“Why Are Republicans Suddenly Interested in Reforming an Election-Related Law?”

Sue Halpern for the New Yorker:

In a Times opinion piece published last week, arguing that E.C.A. reform is necessary to insure the peaceful transfer of power, Susan Collins noted that a bipartisan group of legislators is currently working together to craft new legislation. But, even before she approached the Democrats to discuss revising the E.C.A., the Party had the law in their sights. Last spring, Senator Angus King, an Independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, began to study ways to fix the law. A few weeks ago, King, along with Senators Richard Durbin, of Illinois, and Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, the chair of the Senate Rules Committee, released a draft of their proposed Electoral Count Modernization Act, which attempts to forestall another end run around the Constitution. Among its other provisions, the proposal precludes state legislatures from directly appointing electors after Election Day; mandates that the electors’ names be published online and be available to the public; and prohibits a state from appointing electors that do not reflect that state’s popular-vote results. If a rogue governor does not abide by the law, the proposal requires the state’s chief election official, typically the secretary of state, to submit the correct certificate of electors based on the popular vote. In the event that the two are aligned, a candidate could seek a federal court order to identify the correct list of electors. The Act also makes it clear that a Vice-President cannot overturn the results of an election.

Now that the Senate Democrats were unable to get past the filibuster, Schumer has signalled his tacit support for discussing E.C.A. reform. Republicans, for their part, have the half-hearted blessing of Mitch McConnell, the Minority Leader, to pursue this goal with the Democrats. But, as McConnell told the Washington Examiner, “There’s no hurry. If this were to become a problem again, it would become a problem in ’24, so there’s no rush.” Collins recently told reporters the same thing. Her lack of urgency reinforced the feeling that, when she approached the Democrats with the idea, it was intended to lure Manchin and Sinema away from the possibility of filibuster reform. If so, it seems to have worked. Manchin and Sinema did not budge, voting-rights legislation failed, and Manchin is now one of the lead Democrats in the bipartisan group hashing out new E.C.A. rules.

It’s unclear, of course, how much of the proposed Electoral Count Modernization Act Republicans will accept—both Collins and McConnell have indicated that an amended law must be narrow in scope—or if a revised E.C.A. can anticipate new ways that a candidate hellbent on stealing an election might subvert the process. What is clear is that, while necessary, rewriting the Electoral Count Act, even in a comprehensive way, will not prevent another insurrection, nor overcome the obstacles that Republicans are creating to make it harder for Americans to vote in the first place.

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