until the risk limit is met or all relevant ballots are reviewed.

Section 305 — Ranked-choice margin of victory

Section 305 defines outcome margin as the minimum ballot changes capable of changing the winner. Because an early elimination can redirect later transfers, the final-round difference alone is not adequate. Where exact calculation is computationally impracticable, a certified conservative lower bound errs toward triggering a recount and must disclose alternative elimination paths.

Section 306 — Automatic nationwide recount

Section 306 exactly implements the constitutional recount floors. A nationwide hand recount follows a final-two difference no greater than one-quarter percent of continuing final-round ballots, every elimination-round margin within one-quarter percent of continuing ballots in that round, a comparably small computed outcome margin, an outcome-capable documented ballot dispute, audit failure, material unresolved paper discrepancy, or tie. The elimination trigger does not depend on an after-the-fact judgment that the close round was “outcome relevant.” No petition, payment, State threshold, or Commission vote is required.

Section 307 — Requested and court-ordered recounts

Section 307 permits a certified ticket to demand a publicly funded national recount within a broader one-half-percent zone. Bad-faith factual representations may support costs, but ordinary access is not conditioned on wealth. Courts retain authority to examine an otherwise untested error on clear and convincing evidence. A candidate cannot choose only States or counties likely to improve that ticket’s position.

Section 308 — Full-hand recount procedure

Section 308 requires independent human examination of every national presidential ballot, double entry of all rankings, uniform intent rules, and a complete national rerun. Regional teams and shifts may accelerate work, but may not replace custody, observation, secrecy, or full scope with sampling. State-level “winners” remain irrelevant.

Section 309 — Corrected returns

Section 309 requires an audit trail for every correction: affected records, legal basis, persons, old and new values, and round effects. Unauthenticated alterations are rejected without discarding lawful underlying ballots. Disputes still material on day 42 go directly to the three-judge court so administrative delay cannot consume the transition calendar.

Section 310 — Final national tabulation

Section 310 places responsibility on the Chief Data and Audit Officer to freeze the authenticated dataset, run independent implementations, and publish complete verification materials by day 45 or promptly after a required recount or timely controlling judgment. The publication identifies the winning ticket, exact tie, or no-election outcome rather than demanding a fictitious winner. A later no-election outcome caused by House deadlock, tied-ticket unavailability, or a final contest judgment that no reliable result can be ascertained is published without reopening the vote totals. A post–January 20 judgment cannot revise an already controlling regular-election tabulation to name a different winner; the initial-certificate, finality, and succession provisions control.

Section 311 — Ministerial certificate

Section 311 assigns the certificate to the Executive Director and defines it as a statement of mathematical and legal result, not an exercise of political judgment. A winner certificate identifies the elected ticket, President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy, as well as the totals and controlling data. An exact-tie certificate instead identifies the two tied tickets, their composition and vacancies, and their equal totals while expressly leaving the election pending under section 245. A no-election certificate states that no ticket was elected and activates acting service and the mandatory special election, including when a final contest judgment finds no reliable result. The Chair and data officer attest but cannot withhold. A regular-election winner certificate ordinarily becomes effective before the term begins. If no winner, exact-tie, or no-election certificate has become controlling, a first regular-election certificate may issue after January 20 from a timely audit, recount, or contest while no person elected for the term has qualified; because it is the first determination rather than an amendment, it ends acting service without displacing an inaugurated President or Vice President. A late winner certificate cannot supersede a controlling exact-tie or no-election certificate. The exact-tie, supplemental-tie, and special-election mechanisms remain independently available.

Section 312 — Failure, vacancy, or deadlock

Section 312 provides successive Commission issuers, then requires the Archivist to issue from the applicable published section 310 outcome with Election Assistance Commission support. That outcome is the original final tabulation for a winner, exact tie, or immediate no-election result, and is the later published no-election outcome when House deadlock, tied-ticket unavailability, or a controlling contest judgment subsequently establishes that no ticket was elected. If the Archivist fails or cannot act, the applicable outcome becomes the required certificate by operation of law, the court clerk authenticates it, and a special master can correct sabotage or omission. Quorum denial, commissioner tie, State refusal, vacancy, and congressional inaction cannot prevent legal effect.

Section 313 — Effect and transmission

Section 313 makes a timely regular-election certificate, including only pre-term final judicial corrections, conclusive as to the elected ticket, President-elect, any Vice-President-elect, and any vacancy for transition, oath, succession, and public administration, subject to later death, declination, or qualification rules. A first post-term certificate permitted by section 311(c) has the same continuing effect and does not cease to control when a member qualifies. A supplemental certificate following a House choice or operation-of-law result records the same statuses. A special-election certificate establishes the elected ticket and successor statuses upon issuance, while service begins upon qualification, so the interval between those events is governed. An exact-tie certificate conclusively identifies only the two tied tickets, their current composition and vacancies pending section 245; it neither names a winner nor reopens tabulation. A no-election certificate conclusively identifies the absence of an elected ticket and activates the applicable special-election route. After the term begins, an election contest cannot replace an officeholder; later evidence remains usable in criminal, civil, disciplinary, impeachment, succession, and Twenty-Fifth Amendment proceedings. Congress receives each certificate for information only.

Section 321 — Exclusive national contest

Section 321 separates local evidence work from national relief. A local Federal court may preserve evidence and conduct factfinding referred by the national court. Any local action capable of affecting a continuing ticket, elimination, final round, or certificate must be transferred to and consolidated before the District of Columbia three-judge court; the local court cannot independently alter the national tabulation. State courts remain competent over nonpresidential disputes but cannot produce competing presidential outcomes.

Section 322 — Standing and claims

Section 322 gives standing to tickets, affected electors, the Commission, and the Attorney General. Cognizable claims include ballot inclusion, ranking interpretation, data, security, obstruction, late qualification, and other outcome-capable violations. Generalized suspicion, partisan disagreement, or a technical violation too small to affect the result does not justify setting aside an election.

Section 323 — Filing and pleadings

Section 323 uses a five-day post-preliminary period and a three-day genuinely new-evidence period, with a January 5 outer limit absent fraud on the court. Particularized pleading must identify evidence, maximum numerical effect, and requested remedy. Fraud on the court can excuse filing lateness but cannot authorize certificate-changing relief after the term begins.

Section 324 — Proof and evidence

Section 324 uses a preponderance standard for ordinary record and mathematical correction and clear and convincing evidence for fraud, intentional alteration, or systemic disenfranchisement. Paper, custody, audit, and system records receive expedited foundations. An anomaly may justify investigation but cannot alone establish that a ballot was unlawful.

Section 325 — Three-judge court and direct review

Section 325 assigns national tabulation, final-round, post-voting qualification, and certificate claims to a three-judge District of Columbia court. Transfer is mandatory whenever requested relief could have the national effect identified in section 321. Priority and direct Supreme Court review reduce conflicting injunctions and make authoritative resolution possible before January 20.

Section 326 — Remedies and lawful voters

Section 326 ranks remedies from compelled performance and record correction through counting, individual exclusion, audit, recount, targeted extension, and only finally a special election. A lost individual ballot may be reconstructed only from contemporaneous official records establishing that voter’s selections; statistical allocation, partisan or precinct inference, and compelled revelation of a secret vote are forbidden. Official error is not charged to an eligible voter, jurisdictions are not discarded for an officer’s misconduct, and certificate relief remains subject to term-start finality.

Section 327 — Special election

Section 327 makes a special election mandatory on the Congress-or-court date specified by section 244 in the constitutional no-valid-ballot or no-continuing-ticket cases. In an ordinary contest it remains a last resort requiring clear and convincing evidence that affected ballots meet the outcome margin and paper evidence, recount, and narrower remedies cannot establish the result. Subject to the term-start finality rules, the final judgment itself conclusively establishes that no ticket was elected and controls acting service even if an officer delays the corresponding ministerial certificate of no election. A contest-ordered election uses the same ticket and ranking structure absent Title IX treatment and must occur within 120 days after the judgment becomes final.

Section 328 — Unresolved transition

Section 328 ends the incumbent term at noon January 20 regardless of litigation and bars a later contest from changing a certificate that already became controlling or displacing a President or Vice President whose term began. A succession officer acts without acquiring the term until later qualification under a pre-term certificate, a first post-term certificate authorized because no winner had previously been identified, House choice or operation-of-law resolution of an exact tie, or a special-election result. Post-term evidence remains available for non-certificate constitutional and statutory proceedings.

Section 329 — Fees, costs, and expedition

Section 329 permits prevailing-voter fees, bad-faith sanctions, and limited nonprohibitive bonds. The rule seeks to preserve review for meritorious access claims while deterring knowingly groundless efforts to delay certification. Election expedition does not eliminate ordinary judicial authority over discovery abuse or false filings.

Section 341 — Exclusive authority and definition

Section 341 confines emergency treatment to events that physically prevent material voting despite backup measures. Polling, expected loss, ordinary protest, neglect, litigation, or correctable equipment failure are excluded. No President, governor, candidate, legislature, or single official can cancel or unilaterally postpone the national election.

Section 342 — Localized extension

Section 342 permits a tailored extension of at most seven days on five Commission votes and clear-and-convincing three-judge approval. The Executive Director may grant only a 24-hour bridge when an imminent event makes prior collective action impossible. If every Commission applicant is unavailable or disabled, the Archivist may apply, but the court supplies only the omitted approval on the same merits and an added finding of material disenfranchisement from delay.

Section 343 — Nationwide postponement

Section 343 supplies advance statutory authority for a nationwide modification only through either five Commission votes or, if every Commission applicant is unavailable or disabled, an Archivist application, together with a three-judge order supported by clear and convincing evidence that a catastrophic event prevents a material national share from voting and localized relief is inadequate. An Archivist application also requires a finding that Commission action is physically impossible. The maximum is 21 days; executive declarations, post hoc congressional action, and candidate-responsive postponement have no effect.

Section 344 — Ballot protection and equality

Section 344 preserves, inventories, and guards ballots already cast. Official totals remain withheld until extended voting closes, and candidate, observer, mail, cure, and voting rights remain equal. Persons who already voted do not receive a selective second vote merely because their jurisdiction receives additional time.

Section 345 — No extension of term

Section 345 makes the Twentieth Amendment deadline absolute. War, postponement, litigation, incomplete canvass, or failure to certify cannot give the incumbent a holdover entitlement. Acting service under succession law is the constitutional safety valve.

Section 346 — Continuity plans

Section 346 requires alternate sites, mobile teams, paper, printed lists, power, staffing, communications, cyber isolation, and military and postal contingencies before an emergency occurs. Biennial testing and funded remediation reduce reliance on discretionary improvisation when political stakes are highest.

Section 351 — Substitution before transmission

Section 351 allows the preannounced replacement body to substitute a consenting qualified person under its filed method before ballots are transmitted and, upon a qualifying vacancy, before the uniform deadline. National certification and ballot information change together. Signatures or votes of separate tickets cannot be merged.

