January 4th 2025.
As the date for the congressional joint session to count electoral votes draws near, many are anticipating a much smoother process than the one that occurred four years ago. In 2020, the certification was marred by a violent mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump who aimed to disrupt the count and overturn the results of an election he had lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
This time around, Trump is taking office once again after securing a win in the 2024 election. The journey began with Biden as the nominee for his own party, but eventually ended with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. As per the constitutional requirement, Harris will be presiding over the certification of her own loss, just as Trump's former vice president Mike Pence did after the chaos subsided on January 6th, 2021.
Typically, the congressional joint session on January 6th, held every four years, is a routine affair and serves as the final step in reaffirming a presidential election after the Electoral College officially elects the winner in December. This meeting, mandated by the Constitution, is comprised of several distinct steps.
So, what exactly happens when Congress meets? According to federal law, they must convene on January 6th to open sealed certificates from each state containing a record of their electoral votes. These votes are brought into the chamber in special mahogany boxes specifically designated for this occasion. Representatives from both chambers, representing both parties, then read the results out loud and conduct an official count. The vice president, in their role as president of the Senate, presides over the session and ultimately declares the winner.
The Constitution stipulates that Congress must meet and count the electoral votes. In the event of a tie, the House is responsible for deciding the presidency, with each congressional delegation having one vote. However, this has not occurred since the 1800s and is not expected to happen this time, as Trump secured a decisive electoral win over Harris, with a vote of 312-226.
How has the process changed since the last time? In response to the violence of 2021 and Trump's attempts to manipulate the process, Congress has tightened the rules for certification. The revised Electoral Count Act, passed in 2022, more clearly defines the role of the vice president after Trump's aggressive push for Pence to object to his defeat - a move that would have exceeded Pence's ceremonial duties. Pence ultimately refused and officially accepted his own loss. Harris will do the same.
The updated law makes it clear that the vice president does not have the power to determine the results on January 6th. Both Harris and Pence are not the first vice presidents to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of presiding over their own defeats. In 2001, Vice President Al Gore oversaw the counting of the 2000 presidential election, which he narrowly lost to Republican George W. Bush. Gore had to gavel down several Democrats' objections. In 2017, Biden, as vice president, presided over the count that declared Trump the winner and dismissed objections from House Democrats that lacked support from the Senate.
So, how does the session unfold? The presiding officer opens and presents the certificates of the electoral votes in alphabetical order of the states. The appointed "tellers," members of both parties from both the House and Senate, then read each certificate out loud, record, and count the votes. At the end, the presiding officer announces the majority votes for both president and vice president.
But what if there's an objection? After a teller reads the certificate from any state, a lawmaker can stand up and object to that state's vote for any reason. However, the presiding officer will only consider the objection if it is in writing and signed by one-fifth of each chamber. This threshold is significantly higher than in previous years, where only one member of the House and one member of the Senate were required to support an objection. Lawmakers raised the threshold in the 2022 law in an effort to make objections more difficult.
If any objection reaches the threshold - something that is not expected to occur this time - the joint session will be suspended, and the House and Senate will go into separate sessions to consider it. For the objection to be sustained, both chambers must uphold it with a simple majority vote. If they do not agree, the original electoral votes will be counted with no changes. In 2021, both the House and Senate rejected challenges to the electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Before 2021, the last time such an objection was considered was in 2005, when Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California objected to Ohio's electoral votes, claiming voting irregularities. Both the House and Senate debated the objection and easily rejected it. This was only the second time such a vote had occurred.
And once Congress counts the votes, what happens next? After the vote is certified, the president is inaugurated on the west front of the Capitol on January 20th. The joint session serves as the final opportunity for objections, beyond any challenges in court. Harris has conceded and never contested Trump's win.
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