What Does Electoral Count Reform Mean For The 2024 Election?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Included in the $1.7 trillion government spending bill passed by the House on Friday is a rewrite of the 1887 Electoral Count Act.
Background: Moderate senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) crafted the bill with the intention of clarifying the process of certifying the results of a presidential election.
What Changes?: According to the Congressional webpage, the bill “revises the process of casting and counting electoral votes for presidential elections.” The bill makes the role of the Vice President in the certification process “ministerial in nature” and “raises the objection threshold” needed to object to election results to one-fifth of Congress.
Why?: The bill was crafted in response to the events of January 6, 2021, when the process of certifying the 2020 presidential election results was disrupted by protestors in support of Donald Trump, who lost the election. During the certification process, Trump pressured former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the election, pointing to the Electoral Count Act’s vague language as evidence of this authority existing.
Perspectives: The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board said the bill “isn’t perfect but at least fixes the law’s most troubling flaws.” An article in the National Review (Right Bias) questioned why the bill did not receive a stand-alone vote, determining that “it would have passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.” An article in the New Republic (Left Bias) called the bill “crucial for preventing another attack like January 6 from happening.”
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Right
Electoral Count Act Reform, at LastAs Congress rushes to vote on a 4,155-page spending bill that Members will never read, one piece of good news is that the omnibus contains a revision of the Electoral Count Act (ECA). But the moment shouldn’t pass without noting that the Senate is acting in a way that lets individual Members dodge accountability for their vote.
The case for reforming the 1887 law has been clear since Jan. 6, 2021, when it became the excuse for Donald Trump to ask Vice President Mike Pence to reject or delay counting...
From the Center
What's in the U.S. Congress's Electoral Count Reform Act?The U.S. Congress is poised to pass legislation that would tighten the way presidential elections are certified, aiming to prevent a repeat of the chaos that followed Donald Trump's 2020 presidential defeat.
Here are details on the Electoral Count Reform Act, which lawmakers included in a year-end government funding bill:
AIMS TO PREVENT ANOTHER JAN. 6
The bipartisan effort would rewrite the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which lays out the process by which Congress tallies the state-by-state results from a presidential election and formally certifies the winner. Critics say the...
From the Left
What Trump doesn’t understand about Electoral Count Act reformFollowing months of bipartisan negotiations, lawmakers agreed on an important overhaul of the Electoral Count Act that will strengthen the system against future attacks and possible mischief. The challenge was figuring out how to pass it.
This week, Congress is expected to approve a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package, and to the relief of reformers, the Electoral Count Act overhaul will be included in the legislation. It might pass the Senate as early as today.
Donald Trump, oddly enough, sees this as some kind of proof that some of his...
AllSides Picks
June 7th, 2024
June 7th, 2024
June 7th, 2024