Former President Donald Trump’s criticism of efforts to amend an obscure election rule has given bipartisan deliberations in the Senate a fresh sense of urgency – and uncertainty, The Hill said in a report.
Trump isn’t the only possible roadblock in the way of a compromise to change the Electoral Count Act, 135-year-old legislation that governs how Electoral College votes are calculated. A group of Democrats presented a “discussion draft” of their own plan in addition to the bipartisan negotiations, and senators are already considering what they would want to include in any agreement.
However, Trump’s decision to resurrect his critiques of ex-Vice President Mike Pence over his unwillingness to unilaterally overturn election results in areas Trump lost, while simultaneously toying with a bid for president in 2024, has put him at odds with Senate negotiators.
The bipartisan group, headed by Collins and Sen. Joe Machin, has been in the initial phases of development after establishing five subgroups to collaborate on reforming the 1887 Electoral Count Act, protecting election workers, voting practices and rights, the election assistance commission, and presidential shifts.
However, their efforts met with Trump’s following the latter slammed Collins for saying in an ABC News interview that she would most likely not back Trump in 2024 if he gets to run.
Many Republican senators criticized Trump’s contention that the continuing negotiations about modifications to the 1887 legislation fit with his notion that Pence “could have sent the votes back to individual legislators for reappraisal after so much fraud and inconsistencies were revealed.”
After Trump spearheaded a pressure campaign to persuade Pence to act unilaterally, the group is considering codifying that the vice president’s involvement in Congress’s formal counting of the Electoral College votes is ceremonial. They’re also considering boosting the number of legislators who must sign an objection before a vote can be forced in both the House and Senate.
Presently, only one House member and one Senate member are required to endorse an objection to a state’s results to trigger a vote in both chambers, when a simple majority is required to uphold the challenge.
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