Fearing a Repeat of Jan. 6, Congress Eyes Changes to Electoral Count Law

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON — Members of the select congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol are pressing to overhaul the complex and little-known law that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that the ambiguity of the statute puts democracy itself at risk.

The push to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887 — enacted more than a century ago in the wake of another bitterly disputed presidential election — has taken on new urgency in recent weeks as more details have emerged about the extent of Mr. Trump’s plot to exploit its provisions to cling to power.

Mr. Trump and his allies, using a warped interpretation of the law, sought to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to throw out legitimate results when Congress met in a joint session on Jan. 6 to conduct its official count of electoral votes.

It was Mr. Pence’s refusal to do so that led a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters to chant “Hang Mike Pence,” as they stormed the Capitol, delaying the proceedings as lawmakers fled for their lives. Members of Congress and the vice president ultimately returned and completed the count, rejecting challenges made by loyalists to Mr. Trump and formalizing President Biden’s victory.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fearing-a-repeat-of-jan-6-congress-eyes-changes-to-electoral-count-law/ar-AARsfi7

[crickets]

1. K&R for visibility.

[mopinko]

2. just dump it. problem solved. democracy redeemed.

[Bettie]

4. Dumping it requires a constitutional amendment

but, a new Apportionment Act can be passed.

The last one was in 1929, setting the number of house members at 435.

Fact is, our population in 1929 was just short of 122 million. Now it is over 325 million.

Seems that the House would far better serve the people if representation was fairly allocated by population.

Yeah, there would need to be changes to how things run and it would fix the problem with the EC by making it much more likely that the popular vote would be the EC vote as well.

I have no idea how we could fix the senate which is a relic of a time when people were, apparently, slightly more reasonable.

[Tommymac]

9. The Senate's problem is the filibuster - and it has only been in it's current form since the 1970's

I guess people were more reasonable then...my memory tells me it was so.

One suggestion is that the Senate Majority Party should be determined by the percentage of the National Presidential Popular vote each party gets - NOT how many Senators belong to each party.

If the Dems have only 48 Senators but got 55% of the Popular Presidential vote then the Dems should be in charge of the Senate and appoint chairmen, set the agenda, etc. and their votes 'weighted accordingly' on any issue. I.E. 48 votes would equal 51 votes under a mathematical curve.

[Bettie]

11. That could work, but

again, there are a whole lot of people who love the status quo, because it works for them.

[Tommymac]

15. I know. The English Aristocracy loved King George because he worked for them.

The Politburo loved Stalin because he worked for them.

The southern white man loves Jim Crow because he works for them.

The 1% love the current system because it works for them.

I say screw the status quo - Thinking outside the box brings Progress which always brings out better more humane ways to do things.

[ShazzieB]

19. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to amend the Constitution?

Thinking outside the box is a great concept, in theory, but the fact is, the U.S. government is in a box. It's called the Constitution.

What you are proposing here would require a constitutional amendment, as would getting rid of the E.C., and that is a very high bar. It has to start with a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress (or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose), and then has to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

No amount of "thinking outside the box" is going to change that.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution/

EDITED TO ADD: I made this post based kn the assumption that the thread was about getting rid of the Electoral College. I realize that may have been an incorrect assumption, but I'll leave this here in the hope that the information will still be useful.

[Tommymac]

22. I disagree. People can do anything they set their minds to.

With thinking like you propose we would still be sitting around a fire in our birthday suits warming our buns.

Thinking Outside the Box IS hard work - but creative Work.

'It's Too Hard' is simply an excuse.

Been to any TED talks lately?

[usaf-vet]

27. Caution must be applied to starting a Constitutional Convention to change anything. My understanding

.... and I may be wrong is that once the Constitutional Convention is "open," any group, i.e., GQP, could use it to change other amendments.

Besides thinking about the things that would be nice to change WE, ALL BETTER THINK ABOUT THE THINGS WE DON'T WANT to be CHANGED.

Just think what the NRA would do to the Second Amendment if there were no one to stop them.

Each newborn would get a Social Security number, a lifetime permit to open carry, and a 9mm Glock. Seriously once the convention is open, they would take the once-in-a-lifetime shot (pun intended).

We could go to bed in a Democracy and wake up with a Theocracy.

[ColinC]

29. If they got 48 seats but 55%

Shouldn't their votes equal 55 out of that curve?

[Fiendish Thingy]

18. Not true- the Electoral Count Act is a law, not an amendment. Nt

[ShazzieB]

21. I thought mopinko was talking about "dumping" the electoral college.

I see that I may have misinterpreted their post, but rereading it, I'm not 100% sure what they meant. I will amend my reply.

[Fiendish Thingy]

25. The Electoral Count Act was created to address unusual dilemmas arising in the Electoral College

Things like multiple slates of electors, or states that don’t send any electors, or ties, etc.

