Manchin sees electoral reform law passing
Says measure receiving Senate backing
WASHINGTON — Key senators working on an overhaul of the little-known law that former President Donald Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election pledged Sunday that their legislation would pass the Senate, saying that recent revelations about the plot made their work even more important.
In a joint interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Lisa Murkowski, RAlaska, said their efforts to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887 were gaining broader support in the Senate, with as many as 20 senators taking part in the discussions.
“Absolutely, it will pass,” Mr. Manchin said of an overhaul of the law, which dictates how Congress formalizes elections.
Mr. Manchin also endorsed Ms. Murkowski for re-election, crossing party lines to back the incumbent from Alaska. She faces Kelly Tshibaka, a challenger supported by Mr. Trump, in the GOP primary.
He said efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to exploit “ambiguity” in the law were “what caused the insurrection” — the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. That misreading of the statute led to a plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to amass a crowd outside the Capitol to try to pressure Congress and Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over Congress’ official count of electoral votes, to overturn the results of the election.
Ms. Murkowski said the rewrite could be expanded to include other protections for democracy, such as initiating a crackdown on threats and harassment against election workers.
“Wewant to make sure that if you are going to be an election worker,” Ms. Murkowski said, “you don’t feel intimidated or threatened or harassed.”
A bipartisan group of at least 15 senators — which includes Mr. Manchin and Ms. Murkowski and is led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine — recently began discussions with another group that features top Democrats who have studied the issue for months. That group includes Sen. Angus King, I-Maine; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Mr. King’s group last week released draft legislative text for a rewrite of the Electoral Count Act that would address deficiencies exposed by Mr. Trump’s plan. The bill would clarify that the vice president has no power to reject a state’s electors and ensure that state legislatures cannot appoint electors after Election Day in an effort to overturn their state’s election results.
It would also give states additional time to complete legitimate recounts and litigation; provide limited judicial review to ensure that the electors appointed by a state reflect the popular vote results in the state; enumerate specific and narrow grounds for objections to electors or electoral votes; raise the thresholds for Congress to consider objections; and make it harder to sustain objections without broad support by both chambers of Congress.
Mr. King called his group’s draft “very nonpartisan” and said it included the input of conservative and liberal legal scholars.