From the Senate floor on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Senator Susan Collins delivered remarks in support of the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act. This legislation, which Senator Collins co-authored with Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), seeks to reform and modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887. Their bill was included in the Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which will receive a vote in the Senate this week.
“The Senate is on the verge of enacting legislation that would remedy the deep structural problems with our system of certifying and counting the electoral votes for President and Vice President,” said Senator Collins during her remarks. “Earlier this year, I, along with a dedicated bipartisan group of my colleagues, set out to craft legislation to reform and modernize the Electoral Count Act. Our bipartisan group worked night and day over the period of several months to reach a bipartisan consensus on a series of reforms that will prevent this outdated law from being used to undermine future presidential elections.”
“Nothing is more essential to the survival of a democracy than an orderly transfer of power. And there is nothing more essential to that orderly transfer of power than clear rules for effecting it,” Senator Collins concluded. “Our bill provides those clear rules. I urge my colleagues to support this historic legislation, and I thank all who were involved to bringing us to this reality.”
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The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act will reform and modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887 to ensure that electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President. It will replace ambiguous provisions of the 19th-century law with clear procedures that maintain appropriate state and federal roles in selecting the President and Vice President of the United States as set forth in the U.S. Constitution.
Senators Collins and Manchin first introduced the bill on July 20th. The bipartisan legislation has 39 Senate cosponsors, including Senate Leaders Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Rules Committee Chairman Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Ranking Member Roy Blunt (R-MO).
On August 3rd, at the invitation Senators Klobuchar and Blunt, Senators Collins and Manchin provided remarks before the Rules Committee in support of their legislation. On September 27th, the bill was favorably reported out of the Senate Rules Committee by a vote of 14-1.
In addition to Senators Collins and Manchin, the core group of negotiators include: Rob Portman (R-OH), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mark Warner (D-VA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Todd Young (R-IN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Ben Sasse (R-NE).
The additional cosponsors include: Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), John Thune (R-SD), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Tom Carper (D-DE), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Burr (R-NC), Gary Peters (D-MI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Angus King (I-ME), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV).
