Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of Congress
was present because the point of order had not been endorsed by one Member from each chamber.[1]
Objecting to the Counting of One or More Electoral Votes
Section 15 establishes a procedure for making and acting on objections to the counting of one or more of the electoral votes from a state or the District of Columbia. When the certificate or equivalent paper from each state or the District of Columbia is read, “the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any.” Any such objection must be presented in writing and must be signed by at least one Senator and one Representative. The objection “shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof.” During the joint session of January 6, 2001, the presiding officer intervened on several occasions to halt attempts to make speeches under the guise of offering an objection.
When an objection, properly made in writing and endorsed by at least one Senator and one Representative, is received, each house is to meet and consider it separately. The statute states, “No votes or papers from any other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.” However, in 1873, before enactment of the law now in force, the joint session agreed, without objection and for reasons of convenience, to entertain objections with regard to two or more states before the houses met separately on any of them.
Disposing of Objections
The joint session does not act on any objections that are made. Instead, the joint session is suspended, the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each house meets separately to debate the objection and vote whether, based on the objection, to count the vote or votes in question. Both houses must vote separately to agree to the objection by simple majority. Otherwise, the objection fails and the vote or votes are counted. (3 U.S.C. §15 provides that “the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes.”)
These procedures have been invoked twice since enactment of the 1887 law. The first was an instance of what has been called the “faithless elector” problem. In 1969, a Representative (James O’Hara of Michigan) and a Senator (Edmund S. Muskie of Maine) objected in writing to counting the vote of an elector from North Carolina who had been expected to cast his vote for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, but who instead cast his vote for George Wallace and Curtis LeMay. Both chambers met and voted separately to reject the objection, so when the joint session resumed, the challenged electoral vote was counted as cast.[2] In that instance, the elector whose
- ↑ For the full transcript of the joint session of January 6, 2001, see Congressional Record, vol. 147 (January 6, 2001), pp. 101–115.
- ↑ When the two chambers reconvened in joint session, the Secretary of the Senate reported that the Senate had agreed to the following action: “Ordered, that the Senate by a vote of 33 ayes to 58 nays rejects the objection to the electoral votes cast in the State of North Carolina for George C. Wallace for President and Curtis E. LeMay for Vice President.” The Clerk of the House stated the results of the House action: “Ordered, that the House of Representatives rejects the objection to the electoral vote of the State of North Carolina submitted by the Representative from Michigan, Mr. O’Hara, and the Senator from Maine, Mr. Muskie.” Congressional Record, vol. 115 (January 6, 1969), p. 171. The House vote was 170–228. See also Deschler’s Precedents, vol. 3, chap. 10, §3.6. Both houses used roll call votes to decide the question.
