随着投票权改革如今，改革《选举计票法》的谈判已经进入尾声，但尽管两党的兴趣越来越大，谈判是否会取得成果仍远未确定。

19世纪的一部晦涩难懂的法律，规定了每个州的总统选举人票的计算，当时的总统唐纳德·特朗普和他的盟友试图利用确保一场没有在投票箱中获胜的胜利，长期以来一直是两党愤怒的话题。

该法律允许一名国会议员与一名参议员搭档反对每个州提交的结果，这是两党此前都做过的事情，尽管特朗普的盟友在2020年试图阻止比以往任何时候都多得多的州的决定。

副总统在通常敷衍了事的程序中的角色——计票和宣布选票——也极其不清楚，特朗普和他的团队试图推翻选举，向当时的副总统迈克·彭斯施加压力，要求他宣布一些州的选举人票有问题，这种压力导致了1月6日袭击在美国国会大厦。

池/盖蒂图像

副总统迈克·彭斯主持国会联席会议，认证2020年萨尔瓦多..

“我一直认为我们应该废除它，”共和党参议员罗伊·布朗特说。美国前国务卿周四表示。“如果你不能取代它，我只会赞成废除它。我认为它制造的问题多于解决方案。所以我认为人们对此很感兴趣。我的猜测是，大多数共和党参议员都会同意这一点。”

但这就是民主党的问题所在，在该党统一、高调反对联邦投票法修改后，不确定共和党对选举法修改的兴趣是否真实存在。同样，共和党人也对民主党人持怀疑态度，他们的领袖，纽约的查克·舒默，最近痛斥改革非洲经济委员会的企图是“冒犯性的”

“如果你要操纵游戏，说‘哦，我们会精确计算操纵的游戏’，那有什么好处?”当被问及非洲经委会初露头角的改革努力时，舒默最近嗤之以鼻。舒默将这些努力称为“麦康奈尔计划”，因为共和党领袖——肯塔基州的米奇·麦康奈尔——表示愿意改革法律，他补充说，“这是不可接受的不足，甚至是令人不快的。”

尽管缺乏信任据一名了解情况的参议院助手称，在过去三周，共和党参议员苏珊·科林斯一直在闭门领导两党谈判，试图改革法律，随着民主党在更广泛的选举改革方面的努力失败，人们对这些谈判的兴趣越来越大。

“我们将在休会期间努力工作，”柯林斯告诉记者。“过道两边的人都很感兴趣，这让我很受鼓舞。”

就麦康奈尔而言，他重申支持可能的非洲经济委员会改革和周四的柯林斯谈判，但更进一步，他告诉美国广播公司新闻，“我认为这需要解决，我祝他们一切顺利，我很乐意谈论他们能提出的任何东西。”当被问及这些谈判中的任何红线时，这位领导人说，“我只是鼓励讨论，因为我认为(非洲经委会)显然是有缺陷的。这与1月6日发生的事情直接相关，我认为我们应该能够找到一种两党合作的方式来解决这个问题。”

犹他州共和党参议员米特·罗姆尼是该组织的早期成员，他告诉美国广播公司新闻，“大约有10名共和党人，可能有4到5名民主党人正在为此努力。我们交换了一份我们认为应该包括在选举改革方案中的事项清单——一些事项涉及确保选举官员不受骚扰，其他事项涉及选举如何认证，其他事项涉及副总统在选举会计过程中的角色，以及如何处理对选民名单的反对。”

罗姆尼说，围绕如何实施这些项目的细节将是复杂的，谈判“刚刚开始讨论我们将在法案中找到哪些项目的足够支持”。

两者保守的民主党人西弗吉尼亚州的乔·曼钦(Joe Manchin)和亚利桑那州的基尔斯顿·西内马(Kyrsten Sinema)拒绝支持修改参议院规则以通过他们政党的全面投票权立法，他们正与科林斯一起努力修改ECA，共和党参议员汤姆·蒂利斯、莉萨·穆尔科斯基和罗杰·威克(Roger Wicker)也在努力。据参与谈判的助手说，一些参议员，如布朗特、珍妮·沙欣(Jeanne Shaheen)和本·萨斯(Ben Sasse，R-Neb)，已经表现出兴趣，但尚未承诺成为该组织的一员。

汤姆·威廉姆斯/CQ-通过盖蒂图像公司点名

参议员乔·曼钦和苏珊·科林斯与记者谈论首都的投票权

曼钦在接受记者采访时表示，他特别关注针对投票工作人员的暴力和威胁，这些暴力和威胁近年来有所增加，尤其是在特朗普所谓的“弥天大谎”称自己赢得大选之后2020年选举但它是通过欺诈从他那里偷来的。

“他们现在很害怕，因为政治气氛非常紧张。我们确实想确保如果你搭讪，如果你威胁任何在投票站工作的人，我们可以把这提高到联邦犯罪的水平，你将受到最严厉的惩罚，”领导民主党谈判的曼钦说。“你不会愚弄伯爵和我们的投票人。”

据罗姆尼称，柯林斯-曼钦小组计划在未来几天与Zoom会面，以期在下周休会结束时可能提出一项立法提案，不过柯林斯给出了一个更冷静的估计。“我想我们不知道需要多长时间。我们做了很多研究。我们已经与选举专家、教授、选举援助专员和各种各样的人进行了交谈，以确保我们做得对。”

柯林斯说，她的小组的工作范围将不仅仅是有150年历史的《选举计数法》，比如为各州提供额外的拨款，以提高其投票系统的质量，她对乔·拜登总统表示愿意与共和党人合作完成这项工作的言论感到鼓舞。

