Senators on the record, from Burgess Everett and Elana Schor at Semafor:

The US and world are bracing for post-election chaos in Washington on Jan. 6, 2025, as Congress prepares to name a presidential winner. The reality is another story: It will be much harder to stop the certification this time around.

Lawmakers believe that their approval of the electoral count is far more likely to go smoothly this time around, despite former President Donald Trump’s celebration of the rioters who disrupted the certification of his loss four years ago. Thanks to an under-the-radar bipartisan 2022 law that significantly narrowed members’ abilities to challenge presidential election results, Hill denizens are breathing a little easier as the election approaches.

One key change: Previously, only one senator and House member could join forces to object to any state’s presidential results and force a vote. That objection threshold is now orders of magnitude higher — 20 senators and 87 House members, one-fifth of each chamber.

“I fully expect that there will be some attempts to have baseless objections. But I do not believe they will be able to meet the 20 percent threshold in each body,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the law’s chief sponsors, told Semafor. “The reforms we enacted will go a long way toward preventing another January 6.”

. . .

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. compared the upcoming Jan. 6 certification to the year 2000s Y2k scare, which stoked fears of disaster that didn’t pan out.

“It could be a dud. But to the extent that we have any vulnerabilities coming out of Jan. 6, 2021, we addressed it,” said Tillis, who unlike Collins has endorsed Trump.