Hickenlooper Joins Colleagues to Support Bipartisan Reforms to the Electoral Count Act

Bill would guarantee electoral votes accurately reflect each state’s vote and help to ensure peaceful and orderly presidential transitions of power

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper joined a bipartisan group of senators to cosponsor the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, legislation to reform and modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act to ensure that the electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President.

Flawed and imprecise language in the current Electoral Count Act gave rise to the failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election by illegally disregarding vote outcomes in certain states. This bipartisan bill would clarify that language to ensure attempts to subvert democracy don’t succeed in the future.

“January 6th showed how close we were to interrupting the peaceful transfer of power,” said Hickenlooper. “This bipartisan bill will help ensure the person selected by voters is inaugurated as President.”

The bill includes the following provisions:

• Electoral Count Reform Act: This section would reform and modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887 to ensure that electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President. It would replace ambiguous provisions of the 19th-century law with clear procedures that maintain appropriate state and federal roles in selecting the President and Vice President of the United States as set forth in the U.S. Constitution. This section also includes the Higher Objection Threshold, which raises the threshold for objecting to electors to one-fifth of both the House and the Senate.

• Presidential Transition Improvement Act: This section would help to promote the orderly transfer of power by providing clear guidelines for when eligible candidates for President or Vice President may receive federal resources to support their transition into office. 

Click HERE for the text of the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act. Hickenlooper joins a bipartisan group of 18 senators who support the bill.

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