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Dear Friend,
The January 6th Committee has uncovered jaw-dropping documents that reveal how Donald Trump and his lawyers intended to steal the 2020 election.1
But what's most terrifying is that their plan just might have worked.
Trump's lawyers presented him with a plan for how the obscure 1887 Electoral Count Act could be used to allow Republican-controlled state legislatures to throw out their states' election results and effectively declare Donald Trump the winner.2 They even forged documents that they sent to the National Archives as part of the plot.3
The Electoral Count Act needs to be fixed to make it much more difficult for these tactics to succeed. Even Mitch McConnell last week an openness to reforming the law, so we have a real chance to get this done.4 But Congress won't do anything unless they hear from the American people.
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The Electoral Count Act has been called "almost unintelligible" by election law experts.5 Passed in the wake of the notorious 1876 presidential election that led to the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow in the South, the Electoral Count Act is supposed to set rules for how votes are counted in presidential elections.
But this law is so badly written and self-contradictory that it's effectively a ticking time bomb threatening to blow up our Constitution. And thanks to Trump's 2020 efforts, we know we must assume that bomb will go off as soon as 2024 unless Congress acts.
Clearly, we need much broader voting rights legislation to stop the GOP's voter suppression efforts. Spurred on by Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen, Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed 34 laws making it harder to vote by shortening early voting, making voting lines longer, purging voter rolls, and even making it illegal to hand out food and water to voters waiting in line.
Fixing the Electoral Count Act, along with passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, is an essential step to protecting our democracy from Trump and his allies. It will take a loud outcry from the public to make it happen in Congress. Since the January 6 insurrection, Demand Progress has mobilized people to send more than 100,000 messages urging these reforms to Congress, including tens of thousands in support of the Electoral Count Act this month.
In the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, "Trump's next coup has already begun."6 Demand Progress needs your help to keep the pressure on, before it's too late.
Thanks for standing with us.
Robert Cruickshank,
Demand Progress
P.S.: Your contributions are what keep us nimble and prepared to take on important fights like these as they happen. Will you become a monthly donor to keep our work going?
Sources:
1. CNN, "READ: Trump lawyer's full memo on plan for Pence to overturn the election," September 21, 2021
2. CNN, "Memo shows Trump lawyer's six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election," September 21, 2021
3. MSNBC, "After 2020, Trump backers forged election docs in three states," January 11, 2022
4. Politico, "McConnell cracks door to Electoral Count Act reform," January 22, 2022
5. The New York Times, "Fearing a Repeat of Jan. 6, Congress Eyes Changes to Electoral Count Law," December 4, 2021
6. The Atlantic, "Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun," December 6, 2021
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