Who counts the electoral votes to determine who won the presidency?
Congress will meet in joint session on Jan. 6, 2009 to count the votes of the electors. Here’s how the Constitution puts it, “The President of the Senate (Dick Cheney) shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” If at least one member of the House and one member of the Senate object to any electoral votes from a state, then the House and Senate each go into separate sessions to debate and vote on the contested electoral votes. Both the House and the Senate must vote to reject the challenged electoral votes in order for them to be rejected. What if it’s discovered there was massive vote fraud or errors in a state that tipped the balance? In all likelihood, this scenario would lead to an intense court battle. The litigation could reach the Supreme Court as the Florida election controversy did in 2000. But Congress could also decide the validity of the electoral votes from any given state when it meets
