In a rare case of bipartisan agreement, a group of 16 Democratic and Republican senators recently reached an agreement on legislation aimed at making it harder to overturn presidential elections. It represents the most consistent move in Congress to address former President Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat — though passage is far from guaranteed in the Senate, which is split 50-50 along party lines. The agreement aims to change an archaic 1887 law known as the Election Counting Act, which Trump tried to use last year by insisting that then-Vice President Mike Pence throw out electoral votes in several states that Trump had lost to Joe Biden.
The proposal, spearheaded by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, would make clear that the vice president’s role in counting those votes is merely ceremonial. And it would make it harder for members of Congress to object to a state’s presidential results by requiring one-fifth of the House and Senate to file objections — instead of just one House member and one senator.
The bill, sponsored by nine Republicans and seven Democrats, also designates state governors, unless otherwise specified in state law or the constitution in effect on Election Day, as officials responsible for certifying presidential electors. This is an effort to thwart the actions of partisan actors from presenting alternative slates of voters if they do not like the results of the election, and eliminates the possibility of Congress choosing between competing slates. (As you may recall, Trump’s allies called fake electors in several key states as part of an effort to subvert the Electoral College.)
A separate Senate bill, sponsored by five Republicans and seven Democrats, seeks to combat continuing threats to the election administration by increasing federal penalties for anyone who threatens or intimidates election officials or tampers with voting systems.
Early reaction
A group of five election law professors recently hailed the proposed vote count law as a “major improvement” on the outdated law. But a coalition of leading civil rights groups issued a statement over the weekend saying the proposal “does not go far enough to protect our democracy at this fragile moment.” They want Congress to confront what they call “growing racial discrimination in voting,” following court rulings that undermined the strength of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (Repeated attempts by Senate Democrats to increase voting, however, have failed in the face of Republican opposition and the reluctance of moderate Democrats to change Senate rules for piracy.)
Also, the Senate version is unlikely to be the final word.
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who serves as vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat on the panel, say the committee will have its own recommendations to strengthen the Election Counting Act.
Will election deniers gain positions in more states?
A new round of primaries across the country begins next week, and upcoming editions of the CITIZEN newsletter will offer guides from CNN’s campaign team on the key races to watch each week.
Perhaps the biggest test of whether opt-out has taken firm root among the Republican faithful will come in Arizona’s Aug. 2 primary.
Trump has endorsed several candidates in the Grand Canyon State who have embraced his baseless claims that widespread election fraud led to his 2020 defeat, including Republican gubernatorial candidate Cary Lake, Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem and venture capitalist Blake Masters. who is fighting to take on Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly in the general election.
(As CNN’s Alex Rogers recently reported, Masters has even begun to question whether the 2022 election will be legitimate as he works to shore up his bona fides among Trump supporters.) And Karin Taylor Robeson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate of Arizona, backed by Pence, told CNN’s Brianna Keillor this week that she doesn’t believe the 2020 election was fair for Trump and wouldn’t say she accepts the 2020 results.
Meanwhile, locally in Arizona, a four-way race for a seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors features candidates who have advanced election conspiracy theories.
One, Republican Thayer Verschoor, a former state senator who served in the Trump administration, says on his campaign website that the 2020 election “was corrupt and the victory was stolen” from the former president. The Arizona Republic’s Sasha Hupka recently noted that the outcome of this race in Arizona’s most populous county — home to Phoenix — could change the united front that the Maricopa board is firmly presenting in defense of the integrity of President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. (Electoral conspiracies about the 2020 election prompted state Senate Republicans to order a wide-ranging probe of Maricopa ballots. It became the subject of national jokes last year as reviewers pursued wild conspiracy theories, such as looking for bamboo signs, (based on the claim that 40,000 ballots came in from Asia. Ultimately, the count concluded that Biden actually won the district by a larger margin than the official tally.)
Biden carried Arizona by nearly 10,500 votes out of more than 3 million cast statewide.
Whoever wins the Maricopa seat will serve until January 2025 and help oversee the county’s 2024 presidential election.
You must read
- These stories in Reuters and the New York Times about new moves by conservative sheriff’s organizations to investigate the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump. As Reuters notes, election officials fear that partisan investigations into baseless allegations of voter fraud will undermine public confidence in the election.
- CNN’s story on the busy month ahead of fact-finding and decision-making by the House special committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Cheney, the No. 2 lawmaker on the panel, told CNN’s Jake Tapper of “ State of the Union” over the weekend that the committee may “consider a subpoena” for Virginia “Ginny” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
- This story by CNN’s Eric Bradner on how Arizona’s GOP gubernatorial primary turned into a proxy war between Trump and his former vice president.
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