ELECTION INTEGRITYCongress Aims to Close Off Presidential Election Mischief and Fraud with Simple and Bipartisan Solutions
There are known weaknesses in these rules for how we administer presidential elections and tabulate results in Congress. That’s why a bipartisan group of congressional leaders now aims to pass reforms to the 1887 law governing this process, the Electoral Count Act, before the end of 2022.
Presidential elections are complicated.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia hold simultaneous elections in November. The states and the district certify those results.
But that’s not the end of it.
When people cast votes, they’re actually voting for a group of people called “electors.” Groups of these presidential electors meet in December. They send their votes along to Congress, which counts them in January. The presidential candidate who gets the majority of electoral votes is, finally, declared the winner.
There are known weaknesses in these rules for how we administer presidential elections and tabulate results in Congress. Ambiguities in existing law have been exploited to try to make something go wrong. Legal theories were floated by allies of President Donald Trump after the 2020 election that suggested ways to undermine the results of the election, culminating in a failed insurrection at the Capitol.
That’s why a bipartisan group of congressional leaders now aims to pass reforms to the 1887 law governing this process, the Electoral Count Act, before the end of 2022.
As an election law scholar, I have suggested that Congress focus its reforms on a few crucial areas that could have wide bipartisan support. It’s done just that.
Discouraging Mischief
Both the Senate and the House have versions of a bill that tries to achieve the same end. But the Senate bill, known as the Electoral Count Reform Act, is narrower, went through extensive public vetting and has broad bipartisan support. It is likely something very close to this version becomes law.
The Electoral Count Reform Act does many small things, but it does a few big things that deserve public attention for their ability to deter mischief in this important process.
I testified at a Senate committee hearing on the legislation at the invitation of two co-sponsors of the bill, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri. I have also spoken with members of Congress about its importance.
Here are the four major reforms in the bill:
