The 2022 Electoral College Reform Act
Upgrading the antiquated 1887 Law
Issue #99 Government August 4, 2022 (about 3 minutes reading time)
As most of us know by now, former president Donald J. Trump tried everything he could to stay in power although he lost the 2020 election, both the popular vote and the electoral college vote.
In July 2019, he tried to pressure and blackmail the president of Ukraine, by threatening to withhold Congressionally-approved funds, if Ukraine didn’t come up with “dirt” on Joe Biden and/or his son Hunter Biden that could be used to derail Mr. Biden who wasn’t yet even the Democratic nomination.
He started saying in the spring of 2020, months before the November election, that if he didn’t win, the election was obviously rigged.
He installed an unqualified loyalist as head of the United States Postal Service (USPS) with the goal of slowing down mail delivery, especially mail-in ballots.
He prematurely claimed victory on Election night, even though there were millions of ballots still not counted.
He deliberately interfered and/or slowed down the transition requirements to deliberately hamstring President-elect Joe Biden’s ability to properly prepare to take office.
He and Rudy Giuliani and others immediately fanned out around the country, filing lawsuits, intimidating official electors in battleground states, sending hordes of protestors to vote counting centers in primarily minority jurisdictions, approving a plan for the submission of false slates of electors, calling for an armed and violent mob to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence, under the threat of death, to change the Electoral College count to keep him as president, no matter how the people actually voted.
This leads us to the Senate introducing a much-needed update to the Electoral Count Act of 1887. I previously published an article here on the contentious and divisive 19th-century elections that led up to the original act:
Officially, the Vice President. acting in their role as the President of the Senate, is just tasked with counting the results of the Electoral College votes from each state that were certified the previous December. It is usually non-controversial and barely noticed.
But there are several inconsistencies and loopholes in the original act that this new “reform” act is attempting to repair.
There are actually two separate but related bills:
The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act includes two parts: The Electoral Count Reform Act details more clear procedures for the roles of the federal government and the states as outlined in the U.S. Constitution, and the Presidential Transition Improvement Act includes clear guidelines for the receipt of federal resources to support the transition into office. Here is a link for a one-pager for this two-part bill.
The Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act has four important provisions that would double the penalty for those who threaten or intimidate election officials, poll workers, voters, or candidates, improve the handling of election mail by the USPS and help states improve their mail-in ballot processes, require that the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) conduct cyber security testing and update certification processes for voting systems, and clarification about the preservation of electronic election records and make it illegal to tamper with voting systems. Here is a link for a one-pager for this four-part bill.
I give major props to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the Capitol for getting people to think about making these long overdue changes.
These bills have bipartisan support. We’ll see what happens.
What do you think about this initiative? Let us know in the comments.
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Its long overdue. If someone like a Trump can find a "loophole" to contest individual state electoral ballots then reform does need to be take place so that all voting Americans can trust the process and eliminate so called vote fraud.