Historically, there created to be three general grounds for objecting to the counting of

electoral votes. The law suggests with an objection may be demo on the version that (1) a vote

was not "regularly given" by the challenged elector(s); (2) the elector(s) was not "lawfully

certified" under state law; or (3) two slates of electors have been presented to Congress from the

same State.75 Section 15 of title 3 specifically provides:

[N]o electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given

by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified . . . from which but one

return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may

reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so

regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. If more than

one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received

by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only shall be counted which

shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown. . . to have been

Since the Electoral Count Act of 1887, no objection meeting the requirements of the Act

has been made against an entire slate of state electors.76 In the 2000 election several Members of

the House of Representatives attempted to challenge the electoral votes from the State of Florida.

However, no Senator joined in the objection, and, therefore, the objection was not "received." In

addition, there was no determination whether the objection constituted an appropriate basis under

the 1887 Act. However, if a State has not followed its own procedures and met its obligation to

conduct a free and fair election, a valid objection ­ if endorsed by at least one Senator and a

Member of the House of Representatives ­ should be debated by each body separately until

"disposed of".

Id. § 15.

In this latter case, the statute addresses three scenarios to dispose of duplicate slates of

electors. First, only the votes from the electors properly appointed are counted. Second, when

the slates are presented by two different state authorities who arguably have properly certified the

electors, both houses of Congress must concur as to which is the "lawful tribunal of such State"

and accept the slate approved by that tribunal. And, finally, if there is no authority for which

slate was lawfully appointed, both houses of Congress must agree either to accept one set of

electors over the other or to reject the electors from that state altogether.

In 1969 Senator Muskie and Representative O'Hara joined to file a objection against a

"faithless elector" who cast a vote for George Wallace and Curtis LeMay instead of the candidate

for whom he was expected to vote. The objection was debated and rejected by both houses. This

is the only objection that has been raised since the 1887 Act in accordance with its requirements.

23