包括参议员艾米·克洛布查尔和安格斯·金在内的一群资深民主党人也在进行类似的努力，他们由舒默的副手、伊利诺伊州的迪克·德宾领导。杜宾说，他计划和柯林斯参议员谈谈她为看看一起能做些什么所做的努力。

“我们不一定会合并我们的努力，不。我们只是想看看他们在做什么，然后好好谈谈，”杜宾本周告诉记者。

在众议院，行政委员会的一份工作人员报告在一份31页的报告中概述了该法律的潜在变化，该组织称该法律“急需改革”该小组主席、加州民主党众议员佐伊·洛弗格伦告诉记者，他们的提议可能会为调查1月6日袭击事件的特别委员会提供一个基础，并据此提出立法改革建议噪声功率比(noise power ratio)。

Bipartisan senators turn to reforming Electoral Count Act now that voting rights standoff over

Withvoting rights reformnow firmly in the rear view mirror, negotiations to reform the Electoral Count Act have ramped up, but it remains far from certain that the talks will bear fruit despite the growing bipartisan interest.

The obscure 19th century law that governs the counting of each state's electoral votes for president, a process then-President Donald Trump and hisallies sought to exploitto secure a victory not won at the ballot box, has long been the subject of bipartisan ire.

The law allows one congressman paired with one senator to object to the results submitted by each state, something both parties have done previously, although Trump allies in 2020 attempted to block the decision of far more states than ever before.

The vice president's role in what usually is a perfunctory proceeding -- counting and announcing the votes -- is also extremely unclear, and Trump and his team attempted, in an effort to overturn the election, to exert pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to declare some states' slates of electoral votes in question, pressure that led to theJan. 6 attackon the U.S. Capitol.

"I've always thought we should just repeal it," Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a former secretary of state, said Thursday. "If you can't replace it, I'd be just for repealing it. I think it creates more problems than it creates solutions. And so I think there's a lot of interest in doing something about that. And my guess is that the majority of Republican senators would agree with that."

But therein lies the problem for Democrats, unsure if GOP interest in electoral law changes is real after the party's unified, high-profile opposition to federal voting law changes. Republicans are, likewise, suspicious of Democrats whose leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, recently lambasted attempts to reform the ECA as "offensive."

"If you're going to rig the game and say, 'Oh, we'll count the rigged game accurately,' what good is that?" Schumer recently scoffed when asked about budding ECA reform efforts. Branding those efforts "the McConnell plan," since the GOP leader – Mitch McConnell of Kentucky -- has expressed an openness to reforming the law, Schumer added, "It's unacceptably insufficient and even offensive."

Despite thelack of trustamong the parties, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has led bipartisan talks behind closed doors for the past three weeks to try to reform the law, with interest in those negotiations growing "big time" in the wake of the Democrats' failed effort at broader electoral reforms, according to a Senate aide with knowledge of the matter.

"We're going to be working hard over the recess," Collins told reporters. "I'm very encouraged at the amount of interest that there is from both sides of the aisle."

For his part, McConnell reiterated his support for possible ECA reform and the Collins talks Thursday, but went a bit further, telling ABC News, "I think it needs fixing, and I wish them well, and I'd be happy to talk a look at whatever they can come up with." Asked for any red lines in those negotiations, the leader said, "I just encourage the discussion, because I think (the ECA) is clearly is flawed. This is directly related to what happened on January 6th, and I think we ought to be able to figure out a bipartisan way to fix it."

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, an early member of the group, told ABC News, "There are about 10 Republicans and maybe four or five Democrats that are working on it. We exchanged a list of things that we thought ought to be included in an election reform package -- some items related to making sure that election officials were not harassed, others related to how elections are certified, others related to what the role of the Vice President is in the electoral accounting process, how you would deal with an objection to a slate of electors."

The details around how to implement each of these items would be complex, and the negotiation is "just now beginning to talk about which of these we'll find sufficient support for in a bill," said Romney.

Bothconservative Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona -- who refused to support changing the Senate rules to pass their party's sweeping voting rights legislation -- are working with Collins on ECA changes, along with GOP Senators Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, and Roger Wicker, among others. Some senators, like Blunt, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., have shown interest, according to aides involved in the talks, but have yet to commit to being a part of the group.

Manchin, speaking with reporters about the talks, said he was particularly focused on violence and threats against poll workers which have ramped up in recent years in particular in the wake of Trump's so-called "big lie" that he won the2020 electionbut it was stolen from him by fraud.

"They're scared now, because of the highly charged political atmosphere. We do want to make sure that we can raise this to the level of a federal crime if you accost, if you threaten anyone who works at the polls, you'll be dealt with with the harshest penalties," said Manchin, who is leading the talks for Democrats. "You're not going to fool with the count and our voting people."

The Collins-Manchin group plans to meet by Zoom in the next few days, with an eye toward potentially producing a legislative proposal at the end of next week's recess, according to Romney, though Collins offered a more sober estimate. "I think we don't know how long it's going to take. We've done a lot of research. We've talked to election experts, professors, the election assistance commissioners, all sorts of people to make sure we get this right."

Collins said the scope of her group's work will go beyond just the 150-year old Electoral Count Act, like additional grant funding for states to improve the quality of their voting systems, and that she was encouraged by President Joe Biden's comments expressing a willingness to work with Republicans to get this done.

A parallel effort is happening among a group of senior Democrats, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Angus King - - led by Schumer's number two, Dick Durbin of Illinois. Durbin said he planned to talk to Sen. Collins about her efforts to see what might be done together.

"We wouldn't necessarily merge our efforts, no. We just want to see what they are doing and talk it through," Durbin told reporters this week.

In the House, a staff report from the Administration Committee, outlined in a 31-page report potential changes to the law which the group says is "badly in need of reform." Their proposal could provide a foundation for the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks from which to recommend legislative changes, the panel's chair, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., toldNPR.