Section 352 — Events after transmission

Section 352 distinguishes the period before and after the 30-day uniform substitution deadline, but in both instances addresses only events before voting closes. Before the deadline, the replacement body may use its frozen method. After it, a presidential death, valid withdrawal, or final ineligibility elevates the vice-presidential candidate; a lone vice-presidential vacancy remains unless nationally uniform notice and the preannounced method permit replacement. No State can choose a different successor.

Section 353 — Ballot validity

Section 353 keeps rankings attached to the joint ticket through a lawful pre-close substitution, even if ballots cannot be reprinted. Delayed official notice does not cancel a vote. The narrow transfer exception applies only when both members die or are finally adjudged constitutionally ineligible before certification; post-voting declinations never invoke it.

Section 354 — Events after voting closes

Section 354 follows Amendment section 8. After voting closes, a deceased or finally ineligible presidential candidate is replaced for tabulation by the vice-presidential candidate, while a lone vice-presidential death or ineligibility leaves the ticket continuing. Ballots transfer only if both members die or are finally adjudged ineligible. A post-voting declination leaves the ticket and every ranking in place, becoming effective only if that ticket is elected. After certification, presidential death, irrevocable declination, or permanent ineligibility elevates the Vice-President-elect only if that person is alive, has not declined, remains constitutionally eligible, and can qualify as President. If temporarily unable at the term’s start, that person may become President upon later qualification; if both elected members are temporarily unable, a Vice-President-elect who qualifies first acts until the President-elect qualifies. The same rules attach whenever a ticket is identified after January 20, including by a first lawful late certificate, House choice, operation-of-law tie result, or special election, so no post-term certificate falls into a succession gap. Death, declination, or permanent ineligibility creates a vice-presidential vacancy, but temporary inability does not and permits later qualification.

Section 355 — No elected person qualifies

Section 355 separates temporary inability from permanent unavailability both at the ordinary term start and immediately after any ticket is identified later. When at least one elected member remains capable of later qualification, the title 3 succession officer acts only until that person qualifies in the capacity prescribed by section 354(d); temporary inability alone neither creates a vice-presidential vacancy nor triggers a special election. If death, irrevocable declination, permanent constitutional ineligibility, or the absence of a remaining member means that no ticket member can ever qualify, a special national election is mandatory at the earliest feasible date and within 120 days. The Commission must publish the date within 3 days, and the District of Columbia three-judge court supplies it if governing law or timely administrative action is absent. Acting service continues only until the special-election winner qualifies, and an acting officer may neither cancel the election nor control emergency rules in an election in which that officer is a candidate.

Section 356 — Withdrawal and declination

Section 356 separates a pre-close withdrawal from a post-close declination. A pre-close filing may invoke substitution but cannot erase ballots. After voting closes, only a personal, knowing, voluntary, irrevocable, witnessed, authenticated declination is recognized, and it cannot alter the tabulation, eliminate a ticket, transfer a ballot, or reassign a ranking. It takes effect only if the ticket is elected, including during the exact-tie interval. Threats, payments, promises, succession bargains, and purported filings by a party, campaign, relative, or guardian have no effect.

Section 357 — Special-election ballot and term

Section 357 applies the same electorate, access, RCV, paper, audit, recount, contest, and certificate rules to every special election required by the Act or Amendment on a compressed schedule that still respects 45-day overseas transmission. The special-election date supplied under the relevant trigger is the “election day” from which the compressed deadlines run. Successor updates require judicial control. Winners complete the existing term, preventing a special election from resetting the constitutional cycle.

Division D — Enforcement, rights, and administration

Section 401 — Private right of action

Section 401 expressly authorizes electors, candidates, and affected membership organizations to seek declaratory, injunctive, mandamus, and appropriate relief. Ordinary access claims may be filed locally; national result claims follow title VII. Express injury and organizational-standing language is intended to prevent enforcement from turning on uncertain implied-right doctrines.

Section 402 — Public enforcement

Section 402 authorizes the Attorney General and Commission to investigate and sue. The Commission may enter civil compliance orders after process, but imprisonment, ballot invalidation, and removal remain judicial functions. Election-period relief should preserve voting immediately rather than rely solely on post-election penalties.

Section 403 — Administrative complaints

Section 403 provides accessible, free, publicly tracked intake with 24-hour election-period availability and whistleblower confidentiality. The ordinary 90-day decision period yields to election deadlines, and exhaustion is excused when delay threatens voting. The process develops a record without becoming a procedural barrier to court.

Section 404 — Federal preemption

Section 404 supersedes inconsistent State constitutional, statutory, regulatory, contractual, and judicial rules for the national contest. Greater convenience remains possible, but a jurisdiction cannot alter who is eligible, which tickets qualify, when votes are timely, or how the result is determined. The scope rests principally on the Amendment after ratification.

Section 405 — Official nonfeasance

Section 405 authorizes mandamus, receivers, substitute officers, lower-level authenticated returns, and Federal fallback. It targets the “negative veto” problem: a duty-holder cannot defeat an election by refusing to sign or transmit. The remedy replaces the officer’s omitted act rather than excluding affected voters.

Section 406 — Criminal offenses

Section 406 reaches intentional alteration, duplicate or unlawful counting, false certification, system intrusion, vote disclosure, coercion, and obstruction. Knowledge and intent to affect an election protect good-faith mistakes, advocacy, ordinary litigation, and compliant security research. The offense is aimed at manipulation of evidence and rights, not disagreement about law.

Section 407 — Civil penalties

Section 407 permits inflation-adjusted penalties and structural remedies such as training, monitoring, restitution, replacement, or temporary disqualification from administration. A pattern receives a higher ceiling. Penalties may not consume money needed to conduct the election, avoiding a remedy that would punish voters.

Section 408 — Whistleblower and witness protection

Section 408 protects employees, contractors, observers, and voters who preserve evidence or report suspected misconduct. Reinstatement, double back pay, damages, fees, confidentiality, and protective orders address both governmental and private retaliation. Lawful reporting remains subject to ballot secrecy and secure disclosure channels.

Section 409 — Immunity, fees, and costs

Section 409 expressly abrogates State and territorial sovereign immunity under the Amendment and other applicable powers while preserving Ex parte Young. Fee shifting makes rights enforceable where an individual vote’s monetary value cannot finance litigation. Public defendants retain ordinary defenses on the merits.

Section 410 — Other voting rights

Section 410 makes the Act cumulative with the Voting Rights Act, NVRA, HAVA, UOCAVA, disability statutes, and constitutional guarantees. The more protective rule generally controls, except that a jurisdiction may not use another law to create a different national tabulation standard.

Section 411 — Severability and anti-revival

Section 411 directs narrow severance and preservation of equal voting. Once the Amendment’s elector provisions cease, invalidation of an implementation detail cannot revive presidential electors, State weighting, or a congressional objection count. The Amendment’s self-executing defaults fill the gap.

Section 412 — Appropriation

Section 412 supplements Commission funding for ballots, fallback, remedies, worker protection, and judgments and requires quarterly disclosure and independent audit. Permanent availability prevents the election from becoming contingent on an annual appropriations bargain while retaining fiscal transparency.

Division E — Conditional conforming amendments

Section 501 — Title 3 conforming amendments

Section 501 conditionally repeals title 3 provisions governing appointment, meeting, certificates, transmission, electoral-vote counting, objections, and Twelfth Amendment contingent election. Sections 19 and 20 remain. The repeal is simultaneous with direct-election operation and does not impair the Amendment’s exact-tie process or prior records and liabilities. Division B is operatively transferred into a new chapter 6 of title 3 under a mechanical add-400 section-number table, with all statutory cross-references preserved.

Section 502 — Presidential succession

Section 502 preserves title 3 succession and resignation law and clarifies that death, declination, permanent ineligibility, and unresolved national contest can produce failure to qualify. An acting officer serves only until qualification under a controlling certificate—including a first lawful post-term certificate where none identified a winner before January 20—a House choice or operation-of-law tie result, or a special election, and does not acquire the underlying term.

Section 503 — UOCAVA conformity

Section 503 enacts new 52 U.S.C. § 20312 and its table item rather than leaving UOCAVA conformity to construction. The new section covers every territory and special election, preserves 45-day ranked-ballot transmission, adapts the Federal write-in form, protects citizens who never resided domestically, substitutes the uniform Federal timeliness rule, permits electronic blank-ballot delivery, and bars electronic return of a voted presidential ballot.

Section 504 — NVRA conformity

Section 504 enacts new 52 U.S.C. § 20512 and its table item. It applies presidential registration nationwide, including every territory or possession; makes the Act’s automatic, online, portable, and election-day procedures controlling; and forbids nonvoting cancellation and State qualifications barred by the Amendment. Other-contest registration remains governed by otherwise applicable law.

Section 505 — Election Assistance Commission transfer

Section 505 transfers the Election Assistance Commission only on the later of the presidential operative date or the new Commission’s quorum and operational Office of Fair Representation. Until then, the EAC’s interim redistricting bridge under section 3103 remains intact. Certifications, grants, contracts, boards, and career personnel continue; sitting commissioners may advise but do not occupy the seven new statutory seats.

Section 506 — Title 28 conformity

Section 506 enacts the full text of new 28 U.S.C. §§ 1344A, 2284A, and 1253A and all three table amendments on the presidential operative date. Section 1344A separates local access and evidence jurisdiction from exclusive District of Columbia national-result jurisdiction. Section 2284A specifies covered three-judge cases, randomized assignment, single-judge limits, and priority. Section 1253A supplies direct appeal, a 48-hour notice period, good-cause enlargement, and a voter-sensitive stay rule.

Section 507 — References to electoral votes

Section 507 is an anti-obsolescence rule for scattered Federal cross-references. Context-appropriate references become direct-vote, national-tabulation, or Commission-certificate references; incompatible electoral-vote concepts become inapplicable. The clause may not be used to preserve geographic weighting or congressional rejection power.

Section 508 — Technical amendments

Section 508 directs Law Revision Counsel to identify remaining cross-references within 180 days. Because a future technical bill could stall, its enactment is not a condition of operation. The operative amendments in sections 501 through 507 control in the meantime.

Division F — Ratification, transition, and effective dates

Section 601 — Ratification certification

Section 601 defines the ratification date as the actual date on which valid State legislative ratifications complete Article V’s three-fourths requirement, using the number of States then entitled to participate rather than hardcoding 38. The designated Federal officer must certify the date, participating-State number, and ratifying-State number within seven days, but certification is evidence rather than a condition of constitutional validity or statutory timing. If certification is withheld, the District Court clerk publishes the State instruments and apparent constitutionally sufficient date, while a three-judge court with direct Supreme Court review determines any dispute.

Section 602 — Immediate preparatory provisions

Section 602 precisely identifies the immediately effective text: sections 1 through 5, Division A, immediate redistricting Title XXXI and its Division-wide rules, section 508, and Division F, plus Division D only as applied to immediate, redistricting, or independently authorized functions. Proposed rules, grants, and systems work may begin at once. Direct-election certification, elector displacement, territorial presidential voting, and contingent enforcement remain barred before the exact operative date.

