[EL] Electoral Count Act
Smith, Bradley
BSmith at law.capital.edu
Sun Jan 2 11:17:40 PST 2022
The Politico article on the Electoral Count Act repeatedly states that the Constitution requires Congress to "certify" the Electoral College vote count.
In fact, there is no such requirement in the Constitution. Under the 12th Amendment, the states "certify" their electoral votes and "transmit them to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;–the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;–The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President."
There's really no process by which anybody "certifies" the final count. The states certify their own vote and send it on. Presumably, having the opening of ballots and the counting take place in public before both houses of congress assures that no one lies or errs about the count, and presumably, since all of us can count, everybody then knows and accepts the results. The current issue began in 2000, when Democrats claimed the right to object to a state's certified votes on the grounds that they believed the state certified the wrong slate under the state's chosen means for selection. The Democrats repeated this maneuver in 2004 and 2016. In 2004, over half the Democrats in the House of Representatives either voted against "certifying" the results, or abstained from voting, rather than go on record to agree with the obvious--that Bush won a clear majority. And in this, they were undoubtedly concerned about the reaction of their base voters had they voted for the obvious. Those precedents certainly played a part in the 2016 debacle.
Because Congress has no role in "certifying" results, a Congressional vote against "certifying" the results has no legal effect--others in positions of responsibility may carry out their duties as they see appropriate (that would likely be a time of true constitutional crisis, perhaps settled only by violence). But either way, the count is the count, regardless of how Congress votes to "certify" it.
It is true, of course, that elected officials can choose to ignore the Constitution, and we have many examples of that, some of the most blatant coming during the Obama administration.
We can create legal strictures that make it harder to ignore the Constitution, by alerting the populace, guiding the conscience or legal understanding of officials, or perhaps shaming them into appropriate actions. Any reform of the ECA should make clear that Congress has no role in second guessing state election results.
But it is quite true that officials may simply ignore laws or the Constitution--as Madison noted, the Constitution is ultimately a parchment barrier" to abuse of power. There is no way around this, and the question simply becomes one of whether other officials and the people will accept usurpations of the Constitution or not. Ned Foley's quote in Politico is right on target: "No rules can perfectly constrain a set of human beings who, if they want to do something out of pure political desire … could ignore rules.”
Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
303 East Broad Street
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 236-6317
Mobile: (540) 287-8954
________________________________
From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 11:33 AM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] FW: Election Law Blog: ELB News and Commentary
________________________________
From: Election Law Blog <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 8:32:10 AM (UTC-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)
To: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
Subject: Election Law Blog: ELB News and Commentary
AP: Millions of Americans watched the events in Washington last Jan. 6 unfold on live television. Police officers testified to the violence and mayhem. Criminal proceedings in open court detailed what happened.Yet the hoaxes, conspiracy theories and ...
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[Election Law Blog]
Election Law Blog: ELB News and Commentary
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