Month: January 2021

Counting the Votes in Congress: “Since the mid-20th century, Congress has met in a Joint Session every four years on January 6 at 1:00 p.m. to tally votes in the Electoral College. The sitting Vice President presides over the meeting and opens the votes from each state in alphabetical order. He passes the votes to four tellers—two from the House and two from the Senate—who announce the results. House tellers include one Representative from each party and are appointed by the Speaker. At the end of the count, the Vice President then announces the name of the next President.
“With the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution (and starting with the 75th Congress in 1937), the electoral votes are counted before the newly sworn-in Congress, elected the previous November.
“The date of the count was changed in 1957, 1985, 1989, 1997, 2009, and 2013. Sitting Vice Presidents John C. Breckinridge (1861), Richard Nixon (1961), and Al Gore (2001) all announced that they had lost their own bid for the Presidency” (https://history.house.gov/Institution/Electoral-College/Electoral-College/).

Continuing our series on the Electoral College: Did you know? “Since the Electoral College’s founding, there have been 167 cases of “faithless electors,” or electors voting for someone other than their party’s candidate… Of the 167 faithless electors in United States history, 71 changed their votes because of the death of their candidate, 3 abstained, and 93 opted to vote differently for personal reasons… Though some states have laws mandating that electors vote as promised, no “faithless elector” has ever been severely prosecuted” (see https://www.factretriever.com/electoral-college-facts).