Section 603 — Contingent effective date

Section 603 exactly matches Amendment section 19. It first identifies the first regular presidential general election held on or after 36 months from ratification, then defines the operative date as exactly 36 months before that election. Every nomination, filing, access, registration, voting, canvass, audit, recount, contest, certificate, and preparatory act for that cycle arising on or after that date is governed by direct-election law, and the elector repeals take effect simultaneously. Missed preparation does not postpone the date.

Section 604 — Regulations and State plans

Section 604 sets 270 days for proposed rules, 18 months for final rules or at least 12 months before the election, and 18 months for State plans. The Commission may conditionally approve with funded corrections or invoke fallback. Approval validates administration but is not a condition on individual rights.

Section 605 — Pending-election savings

Section 605 preserves prior elector law for the entire election cycle culminating before the first governed general election, including elector appointment, count, transition, and inauguration. It protects completed selections, terms, succession, official acts, records, and investigations. Cycle-based language, rather than a bare election-day threshold, is the statutory counterpart to the Amendment’s no-gap rule.

Section 606 — Transfer of functions

Section 606 assigns OMB the mechanics, but not substantive direction, of transferring EAC personnel, money, property, contracts, records, and liabilities only on section 505’s delayed transfer date and subject to section 3103’s interim bridge. Career, bargaining, pay, leave, and whistleblower rights remain intact, and transfer authority does not enlarge access to secret ballots.

Section 607 — No adverse inference from delay

Section 607 states that conditional timing reflects Article V and operational preparation, not doubt about post-ratification power or immediate existing-authority provisions. It helps prevent a court from treating delayed operation as a concession that preparatory work is unauthorized or the Amendment is not self-executing.

Section 608 — Reports

Section 608 requires semiannual readiness reporting through the first certificate and annual reporting thereafter across spending, access, security, registration, mail, cure, audit, recount, incidents, litigation, and continuity. Congressional receipt supports oversight and later legislation but expressly confers no approval, stay, or alteration power over certification.

Instrument II, Division C — Fair Representation and Gerrymandering

Overview of Division C

Division C separates reforms that Congress may place into operation under the existing Constitution from reforms that depend on ratification of the Popular Will Amendment. Title XXXI expressly takes effect on enactment, principally under the Elections Clause, notwithstanding presidential transition provisions in division F. Title XXXII becomes operative upon ratification and extends the same independent-districting floor to State, territorial, District of Columbia, and local elections. Title XXXIII changes the statutory size and apportionment of the House only for a defined post-ratification apportionment after the direct national presidential-election trigger has occurred. Title XXXIV supplies construction, continuity, and severability rules for the division.

The separation is substantive rather than merely temporal. Article I, section 4 gives Congress unusually broad authority to make or alter regulations for House elections, including districting rules. It does not confer equivalent authority over elections for State and local bodies. Under Rucho v. Common Cause, existing Federal constitutional provisions also do not furnish a judicially manageable partisan-gerrymandering claim. The later amendment therefore supplies the right and enforcement authority needed for universal coverage. This structure avoids presenting an ordinary statute as if it could, before ratification, displace the States’ general control of State and local governmental organization.

Commentary on Title XXXI—Immediate Congressional Redistricting Reform

Section 3101. Short title; immediate effect

Section 3101 supplies a distinct short title and an express enactment-date rule for the immediately operative congressional-redistricting component. The express rule prevents the presidential transition provisions in division F from being read by negative implication to delay Title XXXI. A separate short title permits courts, agencies, States, and appropriations provisions to refer to the congressional rules without implying that the contingent State and local provisions are already compulsory. The phrase “Independent Redistricting” describes the transfer of final map authority; it does not mean that commissioners are insulated from law, public scrutiny, or judicial review.

Section 3102. Findings; purposes; constitutional authority

Section 3102 establishes the record and principal source of authority. Article I, section 4 permits Congress to make or alter regulations governing the manner and place of House elections. Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona describes that power as sufficient to supplant inconsistent State regulations, and Ex parte Siebold recognizes that Federal election law may impose duties on State election officers. Rucho held current constitutional partisan-gerrymandering claims nonjusticiable but expressly identified the Elections Clause as an available congressional reform route. Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission confirms that congressional maps may be adopted outside a representative legislature, while Moore v. Harper rejects an unreviewable State-legislature theory.

The findings also explain why the title uses multiple measures, public algorithms, anti-capture rules, and a Federal fallback. They support preemption and make clear that the title regulates congressional elections immediately rather than relying on ratification. References to Article I, section 2 and the Fourteenth Amendment supplement, but do not replace, the Elections Clause basis.

Section 3103. Definitions

Section 3103 gives operational meaning to terms that otherwise could recreate the indeterminacy discussed in Rucho. “Community of interest” includes representationally relevant, geographically ascertainable ties but excludes a party, incumbent, donor network, or campaign-created constituency. “Covered political data” reaches both direct partisan information and selected proxies, preventing a mapmaker from complying formally while reconstructing the same information from consumer or donor files. “Material partisan advantage” requires practical significance rather than every statistical difference.

The definitions also separate line drawing from later compliance testing, identify the controlling census products, and make the rules capable of accommodating more than two political parties. Bona fide protected-community information is expressly distinguished from a partisan proxy so that blinded map construction cannot become an excuse for ignoring voting-rights duties. The Federal Election Administration Commission is the ultimate rulemaking body. Until it has a quorum and an operational fair-representation office, the existing Election Assistance Commission continues as a limited transition administration for ministerial and preparatory work and petitions the three-judge court for discretionary final action. That rule survives the companion Act’s later agency-transfer provision and avoids an implementation gap. “Unaffiliated” means unaffiliated with every political party, matching the amendment rather than merely excluding the two largest parties.

Section 3104. Exclusive method for adopting congressional districts

Section 3104 gives independent commissions exclusive State-level map authority. Legislators and executives may establish neutral general law and perform ministerial election duties, but may not draw, approve, veto, amend, delay, or rescue a plan. This closes the principal loophole in advisory and politically appointed commissions: a nominal commission whose work takes effect only after legislative or gubernatorial consent.

The section permits a State to use one qualifying body for congressional and State plans and to adopt protections exceeding the Federal floor. Its express supersession clause reflects the Elections Clause rule that Federal congressional-election regulations displace inconsistent State constitutional as well as statutory rules. The Federal fallback also reduces anti-commandeering risk. If a State chooses not to operate a qualifying commission, Federal officers and ultimately a Federal court displace the State rule; map authority does not revert to a legislature merely because the State declines to administer the Federal method.

Section 3105. Commission membership and selection

Section 3105 creates a 15-member, three-cohort commission selected through open applications, objective screening, an auditable random initial selection, and selection of the remaining members by that initial group. Five members are associated with each of the two largest affiliation cohorts, and five must have been unaffiliated with every political party for six years. The third cohort therefore satisfies Amendment section 11’s one-third unaffiliated minimum rather than allowing minor-party members to fill seats constitutionally reserved to unaffiliated persons. Adaptation where a State lacks an ordinary two-major-party structure may not assign more than one-third of the commission to one party or reduce the unaffiliated cohort.

The Federal Office, rather than legislative leaders or party committees, classifies and screens applicants. Actual conduct over six years controls over last-minute party re-registration. A public lot chooses nine initial members, three per cohort, and those members select two more per cohort by a cross-cohort supermajority. Before ratification, protected-classification use remains subject to then-operative Equal Protection law; after ratification, the completed body must reasonably reflect the geographic, racial, ethnic, gender, age, disability, language, Indigenous, and Tribal diversity required by the amendment. A ranked vote with statutory instant-runoff default resolves deadlock. These provisions close leadership-strike, sham-independent, demographic-omission, and opaque-randomness loopholes while tracking the amendment’s hybrid selection command when operative.

Section 3106. Eligibility; disqualifications; post-service restrictions

Section 3106 applies a 10-year lookback to candidates, officeholders, party officers, legislative employees, campaign professionals, lobbyists, major donors, redistricting advocates, and financially dependent contractors. Immediate family, household, and controlled-entity rules prevent interested persons from avoiding disqualification through a spouse, child, business, or consulting entity. Current-service prohibitions address gifts, campaign activity, ex parte contacts, and conflicting financial interests.

The six-year post-service restriction prevents a commissioner from treating map authority as a path to candidacy, lobbying, or campaign employment. It is limited to politically sensitive activity and preserves teaching, publishing, testimony, and nonpartisan service, reducing associational and occupational overbreadth. Quarterly disclosure and recusal address conflicts arising after selection. Because recusal could otherwise be used to destroy cross-cohort voting, an alternate may be seated. The section is designed to protect both actual independence and the public ability to verify independence.

Section 3107. Organization; staff; funding; independence

Section 3107 translates structural independence into operational independence. Cross-cohort votes are required for officers, senior staff, counsel, and final plans. Independent counsel represents the institution rather than a partisan cohort. Vendors must disclose personnel, code, parameters, training data material to automated systems, and work product; a commission cannot outsource a gerrymander to a proprietary model and then claim inability to explain it.

Automatic Federal funding closes the budget-starvation and delayed-State-appropriation loopholes. A State may supplement funds but may not offset or impound the Federal amount. The continuing appropriation language is intended to keep nondiscretionary districting duties operational during ordinary appropriations delay, subject to accounting. The section also permits recovery from other Federal election payments if a State withholds facilities or ministerial cooperation. Binding governmental rules remain with a properly appointed Federal Commission, preserving the Appointments Clause distinction between career technical administration and exercise of significant rulemaking authority.

Section 3108. Removal; vacancies; protection against capture

Section 3108 makes removal possible for incapacity, corruption, material falsehood, serious neglect, and knowing violations, but not for a commissioner’s vote or political disagreement. An administrative law judge conducts a public evidentiary process, a final removal order requires clear and convincing evidence and four Federal Commission votes, and a court of appeals supplies expedited review. A temporary suspension requires five Commission votes and an imminent integrity threat. Elected officials possess no suspension power.

This arrangement closes opposite loopholes: corrupt commissioners who cannot be removed and commissioners threatened over a map vote. Temporary suspension requires an imminent integrity threat and seats an alternate. A randomly selected seat uses the original alternate order; a member-selected seat uses the original cross-cohort process, with a temporary alternate if needed. An exhausted pool triggers public applications, never political appointment. Prior lawful actions remain valid, preventing a vacancy tactic from reopening completed votes.

Section 3109. Ranked districting requirements

Section 3109 separates absolute prohibitions from ranked affirmative criteria. A partisan or incumbent-protective purpose cannot be balanced against compactness or subdivision preservation. Among otherwise permissible plans, the ranked criteria follow Amendment section 12 exactly: Federal law and population equality; protected electoral opportunity; contiguity; genuine communities; political subdivisions, neighborhoods, and cores of prior lawful districts; compactness; and finally partisan neutrality. A prior core receives no respect when it carries forward dilution or entrenchment. This ordering responds directly to Rucho’s concern that a court otherwise lacks a legal baseline while avoiding a statutory hierarchy inconsistent with the later constitutional text.

