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On Agreeing to the Objection

Jan 7, 2021 at 3:08 a.m. ET.

This was a vote to exclude Pennsylvania from the 2020 presidential election.

The final step in the election of President of the United States is the counting of the Electoral College votes by a joint session of Congress on January 6 following Election Day to determine which candidate held a majority of votes. This step has been perfunctory for nearly the entire history of the country as the role of Congress under the Constitution is merely to count the votes sent by the states, with the administration of the election left to each state. During the counting on January 6, a representative and a senator together may lodge an objection to counting one or more Electoral College votes. The objection is debated in each chamber, and each chamber then votes on whether to sustain (yea) or reject (nay) the objection.

This House vote followed the objection by Rep. Perry and Sen. Hawley to the slate of electors sent by Pennsylvania.

A yea vote was a vote to exclude the Electoral College votes from Pennsylvania from the count to determine the next president.

This vote followed in the hours after the terrorist attack on the Capitol by supporters of President Trump who sought to prevent the count that would determine that President Trump had lost the election. The legislators who voted here to sustain the objection and those who participated in the attack on the Capitol made the same false allegations of widespread election fraud in various states that Trump lost. Eight representatives voting here to vacate Pennsylvania's election were themselves elected in that election.

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Totals

All Votes D R
Yea 33%
 
 
138
0
 
138
 
Nay 67%
 
 
282
218
 
64
 
Not Voting
 
 
11
4
 
7
 

Failed. Simple Majority Required. Source: house.gov.

Ideology Vote Chart

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Republican - Yea Democrat - Nay Republican - Nay
Seat position based on our ideology score.

Cartogram Map

Each hexagon represents one congressional district. Dark shaded hexes are Yea votes.

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Vote Details

Notes: The Speaker’s Vote?
The Speaker of the House is not required to vote in “ordinary legislative proceedings, except when such vote would be decisive.” In practice, this means the Speaker of the House rarely votes and only does so when it is politically useful. When the Speaker declines to vote, he or she is simply omitted from the roll call by the House Clerk. (See House Rules, Rule I(7).)
“Aye” or “Yea”?

“Aye” and “Yea” mean the same thing, and so do “No” and “Nay”. Congress uses different words in different sorts of votes.

The U.S. Constitution says that bills should be decided on by the “yeas and nays” (Article I, Section 7). Congress takes this literally and uses “yea” and “nay” when voting on the final passage of bills.

All Senate votes use these words. But the House of Representatives uses “Aye” and “No” in other sorts of votes.

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Study Guide

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You can find answers to most of the questions below here on the vote page.

What was the procedure for this vote?

  1. What was this vote on?

    2. Not all votes are meant to pass legislation. In the Senate some votes are not about legislation at all, since the Senate must vote to confirm presidential nominations to certain federal positions.

    You can learn more about the various motions used in Congress at EveryCRSReport.com. If you aren’t sure what the House was voting on, try seeing if it’s on this list.

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  1. What trends do you see in this vote?

    2. Members of Congress side together for many reasons beside being in the same political party, especially so for less prominent legislation or legislation specific to a certain region. What might have determined how the roll call came out in this case? Does it look like Members of Congress voted based on party, geography, or some other reason?

    One tool that will be helpful in answering this question is the cartogram at the top of the page. A cartogram is a stylized map of the United States that shows each district as an identical hexagon. This view allows you to see the how the representatives from each district voted arranged by their geography and colored by their political party. What trends can you see in the cartogram for this vote?

  2. How did your representative vote?

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