Following the events of January 6, outgoing Wyoming GOP representative Liz Cheney has proposed a new law that will assist in preventing “another attempt to steal a presidential election.”
Cheney and Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who are both involved in the House Select Committee looking into the circumstances leading up to the Capitol insurrection, announced a series of changes to the Electoral Count Act that would “make it clear that Congress can’t overturn an election result” in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal.
Donald Trump is reported to have committed a number of felonies in an effort to rig the election, and Cheney and Lofgren claim that he is still making “intentionally false election fraud allegations, claiming that he should be reinstalled as president.”
The MPs went on to say that a number of the politicians running for office in the 2017 midterm elections, particularly those in charge of overseeing elections, would attempt to skew future results and “embrace those lies and other groundless conspiracy theories.”
“This raises the prospect of another effort to steal a presidential election, perhaps with another attempt to corrupt Congress’s proceeding to tally electoral votes,” Cheney and Lofgren wrote.
Cheney and Lofgren suggested amending the Electoral Count Act of 1887 based on “four essential concepts” as part of the proposed modifications.
A vice president “has no authority or discretion” to reject official state electoral slates or postpone the count as part of their ceremonial position as presiding officer of the Senate, according to the first amendment that will be made to the legislation.
Trump misrepresented Mike Pence’s authority to prevent the certification of the results in Congress on January 6, 2021, as part of his efforts to annul the 2020 Election, despite the vice president’s denials that he had any constitutional or legal authority to do so.
The reasons on which members of Congress can object to election slates should be made more specific, according to Cheney and Lofgren in other places. The 12th Amendment’s “clear criteria” for voter balloting, as well as constitutional standards for candidate and elector eligibility, are examples of grounds that might be acceptable.
Following the filing of objections, a majority vote in both chambers is required to entertain the objections before they can be upheld.
Additionally, Cheney and Lofgren said that presidential candidates should have the right to file a lawsuit if any election official refuses to notify Congress of the results of a valid election and that it be written into federal law that elections cannot be changed once they have taken place.
“Our proposal is intended to preserve the rule of law for all future presidential elections by ensuring that self-interested politicians cannot steal from the people the guarantee that our government derives its power from the consent of the governed,” the pair wrote.
Cheney, who was defeated in the GOP primary by Trump supporter Harriet Hagemen in August, promised to keep fighting to keep the former president from being able to run for government again.
“We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it,” Cheney said. “I have said since January 6, that I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.”