The population rule reflects Wesberry v. Sanders, Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, and Karcher v. Daggett: congressional population must be as nearly equal as practicable, without a de minimis safe harbor for avoidable deviations. Before ratification, the new subsection (f) applies the Voting Rights Act and then-controlling Equal Protection doctrine to House maps: it uses a results inquiry under existing law, rejects proportional entitlement, and requires a strong basis in evidence and narrow tailoring for a predominant racial classification. It expressly does not claim an ordinary statute can override a pre-ratification constitutional limit or controlling construction. Upon ratification, sections 3203 and 3206 supply the later constitutional standard. Point contiguity, partisan communities, and compactness pretexts remain rejected, and competitiveness is not an independent objective.

Section 3110. Population data; incarcerated persons; geographic integrity

Section 3110 makes census total population the controlling districting base, consistent with Evenwel v. Abbott and Article I population principles. It does not alter the population attributed to a State for national apportionment. For boundaries within a State, however, an incarcerated person is reassigned to a reliably ascertainable last usual residence. Persons with an unknown or out-of-State address remain at the facility to preserve the State total. The rule addresses prison-based representational distortions without creating unassigned population.

Correctional data receive a strict use limitation and only aggregate results become public. Other group quarters are not reallocated absent a uniform congressional rule or judgment, preventing ad hoc treatment of students, military personnel, nursing-home residents, or shelter residents. Census blocks are the default geographic unit, but block and precinct boundaries may yield when equality, a legal boundary, census correction, or protected opportunity requires. Thus election-administration convenience cannot be used categorically to defeat a higher-ranked representational rule.

Section 3111. Partisan-neutrality review; ensembles; metrics

Section 3111 creates a blinded construction phase followed by an independent partisan audit. Blinding does not withhold protected-community information that may lawfully be used under sections 3109(f) and 3206; the prohibition targets political performance and pretextual proxies. The fixed election dataset uses a representative set of statewide elections and discloses exclusions, avoiding cherry-picked years or contests. A neutral ensemble normally includes at least 100,000 plans and must disclose constraints, code, seeds, stopping rules, sampling diagnostics, and independent replication. These requirements respond to the risk that an apparently scientific comparison can be manipulated through hidden constraints or an unrepresentative algorithm.

The section uses seat-distribution outliers, partisan bias, efficiency gap, mean-median difference, responsiveness, and durability. No single measure controls and proportional representation is neither required nor a defense. Default thresholds create a rebuttable presumption rather than an absolute rule, while prohibited intent, falsified constraints, and process violations remain actionable outside the thresholds. Small delegations receive boundary- and district-focused review because statewide percentage measures become unstable with few seats. The ultimate selection rule favors the central neutral range without requiring a commission to optimize one mathematical score.

Section 3112. Public process; data; records

Section 3112 requires geographically distributed, remotely accessible, language-accessible, and disability-accessible participation. Mapping sessions and staff briefings are included in open-meeting duties, preventing formal public meetings from concealing the actual line drawing. Substantive emergency map adoption is prohibited. Ex parte contacts must be disclosed within 24 hours.

Public-map sponsors must identify material funders and duplicative mass submissions receive no numerical multiplier. This prevents a funded interest from manufacturing the appearance of community consensus. Data, code, drafts, scores, contracts, communications, shapefiles, and version histories are machine-readable and permanently identifiable. Late substitute maps receive a new public period. The privilege rule distinguishes confidential legal advice from factual instructions and data; a commission cannot affirmatively rely on legal advice while withholding the mapmaking premise. These provisions create the administrative record necessary for meaningful judicial review and reproducibility.

Section 3113. Adoption; compliance notice; fallback

Section 3113 requires 10 votes and at least three from each cohort, a public roll call, and a complete certification report. The report addresses each district rather than relying only on statewide conclusions. The plan acquires the force of Federal law upon commission adoption and also the force of State law only where State law so provides. That formulation does not presume Congress can manufacture State law, while still binding every implementing officer under the Supremacy Clause. The Federal Office publishes an advisory compliance notice but cannot suspend, reject, or veto the plan; an identified material defect must be taken to the three-judge court.

If three final supermajority votes fail, State commissioners rank all compliant finalists under a method fixed before political testing, with a statutory instant-runoff and neutral-ensemble tiebreak default; the winner is adopted. That implements Amendment section 12(d) and prevents strategic deadlock from handing the map to a preferred outsider. Federal fallback begins only when the commission lacks a quorum, misses its deadline, has no lawful finalist, or is adjudged unable to act. Career staff publish alternatives, Federal Commission adoption requires five cross-category votes, and the court appoints a temporary commission or special master if the Federal body fails. Before the first direct national presidential election, a popular-vote proxy makes Federal affiliation categories operable. No fallback restores legislative control, an obsolete plan, or an at-large election.

Section 3114. Prohibition on mid-decade and evasive redistricting

Section 3114 permits one ordinary plan per census cycle and only narrow judicial, newly controlling Federal-law, apportionment, clerical, or qualifying State-boundary corrections. Including newly controlling Federal law conforms the statute to Amendment section 15 rather than paradoxically forbidding a constitutionally authorized correction. Existing constitutional doctrine does not categorically forbid mid-decade congressional redistricting; League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry therefore makes an express statutory prohibition necessary. The section rejects temporary, emergency, retaliatory, and interstate-balancing justifications.

The evasion list reaches at-large elections, numbered posts, residency districts, district-magnitude changes, terms and election dates, transfers of governmental powers, manipulated census residence, selective creation or abolition of subdivisions, nominal privatization, and unsupported consent decrees. These devices track Amendment section 15 and can reproduce packing, cracking, or entrenchment without visibly moving an ordinary single-member line. The no-revival clause is equally important: if a selection rule or plan is invalidated, the next independent fallback acts. A successful challenge cannot inadvertently hand map authority to the legislature or restore section 2a(c)’s obsolete at-large contingencies.

Section 3115. Decennial and transition timing

Section 3115 seats commissions before census redistricting data arrive so community evidence, staffing, and systems can be prepared without consuming the mapmaking period. A single limited extension is allowed for delayed or materially corrected census data, not partisan disagreement. Plans must precede the relevant primary or general election by 240 days. Only a three-judge court may shorten that period, upon specific findings of strict remedial or census necessity, lack of an equally effective alternative, and calendar adjustments minimizing disruption. State filing or primary dates otherwise yield when necessary; the Federal general-election date remains changeable only by Congress.

The initial transition requires a compliant plan for the first House election at least 18 months after enactment. This balances immediate reform against ballot, candidate, and administrative reliance. Expressly classifying the initial replacement as a transition plan avoids an argument that the title’s own mid-decade prohibition prevents implementation. The schedule is also designed to reduce late emergency litigation and the equitable concerns commonly associated with Purcell v. Gonzalez.

Section 3116. Office of Fair Representation

Section 3116 creates a career technical office within the Federal Commission. The Director receives a 10-year term only after five cross-category Commission votes and may be removed by the same vote only for stated cause after notice and response. A career Deputy supplies vacancy and incapacity continuity without receiving a new term. The Office administers applicant screening and hybrid selection, open-source systems, census and correctional-data work, audits, advisory compliance notices, plan repositories, fallback mapmaking, and investigations. It cannot withhold a plan’s legal force, weaken statutory rules, or exercise binding policy power independently; significant rules remain with the properly appointed Federal Commission.

Section 3117. Express enforcement; judicial review; remedies

Section 3117 creates an express personal right and cause of action rather than relying on an implied remedy. District-residence and organizational-member provisions reflect Gill v. Whitford and United States v. Hays: a voter must live in a challenged district, and district-specific relief across several districts requires a plaintiff or member in each, while a proven statewide process injury or a complete cure may support necessary plan-wide relief. Protected declarations may establish member residence without public identification. The section also expressly makes the claim judicially manageable and bars dismissal under Rucho’s political-question rationale; Congress has supplied the standards the constitutional claim there lacked.

Three-judge courts, consolidation, burden shifting, and record-based review are intended to produce one timely statewide judgment. Process, purpose, facial, and quantitative claims carry a real 180-day nonjurisdictional limitations period; a knowingly concealed violation receives a 60-day discovery period, concealment and extraordinary circumstances support tolling, and continuing population, protected-opportunity, and assignment violations remain challengeable while the plan is used. Remedies may employ the qualifying commission, a temporary commission, or a nonpartisan special master, never a political branch. Prospective State-official relief rests on Ex parte Young; the immediate title does not create Article I damages liability or pre-ratification sovereign-immunity abrogation. A relation-to-division-D clause prevents general provisions from silently expanding those remedies.

Section 3118. Civil enforcement; offenses

Section 3118 authorizes Attorney General enforcement and sanctions bribery, false adoption certificates, record destruction, prohibited political-data transmission, and knowing implementation of a plan not adopted by an authorized body. The last formulation avoids recreating a Federal certification requirement after section 3113 removes administrative veto power. Criminal liability requires corrupt or knowing conduct and is limited to five years. Good-faith disagreement about statistics, compactness, communities, or legal judgment is expressly excluded.

Section 3119. Amendments to title 2, United States Code

Section 3119 repeals 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c), which retains several obsolete at-large fallback contingencies, and replaces 2 U.S.C. § 2c with a direct requirement for commission-established single-member districts. Branch v. Smith treated section 2c as displacing most section 2a(c) applications, but express repeal removes residual ambiguity. Failure to redistrict now triggers the Federal fallback rather than an at-large election or continued use of districts incompatible with the current apportionment. The amendment preserves single-member House elections; any future decision to adopt proportional multimember House elections would require a separate amendment.

Section 3120. Three-judge courts and direct review

Section 3120 conforms 28 U.S.C. § 2284 so Division C plan, structure, selection, adoption, compliance-notice, apportionment, and remedy challenges receive a three-judge court. It adds 28 U.S.C. § 1253B, avoiding conflict with the presidential title’s separate proposed section 1253A and providing direct Supreme Court review of both final judgments and injunction orders. The section also supplies venue, neutral assignment, a 120-day decisional target, and retained remedial jurisdiction. For American Samoa or another covered territory or possession outside every Federal judicial district, the general construction rule in section 5(e) deems the District of Columbia to be the district where the jurisdiction is located, avoiding a territorial enforcement and fallback gap without changing venue where an appropriate local Federal district exists. Those details avoid the gap in existing section 1253, which ordinarily speaks only to orders granting or denying injunctions and would not necessarily carry a purely declaratory final apportionment judgment directly to the Supreme Court.

Commentary on Title XXXII—Post-Ratification Universal Fair Redistricting

Title XXXII extends the commission, criteria, transparency, and enforcement architecture beyond House elections only after ratification. The distinction responds to federalism and enforcement-power limits. The Elections Clause does not regulate elections for State and local bodies, and City of Boerne v. Flores limits Congress’s use of Fourteenth Amendment section 5 to remedial, congruent, and proportional legislation rather than congressional redefinition of a constitutional right. The Popular Will Amendment itself supplies the later substantive right and an express enforcement power.

