Jan. 6 Capitol riot: Bipartisan bill to prevent subversion of US elections gets support

On Tuesday, United States Senate majority leader, Charles Schumer (Democrat- New York) and Minority leader Mitch McConnell (Republican- Kentucky) endorsed the Electoral Count Reform Act which aims to protect future elections from subversion by making changes to the 19th-century law. These reforms were also made in response to the January 6 insurrection.

This legislation will reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act which in addition to the constitution also governs how the states and Congress certify electors and announce the presidential election winner. McConnell's endorsement will give the bipartisan effort a major boost while also putting him at odds with former US president Donald Trump.

McConnell took to the Senate floor and announced, “I strongly support the modest changes that our colleagues in the working group have fleshed out after months of detailed discussions. I'll proudly support the legislation, provided that nothing more than technical changes are made to its current form.”

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He noted how the “Congress’s process for counting the presidential electors’ votes was written 135 years ago. The chaos that came to a head on January 6th of last year certainly underscored the need for an update.”

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“So did Januaries 2001, 2005 and 2017. In each of which, Democrats tried to challenge the lawful election of a Republican president,” the Senate minority leader said. This was in reference to how the Democrats had objected the last three times a Republican candidate won the presidential election. While the GOP had also objected when Dem candidate Joe Biden became president. This legislation would make it difficult to sustain such objections

Notably, at least 147 Republicans in both the House and Senate had objected to the results in key states that Biden had won. On the other hand, reportedly a few Democrats had objected to George W Bush’s victory in 2000 and 2004 and Trump’s victory in 2016.

The endorsement gives a major boost to the legislation led by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D- West Virginia). This comes amid the bipartisan sponsors trying to push the bill before the end of the year and the next election cycle.

Meanwhile, last week, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy with most Republicans in the house opposed their chamber’s more expansive bill with only a handful of GOP members supporting it. However, the bill was passed by 229-203 votes.

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Notably, McConnell has long been in favour of tightening election laws. The resulting bill, the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, was approved in the Rules Committee by 14-1 with the lone opposition of Sen Ted Cruz (R- Texas). The committee had adopted some revisions to the existing bill and sent it to the Senate floor for a vote.

The new reforms would limit the vice president’s role to “solely ministerial”, while also raising the threshold for objecting to a state’s Electoral College results from one member of each chamber to at least one-fifth of the chamber. While the House would also require at least one-third of the members to back up the objection.

On Tuesday, the Senate Rules Committee also adopted some new provisions closely related to those mentioned in the bill passed by the House. This included a provision that allows officials to delay elections in case of an “act of god” where officials can declare a failed election due to events like natural disasters. This was done to prevent any future claims of voter fraud which could allow the state to refuse to certify valid votes.

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These reforms have been placed in the light of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol where former US President Donald Trump and his supporters tried to stop then Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the election results. Therefore, both the bills in the House and Senate have formally established that a VP’s role is purely ceremonial.

The Senate bill takes this one step further stating that it denies the VP to “solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.” This comes after Trump publicly pressured states, members of Congress, including Pence to undo Biden’s win and while he did not succeed it highlighted the need for stronger laws for future elections.

(With inputs from agencies)