Congress attached legislation to update how votes are counted and cast by the Electoral College to the omnibus appropriations bill that passed in the final days of the 117th Congress. 

This legislation was developed by a bipartisan group of Senators, including Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Susan Collins (R-ME). By offering guardrails that govern how the presidential election results get from the states to the Electoral College and then to Congress, as well as its governing process, the legislation seeks to clarify ambiguities in the previous law. 

Before the passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, or ECRA, this process was governed by a law passed in 1887 called the Electoral Count Act (ECA). The ECA set up a formal counting procedure for electoral votes following the 1876 presidential election, which saw states submit multiple slates of electors and where a deadlock in electoral votes left Congress unable to resolve the election for several weeks. The 1880 and 1884 elections that followed were also close and forced Congress to put legislation that would put procedures in place to resolve future election disputes. 

How the ECA was Used to Challenge the 2020 Election 

Fast forward to 2021, when lawyers and supporters of former President Trump attempted to use the ECA’s ambiguities to challenge the results of the 2020 election. The loopholes they tried to exploit included persuading Vice President Pence to throw out electors' votes and recruiting slates of “fake electors” from states where Joe Biden had been declared the winner and the electoral slate had been certified in his favor.  

These constitutional and political challenges all played out while thousands of insurrectionists rioted at the US Capitol, broke into the chambers of the US House and Senate, and threatened the lives of members of Congress.