Section 3201. Contingent operation; source of authority

Section 3201 makes ratification, rather than enactment alone, the trigger for compulsory universal coverage. It refers to the Amendment defined in the Act and proposed by the separate accompanying joint resolution; it does not inaccurately characterize the Article V instrument as part of the ordinary Act. Preparatory work, conditional rulemaking, and voluntary compliance may begin earlier, but the section disclaims pre-ratification authority to command State and local governmental structure beyond existing Federal power. Upon ratification, the title operates without a second vote, proclamation, or State law. Existing Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment powers remain supplementary sources, but the later amendment is the principal basis for partisan-fairness and universal commission requirements.

Section 3202. Universal coverage and additional definitions

Section 3202 covers districts for legislatures, counties, municipalities, schools, courts, prosecutors, utilities, and special-purpose bodies, as well as at-large, residency, numbered-post, multimember, and hybrid arrangements. That breadth prevents a jurisdiction from abolishing ordinary districts while reproducing dilution through a formally different election structure. Its protected-community definition tracks Amendment section 13: racial, color, ethnic, language-minority, Indigenous, and Tribal communities, including potential or demonstrated coalitions, without conditioning protection on Federal Tribal recognition or governmental labels. Avery v. Midland County and Hadley v. Junior College District already apply population principles to many elected local bodies; the amendment also removes uncertainty associated with narrow-purpose exceptions recognized in Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District and Ball v. James.

Internal Tribal elections remain excluded absent Tribal opt-in, preserving Tribal self-government. State-created districts containing Tribal lands or citizens remain covered. The section also confirms that the division does not alter equal State suffrage in the Senate.

Section 3203. Personal rights; prohibited conduct

Section 3203 states four personal rights: equal voting power, independent process, freedom from material political favoritism, and freedom from protected-community dilution in participation, coalition formation, nomination or support, and election of responsive representatives. It declares purpose and effect independently sufficient, so proof of a neutral-looking outcome does not excuse intentional manipulation and proof of discriminatory effect does not require access to subjective communications. A forbidden purpose need not predominate.

This express constitutional and statutory baseline addresses the central deficiency identified by the Rucho majority: the absence of a legal directive defining impermissible partisanship and how much is too much. It also rejects incumbency, retaliation, predetermined control, and interstate offsetting as legitimate interests. The personal-right language is intended to support concrete Article III injury without attempting to dispense with the case-or-controversy requirement.

Section 3204. Application of independent-commission requirements

Section 3204 incorporates the detailed Title XXXI safeguards but identifies provisions requiring functional local adaptation. Incorporation may not mechanically impose a congressional-delegation metric, treat a local boundary as a State boundary for prison reallocation, alter State apportionment population, mechanically require the congressional 15-member configuration where subsection (c) supplies a local option, or displace transition deadlines. Section 3205 separately directs cross-local reallocation to the actual last usual residence while preserving the statewide total. Each State commission serves as a universal backstop. A locality may use a 9- or 15-member commission, a regional commission, or the State commission; an even 12-member body is excluded because Amendment section 11 requires an odd number. Every local model preserves the one-third unaffiliated minimum, hybrid selection, diversity, and cross-cohort voting. Existing commissions receive review against the amendment, and the Federal Office’s notice is advisory.

The fallback sequence—local, State, Federal, then judicial—ensures that a vacancy or inability to act always transfers authority to another independent institution. The court appoints a temporary commission or nonpartisan special master when administrative fallback does not timely produce a plan. No Federal notice vetoes a plan already adopted by a qualifying commission. The State and regional options avoid requiring every small special district to maintain a permanent 15-member body.

Section 3205. Universal criteria; population; frequency

Section 3205 applies the congressional criteria with a 5-percent maximum total population deviation for State and local districts. Reynolds v. Sims requires substantially equal State legislative representation, while Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission discusses the current constitutional presumption for plans below 10 percent. The 5-percent rule is a new, more protective amendment-based ceiling; even a smaller deviation remains unlawful if deliberately used for favoritism. Total population and incarcerated-person reallocation remain controlling.

The section adapts criteria to lawful multimember and alternative remedies and prevents subdivision preservation from protecting a boundary itself drawn for discrimination. Structural and seat-number changes receive prospective independent review. The one-plan-per-census rule permits a final judgment, newly controlling Federal law, seat change, governmental creation, and a substantial boundary event that makes a plan unlawful, materially unrepresentative, or malapportioned. Those grounds conform to Amendment section 15 while foreclosing opportunistic mid-cycle restructuring.

Section 3206. Protected-community effects standard; supersession of contrary rules

Section 3206 is the division’s principal response to Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___ (2026). Callais construed current Voting Rights Act section 2 to require circumstances strongly implying present intentional discrimination, race-blind illustrative maps, preservation of asserted political objectives, and party-controlled polarized-voting analysis. This section establishes a later constitutional and statutory results test using the amendment’s own benchmark: whether the challenged arrangement meaningfully reduces, compared with reasonably available lawful alternatives, opportunity to participate, form coalitions, nominate or support candidates, and elect responsive representatives. Purpose or a strong inference of present intent is unnecessary.

Numerosity, geographic configuration, cohesion, bloc voting, and contextual factors guide the inquiry but are not rigid single-member prerequisites for an at-large or alternative-method claim. Party correlation is not a defense, and illustrative plans may use protected-status data without preserving partisan or incumbent objectives. The tailoring clause tracks Amendment section 13(d): prevention and remediation are compelling interests; protected status and correlated behavior may be considered when reasonably necessary; and a remedial district is not invalid merely because protected status was substantial or predominant. Good-faith tailoring, current evidence, and avoidance of unnecessary sorting remain required. This later constitutional authorization controls inconsistent earlier doctrine while providing no quota or guaranteed proportional result.

Section 3207. Partisan-effect standard for all electoral structures

Section 3207 adapts the Title XXXI ensemble and metric system to small bodies, nonpartisan ballots, coalitions, multimember districts, ranked methods, and at-large elections. Party labels are not controlling where a stable political coalition functions as a party. For alternative methods, the analysis includes election thresholds, ballot exhaustion, durable control, and the interaction of runoffs, staggered terms, numbered posts, and residency rules. This closes the loophole of replacing visibly gerrymandered lines with a facially nonpartisan structure that produces the same durable exclusion.

Section 3208. Universal adoption; transition

Section 3208 gives a qualifying commission’s plan legal force upon adoption and makes the Federal Office compliance notice advisory. This conforms to Amendment section 11’s “upon adoption, subject only to judicial review” command and eliminates an administrative veto. A jurisdiction must establish its commission no later than 18 months after ratification and must use a compliant plan no later than 36 months after ratification or before its second regularly scheduled general election, whichever is earlier. That exact transition rule replaces an earlier 24-month lead-time formula that could have missed the constitutional deadline in jurisdictions holding annual elections. Courts may require earlier relief, and no jurisdiction receives another election under an unlawful plan after compliance reasonably was possible.

Section 3209. Enforcement; immunity; remedies after ratification

Section 3209 carries forward the express private action and specifies plaintiffs, including protected communities, political associations, and State attorneys general. Enforcement does not depend on whether a court implies a remedy under Voting Rights Act section 2. The section expressly makes claims judicially manageable and forecloses dismissal under the political-question reasoning of Rucho. Unlike the immediate Elections Clause title, it abrogates State sovereign immunity for prospective and equitable relief under the later amendment’s enforcement power. It does not create damages for good-faith line-drawing judgments.

Remedies may replace an entire plan or electoral device when a local line change cannot cure the violation. The express list tracks Amendment section 16: injunction, records, deadlines, a directed or temporary commission, special master, court plan, altered district magnitude or electoral structure, reopened candidate qualification, adjusted procedures or dates, new election, and retained jurisdiction. A commission receives a short first cure only if independent, good-faith, and timely. Evidentiary rules prevent legislative or deliberative privilege from concealing factual mapmaking material while preserving narrowly legitimate confidential legal advice.

Section 3210. Regulations and national technical standards

Section 3210 requires prospective rules before each decennial cycle. Rules may be finalized before ratification as conditional rules, but their compulsory State and local operation begins only when Title XXXII becomes operative. The listed subjects include affiliation, hybrid selection, protected-community analysis, ensembles, multimember systems, data security, accessibility, and remedies. Rules may clarify administration but may not weaken statutory rights, thresholds, deadlines, or fallbacks. Existing rules and statutory defaults remain operative if the Commission fails to update them.

Commentary on Title XXXIII—Post-Ratification Expansion and Apportionment of the House

The Constitution does not fix the House at 435 members. Article I, section 2 and section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment govern population apportionment and minimum State representation, while Congress has historically fixed the House size by statute. Title XXXIII replaces the fixed ceiling with a reproducible population formula and retains equal proportions for allocation among States.

Section 3301. Short title; definitions; contingent effect

Section 3301 makes House expansion contingent on both ratification and the contingent presidential-election effective date in section 603. It defines “covered apportionment,” “covered census,” the apportionment population, the presidential apportionment statement, and the ratification date. The first decennial census after ratification qualifies only if the direct-election trigger occurs no later than transmission of that census’s apportionment statement; otherwise the statute waits for the first later census satisfying the condition. These definitions turn a general reference to an “operative system” into an objective cross-title trigger and prevent preparatory estimates from changing House membership.

Section 3302. Findings and purpose

Section 3302 explains the constituency-size rationale and records the formula’s operation using official 2020 populations: 574 seats, or 139 more than the current 435. The figure is illustrative, not a fixed future House size. Future population and the least-populous State determine the actual result. The finding supports administrative planning and makes the formula’s expected scale transparent before ratification.

Section 3303. Size of the House

Section 3303 sets H at the greater of 435 or the ceiling of total State apportionment population divided by the least-populous State’s apportionment population. This approach is sometimes described as a least-populous-State or Wyoming-type rule. The 435 floor prevents the formula from shrinking the House. Publication of inputs, quotient, and precision permits independent verification. The result is ministerial; neither the President nor an agency may adjust it for facilities, politics, or projected population. A later statute remains capable of changing the formula.

Section 3304. Apportionment by equal proportions

Section 3304 gives each State the constitutionally required first seat and distributes the remaining H minus N seats by equal proportions, where N permits the formula to remain accurate if the number of States changes. It preserves the apportionment method used under 2 U.S.C. § 2a rather than introducing a second reform variable. Publication of priority values and code makes the allocation auditable. A prospective statutory tie rule controls; only a mathematically exact residual tie proceeds to an auditable public lot.

Section 3305. Amendment to section 2a of title 2

Section 3305 conforms 2 U.S.C. § 2a to the variable House size and express first-seat allocation and uses the Act’s exact short title, “Popular Will Act of 2026,” in the codified cross-reference. Subsection (b)’s certification process then operates using the formula result. The section reiterates that subsection (c) is repealed under section 3119. Thus an increase in seats cannot cause temporary at-large elections while States wait to draw additional districts; Title XXXI’s Federal fallback supplies the missing map.

