Derek Muller NYT oped:

As Republicans in Congress prepare to formally contest the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Wednesday, many of them have cited precedent for their effort: similar complaints lodged by Democrats in other presidential elections. After Republican victories in 2000, 2004 and 2016, for instance, Democrats in Congress used the formal counting of electoral votes as an opportunity to challenge election results.

But the history of Democratic efforts to contest the outcomes of presidential elections is not a history worth emulating. On the contrary, it only underscores that the certification of a president-elect’s victory by the House and Senate is an improper forum for the airing of political grievances and an inappropriate occasion to readjudicate the decisions of the states concerning things like vote tallies, recounts and audits.

While Congress has the power to decline to count electoral votes, it has done so only in extreme situations in the aftermath of the Civil War — when, for instance, a state was deemed to lack a functioning government. The Electoral Count Act of 1887, which sets the rules for Congress to count electoral votes, was enacted with the presumption that state procedures are trustworthy. The act instructs Congress to defer to state judgments when a state resolves controversies over the appointment of electors.

The act also requires broad political consensus to decline to count electoral votes. It instructs that on Jan. 6 after a presidential election, the president of the Senate (typically the vice president) presides over a session of the two chambers. If a member of Congress wishes to object to counting a state’s electoral votes, a member of the House and a member of the Senate must sign a written objection. The chambers separate for up to two hours of debate. If majorities of both chambers agree to the objection, the objection stands. If not, the votes are counted.