The Lawfare Podcast: The Senate's Proposal for Electoral Count Act Reform

Jen Patja, Scott R. Anderson, Ned Foley, Genevieve Nadeau
Friday, July 22, 2022, 12:00 PM
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The false claims of election fraud and other controversies that followed the 2020 election brought to light a number of frailties in the United States system for selecting presidents. Several have their origins in the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law whose vagaries played a central role in efforts by John Eastman and other supporters of former President Trump to keep him in the White House, despite the election results.

This past Wednesday, after months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of senators finally put forward a set of legislative reforms aimed at resolving these and other issues well in advance of the next presidential election in 2024. To determine what this reform package will do and how it may impact future elections, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Ned Foley, a leading election law expert and professor at The Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, and Genevieve Nadeau, a counsel at Protect Democracy who has been actively engaged in reform efforts. They talked about what the reform package intends to change, what will stay the same, and how likely it is to eventually become law.

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Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Scott R. Anderson

Scott R. Anderson

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Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Ned Foley

Ned Foley

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Ned Foley holds Ohio State University’s Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law and directs its election law program. He currently is a Guggenheim Fellow and Visiting Professor at University of Arizona’s law school. He is the author of Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States (Oxford University Press, revised edition 2024), and Presidential Elections and Majority Rule (Oxford University Press, 2020). He writes about improving electoral procedures at Common Ground Democracy.
Genevieve Nadeau

Genevieve Nadeau

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Genevieve Nadeau is a Counsel at Protect Democracy. She leads a team focused on abuses of power and violations of the rule of law, is an expert on the Electoral Count Act, and is a lecturer at Harvard Law School. She previously served at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, including as Civil Rights Division Chief; at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and in private practice. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

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