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US Reps Move To Invoke 134-year-old Legislation To Forestall Another Jan. 6
- …members are focused on making changes to a 19th Century law known as the Electoral Count Act…
EKO HOT BLOG reports that members of the January 6 committee are working on potential legislation to tighten the process of certifying a presidential election in an effort to eliminate contentious avenues that spurred the January 6 riot.
The legislation would give the committee a focus on developing a law as part of the investigation, undercutting a legal argument that former President Donald Trump has made that the committee has no true legislative purpose for seeking his White House documents.
The effort is still in its early stages, but a proposed bill could offer more specific instructions for when Congress can overturn a state’s slate of electors, and more clearly define the role the vice president plays in counting the votes — after Trump and his allies pressured Mike Pence to try to block President Joe Biden’s win, the sources say.
Read also: ‘They Are Coming For Donald Trump’: MSNBC Analyst Says Subpoenas Are Hitting His ‘Inner, Inner Circle’
Specifically, members are focused on making changes to a 19th Century law known as the Electoral Count Act that was intended to give Congress a process by which to certify the Electoral College votes submitted by the states. It’s a mundane but crucial part of the presidential election machinery, one that Trump and his allies attempted to exploit last year.
Election law experts and those urging reform warn that in light of January 6, the 134-year-old law needs to be updated and strengthened to ensure that a losing party can never subvert the results of the Electoral College.
“The bigger fruit of the 2020 experience is that every phase of the presidential election process has been thrown into doubt and is now littered with boobytraps,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who is one of the select committee members involved in the discussion, told CNN.
David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, says changes are needed to “limit objections to a few valid issues, such as if a state fails to certify electors by the deadline, and make clear the purely ceremonial nature of the joint session,” adding such clarification would, “prevent a future VP from being pressured to subvert the states’ electoral choices.”
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