How Congress will certify Trump’s Electoral College victory

WASHINGTON-

The joint session of the US Congress to count electoral votes on Monday is expected to be much less eventful than the certification four years ago, interrupted by a violent mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump who tried to stop the count and cancel the results. an election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

This time, Trump returns to power after winning the 2024 election that began with Biden as his party’s nominee and ended with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. She will preside over the certification of her own loss, fulfilling her constitutional role in the same way that Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, did after the violence ended on January 6, 2021.

Usually a routine affair, the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 every four years is the final step in reaffirming a presidential election after the Electoral College officially elects the winner in December. The meeting is required by the Constitution and involves several distinct steps.

What happens when Congress meets?

Under federal law, Congress must meet on January 6 to open each state’s sealed certificates containing a record of their electoral votes. The votes are brought into the room in special mahogany boxes used for the occasion.

Bipartisan representatives from both chambers read the results aloud and conduct an official count. The vice president, as president of the Senate, presides over the session and declares the winner.

The Constitution requires Congress to meet and count electoral votes. In the event of a tie, the House decides who chairs, with each congressional delegation having one vote. This hasn’t happened since the 1800s and it won’t happen this time because Trump’s election victory over Harris was decisive, 312-226.

How has it changed since last time?

Congress tightened certification rules after the 2021 violence and Trump’s attempts to usurp the process.

Notably, the revised Election Counting Act, passed in 2022, more explicitly defines the vice president’s role after Trump aggressively pushed Pence to object to the Republican’s defeat — an action that would have gone far beyond the Pence’s ceremonial role. Pence pushed back against Trump and ultimately overturned his own defeat. Harris will do the same.

The updated law clarifies that the vice president does not have the authority to determine the results on January 6.

Harris and Pence were not the first vice presidents to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of presiding over their own defeats. In 2001, Vice President Al Gore presided over the recount of the 2000 presidential election, which he narrowly lost to Republican George W. Bush. Gore had to reject several Democratic objections as inadmissible.

In 2017, Biden, as vice president, presided over the count that declared Trump the winner. Biden also rejected objections from House Democrats who had no Senate support.

How does the session take place?

The presiding officer opens and presents the records of the electoral votes in alphabetical order of the States.

“Scrutineers” appointed by the House and Senate, members of both parties, then read each certificate aloud, record and count the votes. At the end, the president announces who won the most votes for president and vice president.

What if there is an objection?

After a poll worker reads any state’s certificate, a legislator can stand up and object to that state’s vote for any reason. But the president will not hear the objection unless it is in writing and signed by one-fifth of each house.

This threshold is significantly higher than the previous one. Previously, a successful objection only required support from one member of the Senate and one member of the House. Lawmakers raised the threshold in the 2022 law to make objections more difficult.

If an objection meets the threshold — which is not expected this time — the joint session is suspended and the House and Senate meet in separate sessions to consider it. For the objection to be upheld, both chambers must support it by a simple majority. If they disagree, the initial electoral votes are counted without change.

In 2021, the House and Senate rejected challenges to electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Before 2021, the last time such an objection was considered was in 2005, when Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Senator Barbara Boxer of California, both Democrats, objected to Ohio’s electoral votes , claiming there were voting irregularities. The House and Senate debated the objection and easily rejected it. It was only the second time such a vote had taken place.

What happens next?

Once Congress certifies the vote, the president is sworn in on the West Front of the Capitol on January 20.

The joint session is the last formal chance for objection, beyond any legal challenge. Harris conceded and never disputed Trump’s victory.