ECA Reform Should Scrap the Failed “Safe Harbor” Provision
Andy CraigNBC Newsreports that the Senate ' s bipartisan election law working group, led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), continues to make progress on a possible proposal to reform the Electoral Count Act. As the January 6th committee hearings get underway, the urgency of reforming the ECA is back in the spotlight. Here at Cato, my colleagues and I have spent the past several months studying this issue andmaking a number of recommendations on how to reform the ECA, which governs the casting and counting of Electoral College votes. In our view, ECA reform is the single most important thing Congress could do to avoid a repeat or worse of the 2020 election crisis.There is already broad bipartisan agreement on some things, such as clarifying the ceremonial role of the vice president and raising the number of members of Congress needed to trigger a debate and vote on objections. Other aspects of the ECA are trickier. One particularly dysfunctional part of the current law is the so-called safe harbor provision,3 U.S.C. §5. It ' s understandable that this muddled section is reportedly one of the biggest remaining hurdles for legislators trying to reach agreement.The safe harbor rule was intended to provide a kind of incentive to state governments, encouraging them to create a mechanism for deciding disputed elections under state law and in a timely manner. It might seem obvious that every state should have a legal process for resolving election disputes, and indeed today every stat...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Andy Craig Source Type: blogs
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