(Chris Parker, Headline USA) Ahead of a massive red wave anticipated during the Nov. 8 midterm election, Democrats are scrambling to use the waning weeks of their majority control to change the Electoral Count Act, Just the News reported.
The 135-year-old legislation, which has set the procedures for counting and certifying votes during presidential elections, came under attack after former President Donald Trump and his allies nearly used it to wage a successful challenge of the 2020 outcome.
The new bill, dubbed the Presidential Election Reform Act, will be presented to House and Senate panels on Tuesday, although it remains largely unseen.
The Senate Rules and Administration Committee hopes the bill will allow them to revamp the 1887 law in order to “clarify what happens during presidential transitions.”
If passed, it will raise the necessary thresholds needed for Congress to consider challenges to the Electoral College votes of any state. It would require one-fifth of the House and Senate rather than one in each chamber.
Trump criticized an earlier attempt to amend the act in July that would have restricted a state’s electors.
He pointed out the fact that his adversaries in Congress were trying to close a legal loophole that they insisted, at the time, had never existed in the first place.
The procedure for having alternate electors cast votes was last invoked during the 1960 race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. It would have empowered then-Vice President Mike Pence to make a final determination as to which electors should be counted.
“So the Democrats, RINOS, and almost ALL others said that Mike Pence, or any V.P., had absolutely no right to do anything but send the ‘Votes’ to the Old Broken Crow, Mitch McConnell, even if they were fraudulent, corrupt, or highly irregular,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The V.P. was merely a ‘human conveyer [sic] belt’ and could do nothing,” he continued. “BUT NOW, the DEMS & RINOS are working to pass a Bill that stops the V.P. from doing what he was not allowed, according to them, to do. It was all a ‘Big Lie.’ Should have sent back to States!”
Ten Republicans in the Senate have expressed support for the new bill, which gives the Senate’s 50 Democrats the number of votes they need for a final vote.
However, the bill is unlikely to advance given the short timeframe. Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the bill’s top Republican supporter, said “the ‘markup’ of their bill will be on Sept. 27.”
If the Senate is reclaimed by solidly-conservative Republicans, the bill may be less likely to advance during the lame-duck session before Congress adjourns—especially if any of the 10 RINO defectors decide to withdraw their support in response to the popular mandate.
