Democrats eye new strategy after failure of voting bill

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats were picking up the pieces Thursday following the collapse of their top-priority voting rights legislation, with some shifting their focus to a narrower bipartisan effort to repair laws Donald Trump exploited in his bid to overturn the 2020 election.

Though their bid to dramatically rewrite U.S. election law failed during a high-stakes Senate floor showdown late Wednesday, Democrats insisted their brinksmanship has made the new effort possible, forcing Republicans to relent, even if just a little, and engage in bipartisan negotiations.

The nascent push is focused on the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that created the convoluted proces s for the certification of presidential election results by Congress. For more than 100 years, vulnerabilities in the law were an afterthought, until Trump's unrelenting, false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election culminated in a mob of his supporters storming the Capitol.

An overhaul of the Gilded Age statute could be Democrats' best chance to address what they call an existential threat to American democracy from Trump's “big lie” about a stolen election. But with serious talks only beginning in the Senate and dwindling time before this year's midterm elections, reaching consensus could prove difficult.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-eye-new-strategy-after-failure-of-voting-bill/ar-AASZeJK

Bipartisan U.S. Senate group discusses scaled-back elections bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is discussing a scaled-back law focused on safeguarding election results and protecting election officials from harassment following Democrats' twin defeats on a voting-rights bill.

Lawmakers led by Republican Senator Susan Collins and including conservative Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are due to meet virtually on Friday to discuss reform of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, sometimes called the ECA, which allows members of Congress to dispute presidential election results.

The ECA provided the basis for an effort by former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies to overturn the presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and interrupted the certification of election results.

Collins, who said her group includes six Democrats, told reporters that the aim is "an election reform bill that is truly bipartisan, that would address many of the problems that arose on Jan. 6 and that would help restore confidence in our elections."

Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is separately preparing to introduce ECA reform legislation that would curb the role of Congress and place responsibility for resolving disputes and challenges with states, according to an aide.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bipartisan-us-senate-group-discusses-scaled-back-elections-bill/ar-AASYrSl

[Lovie777]

1. NO.

[onecaliberal]

2. Nope. NO to states picking who they want and not voters.

[Drum]

3. I propose making election day(s) as a National-Day-Off

This can shorten wait times

[SickOfTheOnePct]

4. If we can fix

the 1887 law, that's a start; not the whole thing, but a start.

And while I'm all for making Election Day a federal holiday, that still doesn't mean that everyone will have the day off, but again, it's a start.

[TheFarseer]

5. Why do we need electors?

What if the candidate that gets the most votes in Kansas gets 6 points and the most votes in Vermont gets 3 points and on down the line? What in God’s name is the point of electors?

[FBaggins]

6. I suppose we don't...

… but amending the Constitution to change that isn’t likely.