October 08, 2021
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Trump Tried To Use This Law To Overturn His Loss, But Now Congress Could Change It - Yahoo! Voices

In his relentless effort to stay in office despite clearly losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and his legal team planned to use a vaguely defined 19th century law setting the rules for how Congress counts electoral votes. Now lawmakers are working on bills in the House and the Senate to reform that law so it cannot be abused in the future.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 addresses any challenged or “failed” votes in one or more states. Election law scholars warned in 2020 that this law posed a grave threat as then-President Trump ramped up his false claims of election fraud before Election Day. It became reality afterward when Trump refused to concede the election and pursued a strategy, along with Republican members of Congress and senators, to use the vague language of the Electoral Count Act to reverse his loss.

Electoral Count Act reform legislation is now being pursued by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) in the House and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) in the Senate. The laws are still in the drafting stage.

King says that he has legislation in the works to reform the law with bipartisan support. Lofgren, chair of the Committee on House Administration, sent a letter to all members of the House Democratic caucus on Wednesday calling the current law “antiquated, incomplete, and badly in need of reform,” while asking for input on what reform legislation should look like.

“I am confident that the ECA can be reformed in a way that ensures orderly and peaceful transfers of power in future presidential elections, and I will soon introduce legislation to do exactly that,” Lofgren writes in her letter.

An image of President Donald Trump appears on video screens before his speech to supporters on Jan. 6 as the Congress prepared to certify the Electoral College votes. The U.S. Capitol riot began as his speech ended. (Photo: Bill Clark via Getty Images)
An image of President Donald Trump appears on video screens before his speech to supporters on Jan. 6 as the Congress prepared to certify the Electoral College votes. The U.S. Capitol riot began as his speech ended. (Photo: Bill Clark via Getty Images)

Trump’s campaign to overturn his election loss rested on abusing the vagueness of the Electoral Count Act. The law enables one member of the House and one member of the Senate to challenge any state’s certified electoral vote submission when the vote is “not … regularly given.”

The phrase “regularly given” leaves much to the imagination. What is an election that is not “regularly given”? Could it be merely an election that one side believed to be tainted whether there was proof or not?



source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tried-law-overturn-loss-094506480.html

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