Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Liz Cheney were the primary sponsors of the House’s version of Electoral Count Act reform, which was passed by the House earlier this year. That bill is unlikely to proceed now, with attention focused instead on the more bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA), sponsored by a group of senators led by Susan Collins and Joe Manchin. Leaders in both parties have expressed a desire to prioritize ECRA for passage by the end of the year.
When the Senate Rules Committee advanced ECRA before the midterms, they made a handful of changes that addressed some of the House’s concerns, such as narrowing the circumstances under which a state is authorized to hold an emergency extension of voting. I discussed the committee’s changes to ECRA here.
Now, in a letter to their Senate counterparts, Lofgren and Cheney have honed in on two additional technical fixes they would still like to see before final passage of ECRA. So far, senators haven’t publicly responded, and it’s unclear if there’s any appetite for further changes at this late date. If any are made, it would likely entail a single amendment package adopted on the floor of the Senate at the same time ECRA is attached to another must‐pass bill, such as the expected continuing resolution or the omnibus spending package….