Congress counts electoral votes on Monday. What to know as lawmakers finalize the 2024 presidential election outcomes.
Washington — The Home and Senate will convene Monday to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s victory within the 2024 election.
It comes 4 years after a violent mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to stop Congress from affirming President Biden’s win. There seem like no plans by Democrats to face in the best way of certifying Trump’s win.
Here is what to anticipate this time.
How does Congress depend the presidential election outcomes?
Senators and members of the Home will meet in a joint session at 1 p.m. to tally the electoral votes from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Vice President Kamala Harris will preside in her position as president of the Senate.
The vice chairman will learn aloud the electoral votes, after which Congress counts every state’s outcomes to affirm Trump’s victory. Trump received 312 Electoral School votes, far surpassing the 270 wanted for victory. Harris received 226 votes.
The method is usually a ceremonial step earlier than a president is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Does Congress all the time depend outcomes on Jan. 6 following presidential elections?
Congress is required by regulation to depend the electoral votes on Jan. 6 after every presidential election. Nonetheless, the date has been briefly modified by regulation when Jan. 6 fell on a weekend. In 2013, Congress affirmed that President Barack Obama received the election on Jan. 4, reasonably than on Jan. 6, which was a Sunday.
What’s the Electoral Depend Reform Act, and what’s completely different about Jan. 6 this time?
After the Capitol riot in 2021, Congress moved to reform the Electoral Depend Act — an 1887 regulation that ruled the counting of electoral votes — to stop one other effort to overturn the outcomes of a presidential election.
Congress handed the Electoral Depend Reform Act in 2022, which clarified that the vice chairman’s position in presiding over the joint session of Congress is ceremonial. It additionally made it tougher for members of Congress to problem a state’s electors by elevating the edge to twenty% of members of every chamber. Beforehand, only one member of the Home and one senator have been wanted to boost an objection.
Following Trump’s defeat within the 2020 election, he and his allies fueled unfounded allegations of fraud and argued that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to simply accept or reject electoral votes. Pence denied he had such authority.
As Congress was tallying the votes in 2021, Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, joined Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, to object to Mr. Biden’s votes from Arizona.
The joint session was then suspended and the Home and Senate individually debated the objection. The method was abruptly interrupted as a violent mob of protesters made their manner into the constructing after Trump urged them to march to the Capitol.
Hours later, after rioters have been cleared from the constructing, each chambers voted to reject the objection that might have thrown out Arizona’s electoral votes for Mr. Biden. The Home and Senate then reconvened in a joint session to proceed the depend. They later have been compelled to separate and debate one other objection to Pennsylvania’s outcomes, which was introduced by Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. Each chambers additionally rejected the try and throw out the state’s votes for Mr. Biden.
What occurs if a member of Congress objects to the electoral votes?
This time, it is going to be nothing greater than a grievance. Within the final presidential election, a member from every chamber wanted to object to the depend to power lawmakers to debate and vote on whether or not to simply accept or reject a state’s outcomes. The Electoral Reform Act, handed by Congress in 2022, raised the edge to one-fifth of members in every chamber.
