Counting the Vote

Congressman McClintock delivered the following remarks on the House floor disusssing H.R. 8873.

Watch the full remarks here and a transcript is below:

Madam Speaker:

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 asserts that the Congress may vote to disqualify electoral votes. It was misused by the Democrats in 2016 and by Republicans in 2020, attempting to interfere with the constitutionally required tally of electoral votes. I believe both sides were wrong.

Congress has no such power. Period. Think about it. Under our Constitution, if no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the election immediately passes to the House and Senate. If Congress had the power to pass judgement on the validity of electoral votes, it could simply invalidate enough to place the election in its own hands – an obvious conflict of interest. That's why the Constitution clearly mandates that the vote shall be counted in the presence of the Congress.

Disputes arising from the conduct of elections are the sole province of the courts. Does anyone seriously believe that a Congress of 535 intensely partisan politicians is a safe repository for the power to adjudicate the integrity of the vote? Well, neither did the founders.

This measure does narrow the grounds upon which the count can be interfered with by the Congress, but it still allows Congress to invalidate electoral votes, so it does not solve the problem. And, it creates new problems by allowing a state to delay its election for up to five days – after the rest of the nation's vote is already known. Can you imagine the chaos and suspicions that would create?

How sad that such an important issue as the electoral count should be handled in so clumsy and partisan a bill as this.