Section 3306. Transition to the expanded House

Section 3306 applies the new allocation at the first regular House election after the presidential apportionment statement and preserves the sitting House until the new Congress begins. Every multi-seat State must create the corresponding single-member districts under Title XXXI; the text cross-references section 3115 and valid prospective rules rather than an undefined “Federal deadline.” Facilities, technology, staffing, committees, ballot systems, and security must be planned in advance, and administrative inconvenience cannot reduce H. The section also disclaims effects on Senate equality, Statehood, and voting status of Delegates or Resident Commissioners.

Section 3307. Judicial review

Section 3307 centralizes formula and allocation disputes in a three-judge District of Columbia court, requires filing within 45 days, and sends final judgments and injunction orders directly to the Supreme Court under new 28 U.S.C. § 1253B. A court may correct population inputs, arithmetic, priority values, or legal administration but may not substitute a preferred House-size formula or apportionment method. The narrow review period protects the commission mapping and candidate calendar that follow the apportionment statement.

Commentary on Title XXXIV—Division-Wide Rules

Section 3401. Relation to more protective law

Section 3401 treats Division C as a Federal floor. States and localities may adopt greater independence, transparency, equality, minority protection, or public access, but may not use a purportedly protective rule to delay Federal deadlines, weaken an individual right, or restore political control. State-law compliance therefore does not excuse a Federal violation. This preserves State experimentation consistent with the national minimum.

Section 3402. Severability; no revival; fallback

Section 3402 provides ordinary severability plus a specialized no-revival rule. The court, not the Federal Commission acting on an open-ended delegation, preserves constitutional defaults and applies the closest lawful independent substitute. Before ratification, a defective selection rule is replaced as nearly as possible under section 3105 and the Constitution then in force; only after ratification does Amendment section 11 supply the controlling substitute. A temporary commission or special master remains available when timely selection is infeasible, and an invalid administrative fallback accelerates judicial fallback. The Commission may propose administrative detail but may not waive or rewrite substantive rights. Legislative mapmaking, executive approval, at-large election, section 2a(c), and superseded or malapportioned maps remain unavailable.

Section 3403. Savings and continuity

Section 3403 does not retroactively annul a completed election solely because a replacement plan later becomes required. It preserves records, investigations, pending cases, and accrued rights. Courts may protect governmental continuity for the shortest necessary transition, but incumbents receive no independent right to preserve a district or extend a term. The section balances effective prospective relief against disruption of already completed electoral acts.

Section 3404. Rule of construction

Section 3404 directs construction in favor of voter protection and against concealment, evasion, and reversion to self-interested mapmaking. It also forecloses application of a canon disfavoring implied remedies because the division expressly identifies rights, authorized plaintiffs, causes of action, and remedies. The construction rule does not authorize a court to disregard ranked criteria, numerical standards, Article III requirements, or other express limitations.

Constitutional validity and principal litigation risks

Why the two-instrument form is indispensable

The Electoral College is embedded in Article II and the Twelfth and Twenty-Third Amendments. The implementing provisions of title 3 assume the continued existence of electors. Congress may regulate important aspects of presidential selection and protect that federal function from corruption, but it cannot repeal constitutional commands through ordinary bicameral legislation. Instrument I therefore uses Article V; Instrument II uses ordinary enactment and makes elector-replacement provisions contingent on ratification.

The joint resolution selects ratification by State legislatures and a seven-year period. Under Hawke v. Smith, a State referendum may not substitute for the legislature when Congress chooses legislative ratification. Under Dillon v. Gloss, Congress may impose a reasonable contemporaneity period. The President has no presentment role in the proposal of an amendment.

Article V and the Senate boundary

Article V states that no State, without its consent, may be deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate. Direct presidential election does not change Senate seats or votes, and fair-district rules do not reach Senate representation. The House-size title expands only the House. This package therefore addresses several powerful mechanisms of minority governance but does not—and should not claim to—eliminate the Constitution’s equal-State Senate structure.

Direct election, territorial voters, and federal administration

The amendment itself creates one national electorate and affirmatively includes citizens in the District of Columbia, every territory and possession, and abroad. That text is necessary because current Article II participation is State-based and the Twenty-Third Amendment reaches only the District of Columbia. After ratification, the later amendment supplies direct authority for uniform national administration and for duties imposed on State and local officials, while the Act supplies a federal fallback to avoid depending on commandeering doctrine.

The Commission’s national certification is ministerial and algorithmic. Appointment by the President with Senate confirmation satisfies the Appointments Clause for principal officers. Fixed terms, cause-based removal, political-balance rules, and automatic statutory defaults are expressly authorized by the new amendment to reduce removal-power and deadlock risk. A career official does not choose the winner; if commissioners fail to issue the certificate, the public mathematical canvass becomes presumptive by operation of law, subject to an Article III court.

Uniform ballots, recounts, and equal treatment

Bush v. Gore arose from inconsistent standards in a presidential recount and did not announce a general national election code. The package does not depend on extending that opinion. It independently establishes uniform voter-intent, cure, audit, recount, and tabulation rules through the new amendment and implementing law. Its uniform mail deadlines respond directly to Watson v. Republican National Committee: Election Day fixes the casting deadline, while the Act separately fixes postmark evidence, a seven-day receipt period, cure, canvass, and certification.

Ranked-choice voting is a majority method rather than a separate substantive qualification. Voters may rank one or more tickets, and each ballot counts only once in each round. Uniform treatment of skipped, duplicate, and equal ranks, declared write-ins, ballot exhaustion, elimination ties, and auditing reduces equal-protection and due-process uncertainty. A full national recount precedes any final tie procedure.

Candidate access and constitutional qualifications

The federal ballot-access system offers demonstrated-support, petition, and declared-write-in paths without State-distribution quotas. It is designed around the national-interest reasoning of Anderson v. Celebrezze and the burden framework of Williams v. Rhodes and Burdick v. Takushi. The Act does not add to Article II, the Twenty-Second Amendment, or the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive qualifications.

After Trump v. Anderson, a patchwork of State determinations under Fourteenth Amendment section 3 presents a special risk to a national presidential ballot. The Act creates an exclusive, expedited federal process with notice, proof, and direct review. The text preserves Congress’s two-thirds power to remove a section 3 disability and does not let an administrative agency alter constitutional qualifications.

Congressional redistricting before ratification

Article I, section 4 permits Congress to make or alter regulations for House elections. Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council, Arizona State Legislature v. AIRC, Rucho, and Moore v. Harper support a strong immediate title requiring independent congressional redistricting and a federal fallback. The fallback matters: if a State declines to establish or fund a compliant commission, the federal authority draws the map rather than ordering a State legislature to enact federal policy.

State and local redistricting after ratification

The Elections Clause does not govern State and local elections. Existing Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Amendment enforcement power does not safely support an across-the-board federal partisan-gerrymandering code that redefines constitutional rights. The comprehensive State, territorial, District, and local provisions therefore become compulsory upon ratification of a self-executing amendment. Before then, grants may reward voluntary adoption only within ordinary spending-clause limits.

Justiciability and the response to Rucho

Rucho v. Common Cause held that then-existing federal constitutional partisan-gerrymandering claims lacked a judicially manageable standard. The new amendment changes the governing law. It identifies the right holder, prohibited intent, prohibited material effect, ranked criteria, relevant evidence, neutral-ensemble presumptions, burdens, deadlines, standing, and remedies, and expressly declares the claims justiciable. Courts need not invent a free-floating theory of political fairness.

The metrics are evidentiary, not a one-number safe harbor. A map may violate the purpose rule even if it falls within an ensemble’s ordinary range, and an extreme result may be justified only if unavoidable under higher-ranked neutral criteria and embodied in the least-biased feasible alternative. That structure addresses geographic clustering without permitting geography to become a slogan for intentional manipulation.

Protected-community opportunity and the response to Callais

The 2026 Louisiana v. Callais decision narrowed current section 2 districting doctrine toward proof strongly supporting intentional discrimination, race-party disentanglement, and preservation of a State’s otherwise permissible political goals. A statute saying only “comply with the Voting Rights Act” would import that limitation.

The Popular Will Amendment instead creates a later constitutional right against purpose or material effect that diminishes equal electoral opportunity on account of race, color, ethnicity, language-minority status, or Tribal political community. It declares partisan advantage and incumbent protection illegitimate, permits a remedial plan to consider protected status when reasonably necessary and tailored in good faith to equal electoral opportunity, and makes prevention and remediation a compelling interest. A construction clause gives the new amendment priority over inconsistent earlier doctrine. The disclaimer against guaranteed success or automatic proportional representation reduces quota-based objections while preserving effective remedies. Before ratification, the immediate congressional title separately preserves then-controlling Equal Protection limits on predominant racial classifications.

Sovereign immunity, causes of action, and remedies

The Act expressly identifies individual rights and causes of action, authorizes prospective relief against officials, preserves section 1983 where applicable, authorizes the United States to sue, and provides fees and expert costs. The post-ratification title expressly abrogates State immunity to the full extent authorized by the new amendment. Three-judge courts and direct Supreme Court review reduce conflicting statewide orders.

Remedies follow a hierarchy: count lawful votes; correct returns; cure administrative failure; audit; recount; enjoin an unlawful map; allow a short commission cure; and use a neutral special master if necessary. A court may order a new presidential election only when outcome-determinative illegality makes the lawful winner genuinely unascertainable. Official misconduct does not automatically disenfranchise an entire county, State, or territory.

Residual legal and political risk

No legislation can honestly be guaranteed “ironclad.” Article V ratification is intentionally difficult; future factual disputes cannot be drafted away; election technology changes; and courts retain interpretive power. The package reduces foreseeable ambiguity through self-executing rights, definitions, defaults, transparent data, multiple enforcement routes, severability, and provisions stating that invalidation of an implementing detail never revives the Electoral College after constitutional repeal.

Status and method

This is an illustrative policy estimate, not a score by the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office, or an appropriations committee. An official score requires finalized text, an enactment date, agency implementation assumptions, and committee referral. Dollar ranges are stated in constant fiscal-year 2026 dollars and should be re-estimated before introduction.

The baseline is small relative to the proposed mission. The Election Assistance Commission reported fiscal-year 2025 salaries-and-expenses funding of approximately $27.7 million. Congress provided $45 million in fiscal-year 2026 election-security grants. By contrast, the EAC reports that more than $4.35 billion in HAVA formula funding has been administered since 2003. A binding national tabulation, national audits, accessible paper systems, territorial participation, commission certification, grants, litigation support, and permanent cyber capacity require a substantially larger institution than the present EAC.

Illustrative authorization and appropriation profile

The program rows are gross planning envelopes, not additive five-year outlays. House expansion may fall outside the first five-year window; the contingency reserve is spent only if triggered; redistricting costs depend on ratification and census timing; and several cyber, registration, accessibility, and system-modernization amounts overlap within the same procurement. The budget-window scenarios below estimate timing and overlap rather than summing every upper or lower endpoint.

