Democracy 21 Applauds House Passage Of The Presidential Election Reform Act
Statement of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer
Democracy 21 applauds the House of Representatives and the Representatives who voted today to pass the Presidential Election Reform Act that will close dangerous loopholes in our presidential election laws.
We especially applaud the commitment and hard work of the legislation’s main sponsors, Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Liz Cheney (R-WY), for their efforts on this legislation and for their work as part of the House January 6th Committee that helped reveal how former President Donald Trump’s attempted coup to overturn the 2020 presidential election brought us perilously close to a constitutional crisis.
The House-passed Presidential Election Reform Act is strong, effective legislation that will repair critical flaws in the 19th-century laws that oversee our presidential elections.
Importantly, it closes the dangerous loophole that former President Trump attempted to exploit that would have allowed state legislatures to override the choice of their state voters, for any reason they chose, and name their own presidential electors instead.
The Senate Rules Committee is expected to mark-up a similar version of the reform legislation next week, sponsored by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), that is not expected to reach the Senate floor prior to the November elections.
It is essential that the House and Senate come together in the post-election session of Congress to enact legislation to eliminate the dangerous loopholes in the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to help ensure that a Trump-like effort to steal a presidential election cannot be successful in the future.
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