Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act reforms and modernizes outdated bill exploited on January 6

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced he is co-sponsoring the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act introduced by U.S. Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). The bipartisan legislation will modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887 to ensure the electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President. Following the violent insurrection on January 6, the bill will help promote a peaceful transition of power between the outgoing and incoming President. Prior to his appointment to the U.S. Senate, Padilla served as California’s Secretary of State from 2015 to 2021.

“We need to pass the Electoral Count Reform Act,” said Senator Padilla. “This bipartisan bill presents our best opportunity to update the law that bad faith actors exploited on January 6 in their attempt to overturn a free and fair election. As the former California Secretary of State, I am well aware that fixing the outdated Electoral Count Act alone won’t address the serious concerns around ballot access in states across the country. But this bill is an important step towards securing our democracy by ensuring the peaceful transfer of power after future elections. I commend the bipartisan group of my colleagues, led by Senators Manchin and Collins, for their work getting us to this point, and I intend to work with them to ensure that the strongest possible version of this bill gets signed into law.”

“We are pleased that bipartisan support continues to grow for these sensible and much-needed reforms to the Electoral Count Act of 1887,” said Senators Collins and Manchin. “Our bill is backed by election law experts and organizations across the ideological spectrum. We will keep working to increase bipartisan support for our legislation that would correct the flaws in this archaic and ambiguous law.”

The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act includes the following provisions:

1) Electoral Count Reform Act: This section would reform and modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887 to ensure that electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President.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.

2) 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.

A one-pager on the Electoral Count Reform Act is available here.

A one-pager on the Presidential Transition Improvement Act is available here.

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