On Monday, the congressional joint session to count electoral votes is expected to be much less eventful than the certification four years ago that was interrupted by a violent mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump. Trump is returning to office after winning the 2024 election, with Vice President Kamala Harris presiding over the certification of her own loss. This routine affair is the final step in reaffirming a presidential election after the Electoral College officially elects the winner in December.
Congress must meet on Jan. 6 to open sealed certificates from each state containing a record of their electoral votes. The vice president presides over the session and declares the winner. If there is a tie, the House decides the presidency, with each congressional delegation having one vote. However, with a decisive win of 312-226 for Trump over Harris, this scenario is unlikely to occur. The joint session unfolds with bipartisan representatives reading out the results and conducting an official count of the votes.
Congress tightened the rules for the certification after the violence of 2021 and Trump’s attempts to intervene in the process. The revised Electoral Count Act clarifies the role of the vice president, stating that they do not have the power to determine the results on Jan. 6. Harris now faces a similar situation to past vice presidents, such as Al Gore and Joe Biden, who presided over the counting of elections they had lost. The session proceeds with the opening and presentation of certificates of electoral votes in alphabetical order.
If there is an objection to a state’s vote, a lawmaker must present it in writing and with the support of one-fifth of each chamber. The threshold for objections was raised in the 2022 law to make them more difficult to sustain. If any objection reaches the threshold, the joint session suspends, and the House and Senate go into separate sessions to consider it. Congress must uphold the objection by a simple majority vote for it to be sustained. In 2021, challenges to electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania were rejected by both chambers.
The joint session marks the last official chance for objections before the president is inaugurated on Jan. 20. Harris has conceded and never disputed Trump’s win. The process of counting the electoral votes and certifying the winner is a necessary step in reaffirming the results of the presidential election and upholding the democratic process. While the session may have changed in some ways since the violence of 2021, the fundamentals of the constitutional requirement remain the same.
