WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators proposed new legislation on Wednesday to modernize the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, working to overhaul a law that President Donald J. Trump tried to abuse on Jan. 6, 2021, to interfere with Congress’s certification of his election defeat.
The legislation aims to guarantee a peaceful transition from one president to the next, after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol demonstrated how the current law could be manipulated to disrupt the process. One measure would make it more difficult for lawmakers to challenge a state’s electoral votes when Congress meets to make its official count. It would also clarify that the vice president has no discretion over the results and set out the steps to begin a presidential transition.
A second bill would increase penalties for threats and intimidation of election officials and encourage steps to improve the handling of mail-in ballots by the Postal Service.
Alarmed at the events of Jan. 6 that showed longstanding flaws in the law governing the electoral count process, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, has been meeting for months to try to agree on a rewrite.
“From the beginning, our bipartisan group has shared a vision of drafting legislation to fix the flaws of the archaic and ambiguous Electoral Count Act of 1887,” 16 senators said in a joint statement.“Through numerous meetings and debates...
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