Two Years After January 6, Electoral Count Act Reform Is Now Law

Thomas A. BerryTwo years ago today, dozens of members of Congress attempted to reject the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania during the electoral vote count. These senators and representativesinvoked the Electoral Count Act as the legal grounds for their objections. At the time, that law defined the procedure for both counting electoral votes and objecting to the validity of disputed electoral votes. These senators and representatives treated the Electoral Count Act as a license to relitigate election ‐​law disputes that the courts had already settled. Their plans to oppose enough electoral votes to swing the election, along with President Trump’s claims that Vice President Pence could reject electoral votes unilaterally, gavefalse hope to many of Trump ’s supporters. Many came to view January 6 as the last chance for the president ’s theories of election fraud to be vindicated, with violent and horrifying results.Two years later, Congress has taken a huge step toward foreclosing the possibility of future such initiatives to throw presidential elections into doubt on the last possible day. TheElectoral Count Reform Act (ECRA), signed into law as part of a year ‐​endomnibus spending bill, makescrucial changes to update and modernize the electoral count process. As the first overhaul of the Electoral Count Act since it was originally enacted in 1887, the ECRA will eliminate many of the ambiguities, whether real or alleged, that formed ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs