House passes bill on vote certification

Electoral Count Act revision aims to stop another Jan. 6.

WASHINGTON — The House has passed legislation to overhaul the rules for certifying the results of a presidential election as lawmakers accelerate their response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and former President Trump’s failed attempt to remain in power.

The bill, which is similar to bipartisan legislation moving through the Senate, would overhaul an arcane 1800s-era statute known as the Electoral Count Act that governs, along with the Constitution, how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential election winners.

While that process has long been ceremonial, Trump and a group of his aides and lawyers unsuccessfully tried to exploit loopholes in the law in an attempt to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the election. Democrats are pushing to pass the bill before the end of the year and ahead of the 2024 election cycle as Trump is considering another run.

While at least 10 GOP senators have signed on to the Senate version, the House vote fell mostly along party lines. House Republicans — most of whom are still aligned with Trump — argued that the legislation shouldn’t be a priority and that it is a political vehicle for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections. The final vote was 229-203.

The legislation would set new parameters around the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that happens every four years after a presidential election. The day turned violent last year after hundreds of Trump’s supporters interrupted the proceedings, broke into the building and threatened the lives of then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress. The rioters echoed Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud and wanted Pence to block Biden’s victory as he presided over the joint session.

The legislation intends to ensure that future Jan. 6 sessions are “as the constitution envisioned, a ministerial day,” said Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who co-sponsored the legislation with House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). Both Cheney and Lofgren are also members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

Ahead of the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (DSan Francisco) said the legislation is necessary as there have been attempts in states across the country to change election laws to make it easier to nullify future results. “Now we have a solemn duty to ensure that future efforts to undermine our elections cannot succeed,” Pelosi said.

The bill would clarify in the law that the vice president’s role presiding over the count is only ceremonial and that he or she cannot change the results. It also sets out that each state can send only one certified set of electors after Trump’s allies had unsuccessfully tried to advance slates of illegitimate pro-Trump electors in swing states where Biden won.

“This bill will make it harder to convince people that they have the right to overthrow an election,” Lofgren said.

The legislation would increase the threshold for individual lawmakers’ objections to any state’s electoral votes, requiring a third of the House and a third of the Senate to object to trigger votes on the results in both chambers. Currently, only one lawmaker in the House and one lawmaker in the Senate has to object.