Senate Rules Committee Markup of the Electoral Count Reform Act

Andy CraigThe Senate Rules Committeewill meet later today to conduct a markup on the Electoral Count Reform Act, the bipartisan ECA reform bill from a group of senators led by Susan Collins (R ‑ME) and Joe Manchin (D‑WV). This hearing will makeseveral changes tothe bill before it goes to the full Senate, all with the support of both the committee ’s chair Amy Klobuchar (D‑MN) and ranking member Roy Blunt (R‑MO).While many of these changes are minor drafting issues and technical fixes, some also addresskey differences with the Lofgren ‐​Cheney version of ECA reform, passed last week by the House as the Presidential Election Reform Act.Among these changes is tightening the language for allowing extended voting in presidential elections in case of extreme emergencies. This was one of the main differences with the House bill, which defines such emergencies with much greater specificity. Changing this part of the existing law is seen as important because thecurrent“failed elections” rule is extremely vague. It has been read by some to argue state legislatures could intervene in post‐​election disputes, possibly even to overturn their state’s election results, rather than as a narrow deadline extension to cover major natural disasters and the like.To provide some additional limitation in the new rule, today ’s amendment inserts the term “force majeure ” as an additional qualifier on “extraordinary and catastrophic” events. That track...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs