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S.4573 - Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022

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TITLE I—Electoral Count Reform Act

SEC. 101. Short title.

This title may be cited as the “Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022”.

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SEC. 109. Clarifications relating to counting electoral votes.

(a) In general.—Section 15 of title 3, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

Ҥ 15. Counting electoral votes in Congress

“(a) In general.—Congress shall be in session on the sixth day of January succeeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the Hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of 1 o'clock in the afternoon on that day, and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer.

“(b) Powers of the President of Senate.—

“(1) MINISTERIAL IN NATURE.—Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, the role of the President of the Senate while presiding over the joint meeting shall be limited to performing solely ministerial duties.

“(2) POWERS EXPLICITLY DENIED.—The President of the Senate shall have no power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.

“(c) Appointment of tellers.—At the joint meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives described in subsection (a), there shall be present two tellers previously appointed on the part of the Senate and two tellers previously appointed on the part of the House of Representatives by the presiding officers of the respective chambers.

“(d) Procedure at joint meeting generally.—

“(1) IN GENERAL.—The President of the Senate shall—

“(A) open the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the votes of electors appointed pursuant to a certificate of ascertainment of appointment of electors issued pursuant to section 5, in the alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and

“(B) upon opening any certificate, hand the certificate and any accompanying papers to the tellers, who shall read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses.

“(2) ACTION ON CERTIFICATE.—

“(A) IN GENERAL.—Upon the reading of each certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any.

“(B) REQUIREMENTS FOR OBJECTIONS.—

“(i) OBJECTIONS.—No objection shall be in order unless the objection—

“(I) is made in writing;

“(II) is signed by at least one-fifth of the Senators duly chosen and sworn and one-fifth of the Members of the House of Representatives duly chosen and sworn; and

“(III) states clearly and concisely, without argument, one of the grounds listed under clause (ii).

“(ii) GROUNDS FOR OBJECTIONS.—The only grounds for objections shall be as follows:

“(I) The electors of the State were not lawfully certified under a certificate of ascertainment of appointment of electors according to section 5(a)(1).

“(II) The vote of one or more electors has not been regularly given.

“(C) CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS.—

“(i) IN GENERAL.—When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision.

“(ii) DETERMINATION.—No objection may be sustained unless such objection is sustained by separate concurring votes of each House.

“(D) RECONVENING.—When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted. 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.

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