[ad_1]
WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 (AP) — Congress finally passed legislation on Friday that changes the arcane law governing presidential campaign certification, a move so far to avoid repeating Donald Trump’s bid to reverse his 2020 election campaign. Efforts to incite violence have been the most vigorous effort ever made in a failed election in 2009.
The House passed an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act as part of its massive year-end spending bill after the Senate approved the same language on Thursday. The bill now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.
Read also | COVID-19 outbreak in China: State estimates coronavirus surge is infecting 37 million people a day.
In a statement Friday, Biden praised the inclusion of the provisions in the spending bill, calling it a “critical bipartisan action that will help ensure that the will of the people is upheld.”
It’s the most significant legislative response Congress has yet delivered to Trump’s aggressive efforts to upend the popular vote and a measure urged by the House select committee, which conducted the most thorough investigation into the violent siege of the Capitol.
Amendments to the 1887 law — long criticized for being poorly written and confusing — have won bipartisan support and would make it harder for future presidential losers to keep their enemies from taking office, as Trump did in 2021. Trying to do that on January 6th.
“This is a huge achievement, especially in this partisan atmosphere, with such a significant rewriting of a law that is so vital to our democracy,” said UCLA law professor Rick Hasson. This law goes a long way toward closing off channels that Trump and his allies are trying to use in 2020 and could be exploited in future elections.”
On January 6, Trump directed Congress to approve the Electoral College vote. He tried to use the vice president’s role in reading states’ electoral votes to get Mike Pence to remove some of the states Biden won from the list, thereby preventing Biden from becoming the next president. The new provisions make clear that the vice president’s responsibilities in the process are merely ceremonial and that the vice president has no say in determining who actually won the election.
The new legislation also raises the bar for members of Congress to object to voter certification. Previously, only one member of the House and Senate each had to oppose mandating a roll-call vote for a state’s electors. That has made opposition to a new president a routine partisan tactic — Democrats opposed the certification of the elections of George W. Bush and Trump in 2016.
The opposition, however, was largely symbolic and came after Democrats conceded that a Republican candidate had won the presidency. On Jan. 6, 2021, even after the violent attack on the Capitol, Republicans forced votes to certify Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania as Trump continued to falsely insist he had won the election. That led some members of Congress to worry that the process might be too easily manipulated.
Under the new rules, one-fifth of each House will be required to cast mandatory votes on each state’s electoral rolls.
The new rule also ensures that only one electoral roll will enter Congress after Trump and his allies failed to create replacement electoral rolls in states Biden won. Every governor now needs to sign off on the electoral roll, and Congress cannot consider lists submitted by different officials. The bill would establish a legal process should any of those voters be challenged by a presidential candidate.
The legislation would also close a loophole not used in 2020 but which election experts fear could be used, allowing state legislatures to appoint electors regardless of the state’s popular vote if the election “loses.” The term, which has been understood to mean that a game is disrupted or in doubt of determining a true winner, was not clearly defined in previous laws.
A state can now change the date of its presidential election – but only in the event of an “extraordinary and catastrophic event”, such as a natural disaster.
While much has changed, there are still dangers to democracy, Hasson said, noting that in Arizona, Republican gubernatorial nominee Carrie Lake is awaiting Friday’s ruling in her lawsuit to overturn Democratic rival Katie’s victory over Hobbs.
“Nobody should think that the passage of this legislation means we’re out of the woods,” Hasson said. “It’s not a one-and-done thing.” (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
[ad_2]
Source link