Activists trying to overturn a new state law that would have Maine award its four Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote failed to collect enough signatures to force a statewide referendum this fall.

Organizer James DuPrie, a Lebanon Republican who serves on the Maine Republican Party’s executive committee, said in an interview Thursday that his grassroots effort collected about 80% of the 67,682 signatures needed for a people’s veto by Thursday’s deadline.

The group is currently evaluating next steps, including a possible citizen initiative, which would give them a longer timeframe to collect a new set of signatures, or overturning the law in the next legislative session.

“We’re still moving forward – we’re not stopping,” DuPrie said. “There’s obviously a lot of concern with this going on.”

The new law will not have any impact on the 2024 presidential election. Maine will continue to award its electoral votes as it has previously.

Maine has four electoral votes for president. Currently, two of those votes are allocated to the statewide winner, while one is awarded to the winner of each congressional district. Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that split their electoral votes.

Two of the last four U.S. presidents, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, won office despite losing the national popular vote. Hillary Clinton earned about 2.9 million more popular votes than Trump in 2016; Al Gore collected 540,000 more votes nationally than Bush in 2000.

Trump, who is on the ballot again this year, has earned one of Maine’s electoral votes in each of the last two presidential elections.

Last year, Maine passed a law that would allocate all four votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote, even if it conflicts with the state’s results.

Supporters say the move reduces the importance of a handful of swing states and would better reflect the will of the country for what is a uniquely national office. But opponents argued the proposal is unconstitutional and would disenfranchise voters, especially in rural Maine, by giving outsized influence to larger cities.

The bill to have Maine join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact barely cleared the House of Representatives by a one-vote margin. Gov. Janet Mills allowed it to become law without her signature.

A similar bill was considered in Maine in 2019. It passed the Senate but ultimately died in the House.

Although Maine’s new law will take effect Friday, it will have no impact on the 2024 presidential election, because the interstate compact Maine is joining will not take effect until it has at least 270 Electoral College votes – the minimum needed to elect a president.

The compact currently includes 16 states, plus Washington D.C., that control a total of 205 electoral votes.

DuPrie said his network of volunteers, who canvassed the presidential primaries, large and small community events and went door-to-door, did well to collect so many signatures, despite falling short of the number needed to put the measure to voters this fall.

“The fact that we collected that many signatures without any real machine in effectively eight weeks kind of says there’s some concerns about what it represents,” he said.