"[11]: 643  Modern commenters have stated that the law "invites misinterpretation", observing that it is "turgid and repetitious", and that "[i]ts central provisions seem contradictory.

Richard Nixon, Walter Mondale, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, and Kamala Harris all notably presided over counts that handed themselves, or their party, a loss.

[15][16] Simple majorities of a new House and Senate could also set new rules for a subsequent joint session convened to count electoral votes unless constitutional provisions were to be enacted.

"[24]: 104 Section 2 does not require a state to make a final determination by that date in order for its electoral votes to ultimately be counted by Congress.

On December 3, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito set a deadline of December 8 (the safe-harbor date for 2020) for Pennsylvania officials to respond to a request to throw out the state's mail-in voting results, or possibly the entire Pennsylvania election in Representative Mike Kelly's suit at the Supreme Court.

[28][29] The attorneys general of Ohio and Arizona filed neutral motions noting that the United States Supreme Court has a duty to rule on the matter however both expressed no further opinion.

The US Supreme Court affirmed that it had jurisdiction over the matter on December 11, 2020, but denied the motion for leave to file a bill of complaint for "lack of standing".

[32] On December 27, 2020, Texas Representative Louis Gohmert filed a suit in US District Court seeking to give Vice President Mike Pence full authority to declare which slate of electors would be accepted by Congress.

As narrated by an attorney in the Office of the Federal Register at the time: [O]n December 12, the Supreme Court announced its decision in favor of Governor Bush....

While other lawyers argued over the full meaning of the Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, the Office of the Federal Register pored over it for a procedural path to formally end the dispute over Florida's electors.

Because federal law did not account for a "re-ascertainment" of electors after a partial recount of votes, we had to devise a new form of document to suit the Court's opinion.

[49] But if the counting of the electoral votes and the declaration of the result have not been completed before the fifth calendar day after the joint session began, "no further or other recess shall be taken by either House.

"[40] In doing so, the goal of the Act "was to reduce the Senate President's discretionary power as gatekeeper to the absolute minimum...."[8]: 639  Indeed, in one case from 1889, papers sent as a "practical joke" were presented to the joint session.

Since safe harbor determinations are supposed to be "conclusive," there is some tension between the provisions since Section 4 still allows for Congress to reject a state's votes.

"[8]: 616 This provision of the law was designed to resolve the significant question in the nineteenth century regarding the proper role of Congress in reviewing controversies about which electors a state had appointed.

[8]: 614615 The first time an objection occurred was in 1969, in response to a faithless elector from North Carolina who voted for George Wallace instead of Richard Nixon.

[54][50] After the 2004 United States presidential election, Senator Barbara Boxer of California joined Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio in filing a congressional objection to the certification of Ohio's Electoral College votes due to alleged irregularities including disqualification of provisional ballots, alleged misallocation of voting machines, and disproportionally long waits in poor and predominantly African-American communities.

§ 15) seeks "[to direct] Congress away from an open ended search for the proper return, and towards the simpler issues of identifying the state's final determination authority and whether that institution had reached its decision according to the terms and conditions of [3 U.S.C.

[59][58]: 357 For example, Senator George Hoar, who introduced the tiebreaker as a floor amendment, mentions it only in the context of the third scenario where there is no safe harbor determination.

"[57]: 1022 In contrast, Stephen A. Siegel argues textually that based on punctuation, the tiebreaker provision should be read "as relating to the entire preceding sentence, not just to the clause after the final semicolon.

"[8]: 664  Siegel viewed the main purpose of amendments that led to the tiebreaker being added as being to "respond to congressmen concerned about the power of one house of Congress to disenfranchise a state when there were multiple returns."

[8]: 668–669 These provisions were a reaction to the problem of multiple returns encountered in the 1876 United States presidential election, before the Electoral Count Act was passed.

[10] Observers, including the conservative National Review, described these electors as "extralegal," "bizarro," and "hav[ing] no actual significance.

"[10][66][68][69] Once the votes have been "ascertained and counted in the manner and according to the rules ... provided" by the Act, "the results ... shall be delivered [by the tellers] to the president of the Senate."

"[40] An earlier version of the bill would have required the Senate president to announce "the names of persons, if any, elected," but the phrase was stricken with the Conference Report explaining that the reason for the change was "to prevent the President from doing more than announcing the state of the vote as ascertained and delivered to him by the tellers...."[8]: 642–643 [70] To be elected by the electoral college, the Constitution requires that a candidate receive "a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed.

The Senate president's role is strictly limited by the Act to receiving the tellers' lists and "announc[ing] the state of the vote.".

By imposing strict limits on procedures, debate, and recesses, the Electoral Count Act is designed to help Congress achieve an election result before the term of the outgoing president ends.

[78] On January 1, 2021, Judge Jeremy Kernodle dismissed the case saying all of the plaintiffs lack standing and therefore the court "is without subject matter jurisdiction".

[81] The applicants asked that the court direct the vice president to refrain from invoking the dispute-resolution provisions of the ECA, pending resolution of a petition of a writ of certiorari.

[84] In 2001, 2017 and again in 2021,[85][86][87] incumbent vice presidents who were also executive candidates, overruled objections to counting the certificates of votes that were favorable to their opponents.