Earlier this week, I noted that the Senate’s Electoral Count Reform Act was included in the omnibus bill, with “quite minor technical and parliamentary changes.” I wanted to highlight what those are.

There are a few word choice changes to bring consistency among the new provisions from the Electoral Count Reform Act and the existing provisions of the Electoral Count Act, such as replacing the word “list” in places with “certificate of ascertainment,” as it relates to state results of the appointment of electors; changing “the” to “a” or “votes or papers” with “any vote or paper,” for some increased precision.

Three others more interesting (but still minor, parliamentary) details.

First, it renames the joint “meeting” a joint “session.” There’s a formal distinction between the two, and the modification of language brings it up to the appropriate title of “session.”

Second, in the two-hour debate period for any objections, it gives the majority and minority leaders equal time to parcel out up to five minutes’ debate per member. This is how it’s worked in practice, but it’s now codified.

Third, it specifies that objections and “questions” must be signed by 1/5 of the members of each chamber. This tidies up a precedent that arose in 2001, when Representative Ted Deutsch attempted to make a point of order to note the absence of a quorum. Vice President Al Gore ruled that the question was out of order: “The Chair rules, on the advice of the Parliamentarian, that the point of order that a quorum is not present is subject to the requirement that it be in writing and signed by both a Member of the House of Representatives and a Senator.” The “questions” language in the new ECRA tidies up this precedent by making it explicit.

Again, these are nitpicky language changes to the ECA, and the language of the ECRA largely tracks the manager’s amendment from the Senate Rules Committee, which had largely tracked the bipartisan negotiated deal that came from Senators Susan Collins and Joe Manchin. But if you really wanted to know what small changes arose, now you know.