Bill would postpone meeting of Electoral College to decide the next president from December 14 to January 2
Should the COVID-19 pandemic delay when the 538 people who will pick the next Commander-in-Chief meet?
Context
It’s looking increasingly likely that the U.S. will not know the result of the 2020 presidential election on Election Night itself, as usual.
This election will likely be conducted significantly by mail, and 15 states don’t allow mail-in ballots to be counted until Election Day, no matter how much earlier the ballots actually arrived. These include such critical swing states as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It’s possible those, or other states, could take days or even weeks to determine their final winner. Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to mail in their ballots, so it also seems likely that uncounted or late-counted ballots will be largely separated by party.
In the 2000 election, Florida took more than a month before being officially declared for George W. Bush. Even in 2016, although it looked like Donald Trump probably won on election night, the result still looked conceivably close enough that Hillary Clinton didn’t concede until the next day. And that election had comparatively few mail-in ballots relative to the amount expected in 2020.
For a really extreme example, albeit not in a presidential race, Minnesota’s 2008 Senate election took more than eight months to resolve. Although those ballots weren’t mailed in, the votes in contention were absentee, with the months-long dispute centering on rationales for rejection of counting certain ballots — a dispute likely to recur in 2020.
The currently scheduled dates are November 3 for the election, December 8 as the so-called “safe harbor” deadline for states to resolve any potential presidential election disputes, and December 14 for when the 538 members of the Electoral College formally meet in their respective states to cast their states’ official votes for the next president.
What the bill does
A new bill would postpone the safe harbor deadline from December 8 to January 1, and the Electoral College meeting from December 14 to January 2.
It was introduced in the Senate on August 6 as bill number S. 4517, by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). The bill does not appear to have an official title.
To be clear, this is not the same thing as postponing the actual election. President Donald Trump suggested that idea in July, although he does not have the power to delay the election unilaterally, only Congress could. Sen. Rubio shot down even the possibility of Congress doing it.
“He can suggest whatever he wants. The law is what it is. We’re going to have an election that’s legitimate, it’s going to be credible, it’s going to be the same as we’ve always done it,” Sen. Rubio said in response to Trump’s comments. “I wish he hadn’t said that. But it’s not going to change. We’re going to have an election in November. And people should have confidence in it.”
What supporters say
Supporters argue the bill would provide the maneuverability to make sure all votes are counted fully and fairly by the time of two important markers on the presidential election calendar, without actually delaying either the November 3 election or the January 20 inauguration — arguably the two most important dates of all.
“We should give states the flexibility to provide local election officials additional time to count each and every vote by moving the federal safe harbor deadline for states from December 8 to January 1,” Sen. Rubio wrote in a Medium post. “I introduced a bill to do exactly that, and urge my colleagues to join me in giving states more time to collect, verify, and count votes without fear of having the results challenged in Congress.”
“Changing the calendar after the election would be very difficult, because at that point various partisans looking at available results would have different views about who would benefit from an extension,” Kevin Johnson and Yuval Levin wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “But now, before anyone has voted, we can all agree that more time could help without giving one party an advantage over the other.”
“The specific calendar should be established by Congress, but it might be reasonable to have the electors meet on January 2, after a safe-harbor deadline on New Year’s Eve,” Johnson and Levin continued. “Even if the results remained unclear until well into December, state officials would have much more breathing room as transition preparations for both would-be presidents could commence.”
GovTrack was unable to locate any statements of opposition.
Odds of passage
The bill has not yet attracted any cosponsors. It awaits a potential vote in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
Odds of passage are low in the Democratic-controlled House, and possibly even in the Republican-controlled Senate.
This article was written by GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin.
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