Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Poll finds bipartisan support for reforming Electoral Count Act

Congress

A majority of voters across the political spectrum support reforming the Electoral Count Act, which governs Congress' role in the process. Above: Members of the House meet to certify the 2020 election.

J. Scott Applewhite/Getty Images

A majority of voters across the political spectrum agree that the Electoral Count Act should be modernized to "protect the will of the people," recent polling found.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 governs the casting and counting of electoral votes for president and vice president every four years, including Congress' role in the process. But election security and voting rights experts say the law's language is arcane and often confusing, which leaves room for misuse. Modernizing the law, experts say, would safeguard American democracy against another Jan. 6 insurrection or other potential crisis.

Proposed changes to the Electoral Count Act would establish more clearly defined rules for Congress and the vice president to follow, making it more difficult to reject a state's certified election results. Overall, 62 percent of voters surveyed supported such a change to the law, according to a poll released Tuesday by good-government groups Issue One, the Campaign Legal Center, Protect Democracy and RepresentUs.


Three-quarters of Democrats said they somewhat or strongly favored reforming the Electoral Count Act. More than half of independents (56 percent) and Republicans (52 percent) also indicated support.

Nearly two-thirds of voters said they would be more likely to support updating the law if the proposed changes were written by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. Nearly seven in 10 Democrats would be more likely to support ECA reform if it was bipartisan, followed by 63 percent of Republicans and half of independents.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

"One of the reasons people say that America is 'exceptional' is that we regularly hold national elections run by the states per the Constitution, accept the outcome and peacefully transfer power based on the results," said Zach Wamp, a Republican who represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representative for eight terms and now co-chairs Issue One's ReFormers Caucus. "[The Electoral Count Act] must be modernized for the 21st century so that what happened January 6, 2021, doesn't happen again."

The voters primarily support ECA reform because they are worried a political party will try to overturn the results of an upcoming presidential election in order to put its own candidate in power. A majority of Democrats (56 percent), independents (53 percent) and Republicans (63 percent) raised concerns about this.

Most voters (58 percent) said there should be only a narrow set of circumstances in which Congress could reject a state's certified election results, compared to a quarter who said Congress should have broad power to reject results. While previous election certifications featured token opposition by members of Congress, the 2020 results were heavily contested by Republicans on Jan. 6, 2021, as rioters stormed the Capitol.

"As our poll shows, voters on both sides of the aisle are worried about partisan politicians trying to throw out a state's certified presidential election results," said Robert Jones from GS Strategy Group, which conducted the poll. "The public wants to see Congress act, and they strongly believe that a solution must be bipartisan. With the next presidential election having the potential to be one of the most contentious ever, this is one area where both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree."

The nationwide online survey conducted by GS Strategy Group and ALG Research interviewed 1,012 registered voters between Sept. 20-26. The margin of error was 3.2 percentage points.

Read More

Innovative Local Solutions Can Ease America’s Housing Crisis
aerial photography of rural
Photo by Breno Assis on Unsplash

Innovative Local Solutions Can Ease America’s Housing Crisis

Across the country, families are prevented from accessing safe, stable, affordable housing—not by accident, but by design. Decades of exclusionary zoning, racial discrimination, and disinvestment have created a housing system that works well for the wealthy but leaves others behind. Even as federal cuts to public housing programs continue nationwide, powerful, community-rooted efforts are pushing back and offering real, equity-driven solutions led by local voices.

Historically, states like New Jersey show what’s possible when legal advocacy and grassroots organizing come together. In 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mount Laurel ruling established that every municipality in the state has a constitutional obligation to provide its fair share of affordable housing. This landmark legal ruling reshaped housing policy and set a national precedent. Today, organizations like Fair Share Housing Center continue to defend and expand this right, ensuring that local governments are prohibited from using zoning laws to exclude working-class families or people of color.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump Welcomes Salvadoran President, Continuing To Collaborate With Far-Right World Leaders

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 14: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House April 14, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Trump Welcomes Salvadoran President, Continuing To Collaborate With Far-Right World Leaders

WASHINGTON D.C. - President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would try to deport “as many as possible” immigrants or criminals to El Salvador. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele met with Trump at the White House to discuss the ongoing deportations of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador’s notorious Center for Terrorism Confinement (CETOC).

Trump has now deported 238 individuals to El Salvador under the 1879 Alien Enemies Act without notice or due process of law. President Bukele has agreed to help Trump with his deportation goals and received $6 million from the White House to continue these efforts.

Keep ReadingShow less
Quiet Death of Dissent
woman in black hijab holding white and black printed board
Photo by Justin Essah on Unsplash

Quiet Death of Dissent

There is something particularly American about the way we're dismantling our democracy these days – we are doing it with paperwork. While the world watches our grand political theater, immigration agents are quietly canceling visas, filling out deportation orders, and reshaping the boundaries of acceptable speech without firing a single shot.

I think about Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate who committed no crime beyond speaking his mind. I think about Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts whose academic career hangs by a thread. I think about the estimated 300 international students whose visas are under review or already revoked for daring to participate in First Amendment exercises on campus across the United States. These stories are not just about immigration status but about who is American enough to participate in its democracy and under what conditions.

Keep ReadingShow less
hundred dollar bills.
Getty Images, boonchai wedmakawand

Congress Bill Spotlight: Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act

The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about but that often don't get the right news coverage.

Trump reportedly tips his Mar-a-Lago groundskeepers with $100 bills. What if his own face appeared on them?

Keep ReadingShow less