Aug. 3 (UPI) -- Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., said Wednesday that the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 would prevent "bad actors" from manipulating the Electoral count for their benefit. He said he is proud to support the bipartisan bill.
During prepared remarks before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, Manchin said, " As we saw on January 6, 2021, a lot of the "fixes" established by the original Electoral Count Act are not merely outdated, but actually serve as the very mechanisms that bad actors have zeroed in on as a way to potentially invalidate presidential election results."
Pro-Trump rioters out to stop the electoral vote count and disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power chanted "Hang Mike Pence!" on Jan. 6 as Trump exhorted them to pressure the Vice President into unlawfully influencing the count.
Manchin told the committee that Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 would clearly declare that the Vice President is "prohibited from interfering with the electoral votes."
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The bill would also raise the electoral count objection threshold from a single Representative and a single Senator to 20% of the members of both the House and the Senate. It also sets a hard deadline for state governors to certify their respective states' electoral results.
The bipartisan bill designed to safeguard the electoral count was negotiated by Republican and Democratic senators over many months.
The working group that crafted the bill includes Senators Portman, Romney, Murphy, Shaheen, Murkowski, Warner, Tillis, Sinema. Capito, Cardin, Young, Coons, Sasse and Graham.
The original Electoral Count Act became law in 1887, crafted as a response to close elections and controversies in 1876, 1880 and 1884.
