A bipartisan Senate group announces a deal on reforming the
Electoral Count Act (ECA) – story updated from Vox.com offers more information about how that law works, is supposed to
work, and how Trump and those connected to him tried to abuse it and overturn
the 2020 election with this headline:
“The bill that
could make it harder to overturn an election”
After months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of senators
have announced two proposals related to election administration, including one
to reform the ECA, the widely criticized 1887 law that governs the process of
casting and counting Electoral College (EC).
The law came under fresh and intense scrutiny following attempts to invalidate the presidential election results leading up to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
That was pushed by Trump and many of his closest
allies ever since election night November 3, 2020, and much of that is still pushed
by Trump right now in nearly every one of his public rallies, speeches, and
media releases.
The Senators said in a joint statement: “From the beginning, our bipartisan group has shared a
vision of drafting legislation to fix the flaws of the archaic and ambiguous
Electoral Count Act of 1887.”
The senate panel was headed by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen.
Susan Collins (R-ME) who led the effort to reform the law, which now will need
60 votes to break a filibuster and pass the Senate.
Their proposal ECA has 16 co-sponsors, including nine
Republicans, and GOP Senate Minority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has signaled that he's open to updating the old law 10 Republicans are needed
to stop a filibuster and pass the law changes. That is looking good at this
point.
The Current Law:
Created after a chaotic election in 1876 when DEM Samuel Tilden won the popular
vote but lost the presidency over contested EC vote results when three Southern
states sent in competing (or alternative state vote results). A decade later
Congress enacted the ECA law designed to avoid any repeat of that fiasco.
Even today some reports and legal experts
argue that the crafters of that law then “did a terrible job.”
Members of both major parties opened the door to updating the ECA after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which came following Trump's “Big Lie” and his pressure campaign to “stop the steal” that still continues.
Part of Trump’s January 6 strategy
and plan was to go against then Vice President Mike Pence that urged him to
abandon his ceremonial role in tallying the state final EC votes and instead substitute
an “alternative slate of electors” (the so-called “fake electors” list) that
would reverse the actual and true state EC certified votes thus overturning the
election in favor Trump over Biden.
Advocates for
reforming the ECA argue that the law isn't clear enough about the roles the
vice president and Congress play in certifying election results, and that
weakness was exploited by Trump and his allies to try to keep him in power.
Thankfully that failed and
rightly so.
How would the law be changed: As the law
exists now, only one member of the House and one member of the Senate are
needed to challenge any state's set of electors.
FYI: Here is list of those lawmakers who objected to the EC count in 2021.
The updated language would raise that threshold, shifting
the requirement to 20% of the members of each chamber rather than one from each
as now required.
The proposal would also enact a few measures “aimed at
ensuring that Congress can identify a single, conclusive slate of electors from
each state” (refer to this Sen. Collins fact sheet).
The new provisions
include:
§ ID each
state's Governor, unless otherwise specified in the laws or state constitution
as responsible for submitting the certificate of ascertainment identifying that
state's electors.
§ Requiring
Congress to defer to slates of electors submitted by a state's executive
pursuant to the judgments of state or federal courts.
§ Measure
would strike provision of archaic 1845 law that could be used by state
legislatures to override the popular vote in their states by declaring “a
failed election” — a term BTW that is not defined in the law.
§ The
bill would also reaffirm that the constitutional role of the Vice President, as
the presiding officer of the joint meeting of Congress, is solely ministerial.
The measure to reform the ECA also includes a section to provide guidelines for when a new administration can
receive federal resources for their transition into office.
In the shadow of January 6 hearings: The ECA has
come up many times during the House select committee's hearings investigating
the attack on the Capitol. During one of the panel's hearings, Greg Jacob, who
served as chief counsel to Vice President Pence, said: “Had Pence obeyed Trump's demands to block or delay the counting of electoral
votes on January 6, he would have broken various provisions of the ECA.”
ECA reform paired with election security proposal: The second measure released would increase criminal penalties for individuals who threaten or intimidate election officials, poll watchers, voters or candidates, or those who steal, alter election records, or tamper with voting systems.
It also would aim to improve the handling of election mail
by the USPS and reauthorize the Election Assistance Commission, an independent agency, for five
years.
Those few additional proposals were added as reports of election
officials across the country were have faced with pressure and threats in the
wake of Trump's “Big Lie” about the 2020 election being stolen and was apparently
the motivation spark for the assault on the Capitol.
My 2 Cents: This appears
to be a good bipartisan bill and sorely need and further it shows how government
as divided as we are not can and ought to work to accomplish good for the public
– which is their primary role in Congress. So, congrats to them on this.
Now pass it and get to President
Biden for him to sign it into law ASAP.
Thanks for stopping by.
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