Congress certified the 2024 presidential election results Monday.
And unlike with the 2020 election, no Coloradans objected to the vote count and a mob didn’t disrupt the events.
Instead, the joint meeting of Congress proceeded like in pre-2021 years.
As senators filed into the House chamber, new Republican Reps. Jeff Hurd and Gabe Evans talked with other lawmakers, like Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa. Rep. Lauren Boebert sported a black Make America Great Again baseball cap as she sat in the back row.
On the Democratic side of the chamber, Rep. Joe Neguse shook hands with a former colleague, the new senator Andy Kim of New Jersey, while Colorado Sens. John Hickenlooper chatted with members on the House floor.
Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the count as tellers, two House members and two Senators, went state by state and said how many votes Harris and Republican Donald Trump received. Vice President-elect JD Vance, still for the moment an Ohio Senator, sat in the front row with other GOP senators.
The Democratic side of the chamber applauded when Colorado’s votes were read: 10 votes for Harris for President and 10 votes for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for Vice President. At the end of the count, as expected, Trump received 312 votes, while Harris received 226 votes.
The smooth process was a far cry from Jan. 6, 2021, when the House had to reconvene to finish the tally late in the night, after being interrupted by a violent mob, which sent lawmakers into hiding and occupied the Capitol for hours. At least 19 Coloradans have been charged with participating in the riot.
During the certification in 2021, Boebert and then-Rep. Doug Lamborn joined more than 100 other Republican House members who voted to overturn President Joe Biden’s win, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
This time, Boebert, an ardent Trump supporter, sent out a video message of her walking in the D.C. snow saying a storm wasn’t going to stop “me from certifying the election of President Donald J. Trump.”
Then, only GOP Rep. Ken Buck voted to certify Biden’s win with all the state’s Democrats.
Since that attack, Congress reformed the Electoral Count Act to clarify the vice president’s role and to prevent attempts to overturn the results of an election. It raised the threshold for objection from one member from each chamber to 1/5 of members from each chamber and would need a majority of each chamber for the objection to be sustained. The law also raised the bar for objections.
Many Democratic lawmakers remembered the attack from four years ago, saying they would do their job.
“Today Congress will certify the first presidential election since the attack, as is our constitutional duty,” wrote Democratic Rep. Jason Crow. “We can never repeat the events of January 6, 2021. We must always work to defend our democracy, protect free & fair elections, and ensure a peaceful transfer of power.”
