Congress moved to strengthen the U.S. electoral process in fall 2022 when the House passed the Presidential Election Reform Act, which would reform the law that governs how states and voters choose the president and vice president every four years. Written in 1887, the Electoral Count Act (ECA) is considered by many to be so complex and arcane that it leaves room for ambiguity, something that former President Donald Trump and his supporters tried to exploit in their attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. According to the ECA, the Electoral College meets in states across the country on the…

A group of lawmakers recently introduced legislation to advance a voting system that aims to end, or at least ameliorate, partisanship in U.S. politics. The Voter Choice Act (S. 2939), introduced by Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Angus King (I-Maine) and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), would provide $40 million to help states and local governments to cover the costs of adopting a ranked-choice voting (RCV) model, also known as “instant-runoff voting.” Traditionally, most U.S.-based elections have followed the plurality system where candidates who receive the most votes win. Under this system, however, a candidate could receive as few as 34%…

On August 8, the Senate defeated a proposal to provide States with $250 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 to secure their voting systems. The 50-to-47 vote — on an amendment to H.R. 6147, an appropriations package — fell short of the number needed for adoption. Senator Bob Corker (TN-R) was the only Republican to support it. Democrats have been seeking to provide extra fund­ing for Election Assistance Commission grants to States. Congress previously provided $380 million for the grants in the FY 2018 omnibus appropriations bill, and Republi­cans have stated that they prefer to wait before providing more. They…

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a decision in the case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission that strikes down overall limits on campaign contributions. Although the Supreme Court has weighed in often in the past on the issue of campaign spending, recently ruling in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) that it should be protected as free speech, the Court has said little in the past few decades about the constitutionality of donation limits. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the Court was asked to rule on whether there should be a cap on the total combined donations that can be…

For the second time this summer, President Obama used his weekly radio and video address to push for passage of legislation to require public disclosure of who funds political advertising. On Saturday, September 18, he said that Congress has a responsibility to act, even if it’s too late to have an impact this election season.

Despite the Senate’s failure to pass the DISCLOSE Act last July (Congressional Digest, September 2010), the bill’s supporters aren’t giving up on the campaign finance measure. In fact, the bill was the subject of President Obama’s weekly radio address to the Nation on August 21, in which he vowed to “continue to fight for reform and transparency.”