The House estimate uses the 2020 comparison only as an order-of-magnitude illustration. The bill’s formula would have produced 574 seats from the 2020 apportionment population—139 more than 435. Fiscal-year 2025 House materials identified $844 million for Members’ Representational Allowances, approximately $1.94 million per Member before committee, leadership, security, technology, and facility costs. Applying the average allowance alone to 139 seats suggests roughly $270 million annually; the range adds institutional costs and uncertainty. Actual expansion occurs only after a future census and ratification, so the number of seats and cost will differ.

Budget-window scenarios

The low case assumes extensive reuse of recently purchased compliant systems, modest federal staffing, no automatic recount during the window, and House facilities adapted without major construction. The base case assumes broad paper-system replacement, strong federal cyber and audit capacity, one decennial redistricting cycle, population-responsive House expansion, and routine technology refresh. The high case assumes widespread system replacement, significant remote-area and accessibility costs, more frequent recount or emergency activation, higher cybersecurity needs, and major House facilities construction.

Federal, State, and local distribution

The Act makes national requirements a federal responsibility and authorizes reimbursement of reasonable documented incremental compliance costs, including paper, accessibility, postage, staffing, security, audit, recount, language-access, and emergency costs. Detailed allocation formulas, any maintenance-of-effort condition, and annual grant amounts remain matters for appropriations and implementing rules; the fiscal scenarios model need rather than claim those details are already enacted.

Independent commissions create recurring but cyclical costs. They may reduce some legislative mapmaking expenditures and some litigation, but those savings are too uncertain to book. Federal advisory compliance notices, public data review, and expedited judicial proceedings create administrative expense while potentially preventing expensive remedial elections. The estimate does not monetize confidence, turnout, reduced voter travel, more representative policy, or political legitimacy.

Administrative and private-sector effects

Election vendors face federal certification, open-interface, escrow, accessibility, security, and data-portability requirements. Some proprietary products will require redesign or replacement. Federal grants and jurisdictional reimbursement may finance compliant procurement, but no vendor is entitled to compensation for the loss of a noncompliant business model.

The Postal Service will experience election-year volume, tracking, and evidence-retention costs. NIST, CISA, the Census Bureau, the Department of Justice, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Government Publishing Office, the National Archives, and the General Services Administration receive new duties. The fiscal ranges include broad interagency support but not a detailed agency-by-agency allocation.

Scorekeeping and appropriations recommendations

Before markup, official estimators should separate discretionary authorizations, mandatory grants, permanent election-contingency authority, House direct spending, judicial costs, and intergovernmental mandates. Permanent or advance appropriations are recommended for the constitutional minimum functions of voting, tabulation, audit, and certification so that an appropriations lapse cannot cancel an election. Nonessential research and grant enhancements may remain annually appropriated.

Fiscal sources

EAC fiscal-year 2025 Agency Financial Report.

EAC HAVA grant-program history.

EAC fiscal-year 2026 election-security grant page.

House Committee on Appropriations fiscal-year 2025 legislative-branch summary.

Congressional Budget Office frequently asked questions on cost estimates.

Trigger and sequencing

The joint resolution and Act should be introduced together but move as legally distinct instruments. Preparatory statutory work may begin upon enactment of the Act. Direct-election provisions govern the entire cycle beginning on the operative date 36 months before the first regularly scheduled presidential election held at least 36 months after ratification. Existing elector law governs any earlier presidential election from ballot access through inauguration, and is repealed only when the direct system becomes operative.

Congressional commission rules may take effect under Article I on the statutory schedule. Compulsory State and local rules take effect upon ratification; voluntary early adoption may qualify for grants. New maps must be ready far enough before candidate filing to avoid election-calendar disruption.

Except where a row restates an express statutory deadline, the table is a recommended operational plan for sponsors and implementing agencies. It does not silently create duties omitted from the legislative text, and the enacted text controls.

Milestones

Critical-path protections

Funding continuity. Core registration, voting, audit, recount, certification, and court-support funds are advanced or permanent. A lapse in annual appropriations does not stop the constitutional process.

Procurement interoperability. A jurisdiction may select vendors, but every system must export the same public, documented formats and preserve a controlling human-readable paper record.

Rule stability. Material rules are fixed before voting begins. An emergency order must be public, prospective to the extent possible, geographically neutral among similarly affected voters, and immediately reviewable.

Training. Every election worker receives role-specific training, simulation, accessibility instruction, chain-of-custody procedures, and escalation contacts. Completion is reported publicly.

Testing. Certification includes source-code review, build reproducibility, supply-chain assessment, mock load, recovery, accessibility, usability, and adversarial testing.

Public communication. The Commission maintains a multilingual authoritative-information portal, but government correction of false procedural information does not become general authority to regulate political advocacy.

Paper and power fallback. Every polling jurisdiction maintains preprinted or ballot-on-demand paper capacity, secure ballot boxes, poll books with offline continuity, generators or alternate locations, and documented recovery priorities.

Postal coordination. USPS acceptance scans, ballot identifiers that preserve secrecy, military-custody records, and timely delivery reports are standardized before the first election.

Court readiness. Three-judge rosters, special-master rosters, discovery protocols, secure evidence facilities, and appellate calendars are established before filing deadlines arise.

Go-live readiness decision

No political officer may postpone the constitutionally operative system because preparation is inconvenient. If a jurisdiction fails readiness review, the Commission deploys federal equipment, staff, receivership, or contract support. The readiness review identifies corrective action; it is not a veto over the electorate.

As a recommended oversight practice, the inspector general should publish jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction readiness reports at 18, 12, 6, and 3 months before the first direct election. Classified cyber details should receive a public summary. Material deficiencies should trigger corrective plans, grant conditions, technical deployment, and, when necessary, an expedited court order. Sponsors may codify this reporting cadence if they want it to be mandatory.

Post-election review

As a recommended oversight measure, within 180 days after national certification the inspector general and GAO should separately evaluate ballot access, registration, accessibility, postal performance, cybersecurity, audit sufficiency, recount performance, certification timeliness, emergency actions, vendor compliance, and voter complaints. Neither review should reopen the certified result, but evidence of crime or concealed system defects should be referred under ordinary law. A sponsor seeking mandatory review should add the corresponding operative provisions before introduction.

Consultation plan

Formal advisory participation should include State and local administrators from jurisdictions of varied size; territorial officials; Tribal governments; disability and language-access experts; military and overseas-voter specialists; statisticians; cryptographers; postal operators; civil-rights organizations; parties of differing size; independent candidates; mapmaking experts; judges and court administrators; and public-interest privacy specialists.

Advisory participation does not permit regulated parties to write binding standards in private. Meetings, submissions, conflicts, proposed changes, and agency responses remain public. Vendors may advise on feasibility but may not condition interoperability on proprietary secrecy.

1. Is this one bill?

It is one policy package but two legal instruments. The joint resolution proposes a constitutional amendment and is not presented to the President. The implementing Act passes by ordinary bicameralism and presentment. Combining them into one enactment would confuse distinct constitutional procedures.

2. Could Congress simply declare the national popular-vote winner elected today?

No. Article II, the Twelfth Amendment, and the Twenty-Third Amendment require elector machinery. Congress can regulate within that system but cannot abolish it by statute. Ratification is the legally honest route.

3. Does a vote in one State count differently from a vote in another?

No. Each eligible citizen has one equally weighted ballot in one national tabulation. State totals are administrative subtotals only; they allocate no points, electors, bonuses, or vetoes.

4. Are Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa included?

Every otherwise eligible U.S. citizen residing in a territory or possession is included. The amendment does not extend the presidential franchise to a person who is solely a noncitizen U.S. national. Congress could choose that broader policy only by changing the amendment’s express term.

5. What about citizens living abroad who never lived in a State?

They may register for the national presidential contest through the federal backstop. No fictional State domicile is required because the vote is national. A person with a valid State-linked registration uses that channel unless federal relief is necessary.

6. Can a State exclude people because of a conviction or incarceration?

Not from the national presidential contest. The amendment defines a nationally equal electorate and forbids geography-dependent conviction rules. Anti-duplication, citizenship, age, and personal ballot-execution rules remain enforceable.

7. Why ranked-choice voting?

It permits a majority result in one election. A separate December runoff conflicts with military and overseas ballot-transmission time and compresses audits, contests, transition, and inauguration. A voter may rank only one ticket, but additional rankings preserve a preference if an earlier choice is eliminated.

8. Can an exhausted ballot be reassigned by anyone?

No. It becomes inactive only when none of the voter’s validly ranked tickets remains. It is reported as exhausted and can never be transferred to an unranked ticket.

9. What if two tickets tie?

Elimination ties use prior-round totals and, only after a recount confirms an unbroken tie, a public, auditable drawing of lots; only one ticket is eliminated before the next transfer round. A final tie requires a nationwide hand recount and resolution of timely contests. The newly elected House then chooses between the two tied joint tickets with one vote per Representative, not one vote per State delegation, while the Senate has no separate vice-presidential choice.

10. Does Congress still count or reject presidential votes?

No. The federal certificate becomes operative by law. Congress may receive it ceremonially and exercise ordinary oversight, but neither chamber, the Vice President, the incumbent President, nor a State official may accept, reject, alter, or delay the result.

11. What if a State refuses to certify?

Refusal does not erase voters. The federal Commission uses authenticated local returns and ballot records, obtains a receiver or special master from a three-judge court, and completes the canvass. A defaulting official faces prospective orders and, for knowing falsification or obstruction, focused penalties.

12. What if the federal Commission deadlocks?

Certification is arithmetic, not discretionary approval. Statutory deadlines, an acting-official chain, publication duties, and certification by operation of law prevent a deadlock from withholding the result. Courts can correct the resulting certificate.

13. Are late-arriving mail ballots counted?

A ballot must be cast or postmarked by the national close of voting and received within seven days. Postal scans, military-custody records, tracking, and a short receipt presumption address a missing postmark. Cure deadlines are stated separately. These express rules avoid treating “Election Day” as an unstated receipt deadline.

14. Does the Act permit Internet voting?

No Internet return of a voted presidential ballot is authorized. A blank ballot may be delivered electronically where law permits, and accessible remote-marking tools may be used, but the controlling vote must produce an independently auditable physical record under Commission standards.

15. Is every presidential recount national?

Yes. Ranked-choice eliminations depend on the national pool, so a candidate may not cherry-pick counties or States. The audit tests the full ranking record and every potentially outcome-changing elimination. Automatic and candidate-requested recount rules use a conservative ranked-choice margin of victory.

16. Can an official error cause every vote in a county to be discarded?

Only as a last-resort consequence when lawful votes cannot be reconstructed and the evidence supports the remedy required by due process. Courts must first count identifiable lawful ballots, correct records, use paper evidence, audit, and recount. Voters do not ordinarily lose their franchise because an official missed a deadline.

