Congress updates election law to prevent presidents from modifying election results

On Wednesday, September 21, the US House of Representatives voted to update a 135-year-old US law that allies of Donald Trump have tried, in vain, to take advantage of to amend the result of the November 2020 presidential election.

Fifty days before the US midterm elections, electoral reform projects are back in the US Congress. And with good reason, a large number of Republican candidates still refuse to recognize Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

Concretely, the new text removes any ambiguity about the position of the Vice President of the United States in certifying the outcome of the presidential election, by limiting it to a purely symbolic role. A way for elected officials to avoid the chaos of January 6, 2021, when thousands of Donald Trump supporters rushed to the Capitol to try to force Vice President Mike Pence and senators to amend the election result.

A competing bill in the Senate

“This bill would prevent Congress from illegally choosing the president”, endorsed one of its authors, Republican-elect Liz Cheney. She is one of the few “Old Grand Party” (GOP) members who have agreed to sit on the US Congressional committee that has been investigating for more than a year the former president’s role in the attack on Capitol Hill. All Democrats voted for his text, with the support of only nine Republicans; It was adopted (229 votes to 203 against).

A rival bill is also being debated in the Senate, with a slightly better chance of success as ten Republican senators voted for it, in theory giving it the overwhelming 60-vote majority needed to break the so-called obstruction maneuver. “Procrastination”.

These two electoral projects are nowhere near as comprehensive as the plan Joe Biden promised to protect access to the polls for African Americans. The Republican opposition was against this proposal in June 2021, ensuring that Democrats were given the right to control the ballot boxes across the country.