Maebh Springbett
Since July of this year, two bills have been presented before the Senate calling for the reform of the 1887 Electoral Count Act. Headed by a bipartisan group of senators, the Electoral Count Reform Act seeks to rectify the ambiguity of the existing law which has proven easy to exploit.
Upon losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump sought to disrupt electoral counting which in turn drove a mob of Trump supporters to attack the Capitol on 6th January 2021, with the aim of preventing the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The first of these bills is the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act. It dictates that, rather than only one member, at least 20 per cent of each house must raise an objection for it to be considered by Congress. A sufficient judicial process will also be put in place in order to review matters relating to disputed electors.
Following Trump’s encouragement of Vice President Mike Pence to throw out electoral votes in 2020, the bill will clarify the term ‘failed election’ while making it clear that the Vice President does not have the authority to disrupt counting. Finally, it will ensure that both presidential candidates will have access to funds meant for facilitating the transition in the White House following the results of an election. This was deemed a necessary addition after Trump delayed Joe Biden’s reception of these funds, following his loss.
The Senate Rules Committee has voted 14-1 to favorably report the Electoral Count Act Reform bill to the full Senate.
Ted Cruz was the sole NO vote.— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 27, 2022
As a further measure, the Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act will increase the penalty for threatening presidential candidates, voters or poll workers to a maximum of two years imprisonment. This second bill also requires all election records to be preserved.
‘We have developed legislation that establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President,’ 16 senators, both Democrat and Republican, said in a joint statement, ‘We urge our colleagues in both parties to support these simple, common-sense reforms.’
Written into law around 135 years ago, legislation dictating Congress’ process during presidential elections is in need of an update. With these reforms, future presidential candidates should be prevented from trying to overturn election results, the hope being that the events of the last election will be cemented in the past.
Featured image courtesy of Element5 Digital via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
Maebh Springbett
While Head of Entertainment for Empoword Journalism, Maebh works in the Careers department at the University of Reading. Their writing focuses on music and has been published by the likes of Music Is To Blame and Dead Good Music. They aspire to work in non-fiction publishing.