Senate Considers Bipartisan Electoral Count Act Reforms to Prevent Repeat of Jan 6

Senators of both parties say they don’t want future vice presidents to be put in the position President Donald Trump forced his understudy into on Jan. 6 by trying to get him to throw out valid Electoral College votes that went against him.

The
Senate
is considering reforms to
the Electoral Count Act
, a 135-year-old election law
Trump
and his allies tried to use to cling to power even after President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Senators at a Rules Committee hearing on Wednesday argued it was weaponized for purposes outside its intent.

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The Senate Rules Committee’s hearing focused on a bipartisan proposal to reform the 1887 law that governs the process of certifying Electoral College votes. Trump and his allies sought to use the law to overturn the 2020 election results, arguing that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to recognize the results of a handful of swing states. Legal scholars, and ultimately Pence himself, rejected that argument on Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob stormed the Capitol, delaying certification of the results by several hours.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) testified at the hearing as the lead negotiators on the bipartisan bill.

Collins testified that the process for counting electoral votes had been abused before the riot, “with frivolous objections being raised by members of both parties, but it took the violent breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 to really shine a spotlight on how urgent the need for reform was.”

Manchin concurred, testifying that their bill “addresses what the bipartisan group has identified as the most concerning problems with [the Electoral Count Act], it unambiguously clarifies that the vice president is prohibited and, I repeat, it clarifies that the vice president, whoever he or she may be, is prohibited from interfering with electoral votes.”

The legislation would amend provisions of the law to clarify that the vice president’s role in certification is “solely ministerial” and would raise the threshold for objections to certification to one-fifth of the members of each chamber, up from a lone member of both chambers.

On Wednesday, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Senators are meeting right now on reforming the Electoral Count Act so that a Vice President can no longer do what EVERYBODY, except for certain Conservative legal scholars, said was not allowed to be done.”

“So they all lied,” Trump wrote. “The V.P. could have sent fraudulent votes back to State Legislatures!”

But that argument was rejected by members of both parties at the hearing. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said their bill makes “clarifications” that are “so obviously needed” to prevent confusion in future elections. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said that on Jan. 6, “enemies of our democracy sought to exploit the provisions of this antiquated law to subvert the results of a free and fair election.”

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Although the legislation has bipartisan support in the Senate, it is unclear whether it will have the necessary support to pass the House, where lawmakers on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot have
indicated
they would prefer a more robust response.

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