For centuries, the Christian calendar has marked Epiphany on January 6th. On the political calendar, every four years after the presidential election, January 6 is the day designated to count Electoral College votes during a joint session of Congress.
Previously, this quadrennial ritual received little attention and was just another perfunctory act to confirm what everyone already knew. But lately, the day is becoming the American version. Guy Fawkes Day. (Related: Morgan Murphy: Investigate Real Extremism)
Electing a president is a difficult job. In fact, our Constitution sets out procedures to ensure that our chief executives enjoy the broadest support in the nation from a significant portion of the electorate. To do this, the founders adopted the following: electoral collegeperhaps the only true innovation in the Constitution. This “college” was an assembly of citizens elected within each state to vote for the president and vice president of each state. Election certificates from each state’s electors are sent to Washington for counting.
While the system works well most of the time, hotly contested elections have brought the procedure under scrutiny and revealed deficiencies. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, presidential elections were chaotic. And since there was no set procedure, each state sent a different certificate to each elector, thinking Congress would fix it. After several controversial elections, Congress Election counting method In 1887, it introduced a procedure for counting each state’s Electoral College votes to certify the winner of a presidential election.
One of the strange features of this law is that it specifically designates January 6 as the day for counting votes in a joint session of Congress. Obviously, there are some similarities with Epiphany. Therefore, unless it falls on a Sunday, a joint session of the House and Senate convenes on January 6 after each presidential election, with the then-current vice president as president of the Senate presiding.
The vice president’s main role is to direct vote counting operations. In reality, the House and Senate appoint several members (“tellers”) to count the votes and report the results of each state’s electoral votes. This usually takes little time and is just a perfunctory administrative matter, similar to a state roll call.
For years, this functioned without much controversy or concern, but as races grew closer together and there were irregularities in voting procedures in certain states, the January 6th ritual became more strictly enforced. now considered.
The 1960 election produced the first modern spectacle of a vice president running for president confirming defeat. Vice President Richard Nixon narrowly lost the election to Sen. John Kennedy, and all eyes were on him on January 6, 1961. In an almost macabre public display, people gathered to watch Nixon declared the loser. If anyone was expecting the loser to be pathetic or to be blamed for losing, they would have been sorely disappointed. His grace and political skill surprised, if not disappointed, his detractors.
After the votes were counted with the inevitable result, nixon said: “In our campaign, no matter how hard we fight or how close the election is, the loser accepts the verdict and we support the winner. [I]It is truly an honor for me to be able to deliver these words to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. I sincerely hope that you will be there. It is a cause of freedom, justice and peace for all mankind. ”
Other vice presidents have had this enviable opportunity. Eight years later, when Mr. Nixon defeated Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the vice president missed his Jan. 6 appointment to attend a funeral. George H.W. Bush was one of the few sitting vice presidents to confirm his victory. Vice President Al Gore was not so lucky, presiding over a controversial rally over various objections from his partisan colleagues. Like Nixon, he too refused to be drawn into public humiliation and handled himself with grace and dignity.
Only a masochist would want to see Kamala Harris as Vice President on January 6th of this year.
Will Sellers is a graduate of Hillsdale College and an associate justice on the Alabama Supreme Court. The best place to contact him is jws@willsellers.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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