[Freddie]

28. "The Corrupt Bargain"

Was the election of Rutherford Hayes (R) in 1876. He lost the popular vote to Samuel Tilden (D) but there were many irregularities in the EC. The bargain was the Dems would give the R’s the WH if the R’s stopped enforcing Reconstruction. Corrupt indeed. The convoluted laws about counting EC votes stem from this. If we can’t get rid of the EC we can at least try to change this.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. TFG may appear a undisciplined blowhard but conservative lawyers have scoured US history

to find loopholes, errors, forgotten pieces. Every so often TFG would cite Lincoln, or make reference to something long ago in our political history, so someone was feeding him something (he doesn't read anything).

[Baitball Blogger]

6. +1

[alwaysinasnit]

5. If the Dems don't get those voter protection laws passed, this would be an exercise in futility.

[ShazzieB]

13. Still needs to be done, no matter what.

Closing even theoretical loopholes is very important, now that we know there are people who are evil and twisted enough to try to walk to walk through them.

Just think what might have happened if Pence was even half as crooked or stupid as Trump. He obviously didn't want to defy Trump's wishes if he could avoid it, but became convinced that the fallout from doing what Trump wanted would be even worse than facing the Orange One's wrath. I think we all know by now that there are a lot of people who who wouldn't have hesitated to screw up the electoral college results. We're just lucky one of those people wasn't Trump's V.P.

Disclaimer: I absolutely, positively cannot stand Mike Pence, but he did do the right thing on 1/6, and at this point, I don't even care what his motives were.

[alwaysinasnit]

23. I absolutely agree, but if we cannot forestall the theft of the upcoming elections, then the

Repubs will undo anything and everything the Dems try to fix now.

[SheltieLover]

7. Kicking for visability

[SergeStorms]

8. The entire Constitution and....

Bill of Rights need to be rewritten to reflect the changing times.

I won't step on my own dick by elaborating any further, but changes do need to be made!

[Tommymac]

10. +1

The founders were certain there would have been at least 4 or 5 Constitutional Conventions in the first 100 years of the Country to keep The Constitution in tune with the times and political advancements.

How wrong they were.

[Grins]

14. They were wrong a lot!

But that is not taught in favor of keeping the myths of their “wisdom” forever.

[wnylib]

31. Not in today's political climate.

Republicans would turn the process into a farce and produce an anti democratic document.

[SergeStorms]

32. Oh, you mean....

the Republican party platform. Fascists will be fascists.

[wnylib]

33. Not suitable people to participate

in a Constitutional rewrite.

[SergeStorms]

35. Mein Kampf, maybe....

but certainly not the Constitution of the United States of America, that's for sure.

Looks like we're from the same side of the state. We have Rhiannon on the other side, just to keep an eye on the eastern front. 😉 There's quite a few of we New Yorkers on DU.

[wnylib]

36. Like the Haudenosaunee,

we have keepers of the eastern and western doors.

[Grins]

12. D.O.A.

Don’t bother to amend. Kill it!!

There is no logical reason to use a system for electing a head of state that you would never use to elect a prom Queen!

Electoral College is a suicide pact that can only lead to endless arguments, or active rebellion(s) or civil war.

[PoliticAverse]

17. It is in the constitution, you can't kill it with a regular bill. n/t

[ShazzieB]

20. You can't just "kill" something that's in the Constitution.

It doesn't work that way. None of this works that way.

Changing the Constitution requires a process called amendment. Please see my post (no. 13) above, on what's involved in amending the U.S. Constitution.

[NullTuples]

16. It's amazing how Mike Pence's cowardice saved our democracy.

But also, weren't there three sets of copies of the votes, just in case?

Also, this feels like a distraction from States that have passed laws giving their Legislature the ability to simply replace whoever they want to get the results they want, and about a dozen other actual problems with our elections. This feels like a Washington smokescreen where the general gist absorbed by the public is, "Congress is doing something to safeguard our elections".

[Kaleva]

30. Each state sends out 6 copies

"Under the Electoral Count Act (updated and codified in 3 U.S.C. § 9), each state's electors must complete six certificates of vote. Each Certificate of Vote (or Certificate of the Vote) must be signed by all of the electors and a certificate of ascertainment must be attached to each of the certificates of vote. Each Certificate of Vote must include the names of those who received an electoral vote for either the office of president or of vice president. The electors certify the Certificates of Vote, and copies of the certificates are then sent in the following fashion:[119]

One is sent by registered mail to the President of the Senate (who usually is the incumbent vice president of the United States);
Two are sent by registered mail to the Archivist of the United States;
Two are sent to the state's secretary of state; and
One is sent to the chief judge of the United States district court where those electors met."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Joint_session_of_Congress

[NullTuples]

34. Thank you!

[Progressive Jones]

24. If they fear another Jan 6th, a lot more deadly force on hand would be ideal. nt

[choie]

26. Here's an idea...

how about holding ALL of the seditionists, from the top down - including TFG - accountable and throw them all in prison?

[oasis]

37. I'm for that 100%.

[kentuck]

38. There were so many problems exposed under Trump and Congress has done nothing about them.

We still have not seen Trump's tax returns.

They have done nothing about selecting "friends" as "acting" Department heads.

They have done nothing about fixing emoluments and stopping future presidents from doing business with foreign governments.

Not much is going to get done until we clean up our own house.