17. What happens if a candidate dies after early voting begins?

Votes remain attached to the nationally certified ticket and its predesignated eligible replacement under uniform rules. A strategic withdrawal cannot cancel ballots or redirect them to another ticket. After voting closes, death or final ineligibility of the winning presidential candidate elevates the Vice-President-elect; a vice-presidential vacancy is handled consistently with the Twentieth and Twenty-Fifth Amendments.

18. Can a President postpone an election during an emergency?

No. The President and candidates have no such authority. Localized extensions require objective catastrophic conditions, equal treatment, a maximum of seven days, five Commission votes, and three-judge-court approval. Only if a catastrophic event prevents a material share of the national electorate in multiple jurisdictions from voting and localized relief is inadequate may five Commissioners and that court authorize a nationwide modification, on clear and convincing evidence, for no more than 21 days. January 20 remains the end of the existing term.

19. Does the package ban all consideration of politics in testing maps?

Political and incumbent data are barred during initial line drawing so they cannot drive boundaries. A separate compliance team then must use election data to detect favoritism, simulate neutral alternatives, and measure likely effects. A rule that never looks at political outcomes would be easy to game.

20. What counts as gerrymandering?

A prohibited plan is one adopted or maintained with a material purpose of favoring or disfavoring a party, candidate, incumbent, political viewpoint, or political class, or one with a material and durable unjustified effect beyond neutral geography and higher-ranked criteria. Protected-community dilution has its own purpose-or-effect rule. Evasion through at-large seats, numbered posts, district magnitude, staggered terms, renumbering, annexation, or temporary maps is covered.

21. Does a compact-looking map automatically comply?

No. Packing and cracking can produce neat shapes. Compactness is measured through several methods and is subordinate to population equality, protected-community opportunity, contiguity, communities of interest, and political boundaries. Partisan neutrality is independently tested.

22. Are exact proportional election results guaranteed?

No. Voters change preferences and geography matters. Proportionality is evidence, not a guaranteed outcome. A plan fails when forbidden purpose or material unjustified effect is proven under the complete record.

23. How does the Act prevent commission capture?

It uses long conflict lookbacks, objective screening, public randomized selection, balanced affiliation cohorts, disclosure, automatic funding, independent staff and counsel, cross-cohort adoption votes, cause-only removal by a neutral tribunal, and a judicial special-master fallback. Legislatures receive no strike, veto, amendment, budget, or deadlock power.

24. Can a legislature take mapmaking back during an emergency?

No. There is no emergency, temporary, retaliatory, or interstate-balancing exception. If the commission cannot act, neutral staff and then a court-appointed special master act under identical criteria.

25. What does the amendment do after Louisiana v. Callais?

It creates an independent later constitutional right. Liability may rest on material discriminatory effect without proof of intent, party correlation is not a defense, and a remedy need not preserve partisan advantage or incumbent protection. Consideration of protected status is expressly permitted when reasonably necessary and tailored in good faith to prevent or cure dilution.

26. Does that require racial quotas?

No. The right concerns equal opportunity to participate and elect candidates of choice under the totality of circumstances. The text denies an automatic quota, guaranteed candidate success, or freestanding right to exact proportional representation.

27. Are local governments and school boards covered?

Yes. The definitions reach wards, districts, residency areas, numbered posts, at-large arrangements, judicial-election districts, counties, municipalities, school boards, and special-purpose bodies. Small jurisdictions may use regional or State commissions to reduce cost.

28. Are Tribal elections covered?

Internal elections of a federally recognized Tribe are excluded unless the Tribe affirmatively opts in. State and local districts that include Tribal citizens or lands remain covered, and Tribal political communities receive meaningful consultation and opportunity protection.

29. Why reallocate incarcerated people for mapping?

Counting a person at a prison can inflate representation in a place where the person generally lacks community ties and often cannot vote. The Act assigns the person to the last usual residence within the jurisdiction, with neutral fallbacks for unknown or out-of-jurisdiction addresses.

30. Does the Act change the Senate?

No. Article V protects each State’s equal Senate suffrage absent that State’s consent. The package expands and fairly districts the House but does not claim to solve Senate malapportionment.

31. Why expand the House?

The 435-seat number is statutory, not constitutionally fixed. A population-responsive formula reduces average district size and increases representative capacity. Using 2020 figures solely as an illustration, the formula would have produced 574 seats. The actual future number is calculated after the relevant census.

32. Does House expansion give territories voting Members?

No. Territorial and District congressional representation implicates separate constitutional and Statehood questions. This package grants direct presidential voting to citizens there but does not silently create House voting seats.

33. When would the first direct presidential election occur?

At the first regularly scheduled presidential election held at least 36 months after ratification. An election already underway remains under the existing system from filing through inauguration. The transition prevents a midstream change while denying Congress power to delay indefinitely.

34. What if Congress fails to fund or implement the amendment?

Core rights, the ranked voting method, equal weighting, map prohibitions, judicial enforceability, federal fallback, automatic appropriations, and certification defaults continue to operate. Congress cannot revive electors through inaction.

35. How much would this cost?

The preliminary base range is approximately $14–$18 billion over five years, $24–$33 billion over ten years, and $60–$85 billion over thirty years in constant 2026 dollars, including election modernization and eventual House expansion. Those are planning ranges, not a CBO score.

36. Can a court’s invalidation of one provision bring back the Electoral College?

No. The amendment’s repeal and direct-election right control. The Act contains granular severability and a nonrevival rule. If an implementation detail fails, the closest lawful default applies; electors do not return.

Constitutional architecture

[x] Uses a separate Article V joint resolution and presentable implementing Act.

[x] Selects ratification by State legislatures and a seven-year period.

[x] Does not purport to abolish the Electoral College by ordinary statute.

[x] Repeals or conforms Article II elector clauses, the Twelfth Amendment, the Twenty-Third Amendment, Twentieth Amendment section 4, Fourteenth Amendment elector references, and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment elector reference.

[x] Preserves Article II qualifications, the Twenty-Second Amendment, operative Twentieth Amendment succession, and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

[x] Makes direct voting and fair-representation rights self-executing.

[x] Does not claim to alter equal Senate suffrage.

Direct-election substance

[x] Creates one national electorate and equal vote weight.

[x] Includes citizens in States, the District, territories, possessions, and abroad.

[x] Defines age, citizenship, conviction, incarceration, guardianship, residence, and duplicate-vote treatment.

[x] Requires one joint ticket and preserves vice-presidential eligibility.

[x] Defines optional rankings, continuing ballots, exhausted ballots, equal or duplicate ranks, write-ins, elimination, and ties.

[x] Provides uniform ballot access and federal qualification adjudication.

[x] Provides identical ballot-order, voter-intent, mail, cure, and provisional standards.

[x] States casting, postmark, receipt, cure, canvass, audit, recount, and certification deadlines separately.

[x] Requires a controlling voter-verifiable paper record and prohibits Internet return of voted ballots.

[x] Audits the full ranked record and outcome-determinative elimination paths.

[x] Makes presidential recounts national, not selectively geographic.

[x] Removes congressional and vice-presidential power to reject the certificate.

[x] Prevents State refusal or Commission deadlock from erasing votes.

[x] Addresses candidate death, withdrawal, incapacity, and disqualification at each stage.

[x] Constrains emergencies and prevents presidential holdover.

Anti-gerrymandering substance

[x] Applies to congressional, State, territorial, District, county, municipal, educational, judicial, and special-district electoral structures.

[x] Excludes internal Tribal elections absent consent while protecting Tribal communities in non-Tribal maps.

[x] Prohibits partisan and incumbent favoritism by purpose or material effect.

[x] Prohibits protected-community dilution by purpose or material effect.

[x] Creates a later constitutional rule that does not depend solely on current Voting Rights Act doctrine.

[x] Authorizes protected-status remedies that are reasonably necessary and tailored in good faith to equal electoral opportunity, without quotas.

[x] Uses independent commissions with objective screening, random selection, balanced cohorts, automatic funding, and cross-cohort votes.

[x] Denies legislatures and governors map approval, veto, amendment, budget, and deadlock power.

[x] Ranks population, opportunity, contiguity, communities, subdivisions, neutrality, and compactness.

[x] Hides political and incumbent data during initial construction and requires later compliance testing.

[x] Uses several metrics, realistic swing analysis, and reproducible neutral ensembles without creating a safe harbor.

[x] Covers at-large systems, district magnitude, numbered posts, staggered terms, renumbering, annexation, and other evasions.

[x] Prohibits mid-decade, temporary, emergency, retaliatory, and balancing maps.

[x] Reallocates incarcerated persons to last usual residence.

[x] Provides commission adoption, advisory federal compliance notices, private and DOJ enforcement, three-judge review, fees, and special-master relief.

[x] Repeals the obsolete congressional at-large fallback.

Administration and drafting integrity

[x] Separates immediate existing-power provisions from ratification-contingent provisions.

[x] Includes federal fallback administration rather than relying only on State compulsion.

[x] Includes privacy, cybersecurity, accessibility, language access, records, observation, whistleblower, and ethics rules.

[x] Limits criminal offenses to knowing or willful corruption, falsification, destruction, bribery, intimidation, or obstruction; ordinary voter mistakes are not crimes.

[x] Provides appropriations, grants, permanent core-function funding, reporting, and phased implementation; the roadmap separately identifies recommended oversight additions.

[x] Includes granular severability, savings, nonrevival, and transition clauses.

[x] Identifies fiscal ranges as preliminary and non-CBO.

[x] Identifies the research cutoff and 2026 case-law changes.

Matters intentionally outside scope

The package does not regulate campaign-finance limits, political advertising, presidential primaries, party conventions, Senate apportionment, Statehood, the number or boundaries of States, substantive presidential qualifications, or internal Tribal elections. Those are not loopholes in the defined project; they are separate constitutional and policy projects. A sponsor may add them only after assessing distinct legal architecture, committee jurisdiction, and ratification effects.

Research method

The package was checked against constitutional text and the United States Code current through the August 9, 2026 research cutoff, Supreme Court opinions issued through June 29, 2026, federal election-administration materials, Census data, and selected State commission texts. Primary government sources are preferred. The authorities explain present law and drafting choices; they are not incorporated as limitations on the later constitutional rights.

Constitutional text and amendment process

Federal statutes and administration

Presidential-election cases

Redistricting and voting-rights cases

Commission models, metrics, and implementation

Article V and structural cases

Limits of the research record

The sources establish the principal constitutional and statutory architecture. Before introduction, official counsel should run a current government-wide search for “elector,” “electors,” “electoral vote,” “pledged votes,” “meeting of electors,” and cross-references to 3 U.S.C. section 15; check every amendment to title 3 or title 52 enacted after the research cutoff; confirm appropriations and committee jurisdiction; obtain technical review from NIST, CISA, the EAC, Census, USPS, and court administrators; and update Supreme Court and lower-court developments.

The draft’s empirical thresholds and cost ranges are policy defaults subject to expert validation. The Constitution-level rights, prohibited purposes and effects, transparency, burden shifting, and remedies are designed to remain enforceable even as Congress prospectively updates technical standards.