HOUSTON — Our KHOU 11 VERIFY Team looked into whether Vice President Kamala Harris could certify election results if she's the Democratic Party's nominee.
THE QUESTION
Can a vice president certify the results of an election in which they are also a candidate?
THE SOURCES
The U.S Constitution
The U.S. Code
The University of Houston
THE ANSWER
Many people weren’t familiar with the process of certifying a presidential election before what happened on January 6, 2021. Historically, it’s been an important but non-headline-grabbing event. The vice president in their role as president of the senate oversees the count and results from the electoral college.
The Twelfth Amendment and U.S. Code Title 3 Section 15 details the requirement that the president of the Senate, who happens to also be the vice president, oversees the count of electoral votes.
As for the vice president also being a candidate running for president in the same election, University of Houston professor Emily Berman said this is nothing new.
"It's quite common through U.S. history to have this happen. so, more often than not, the president, the vice presidents preside over their losing election. So Al Gore, for example, in 2001, or Richard Nixon in 1961," Berman said. "But there have been times where the vice president has presided over their own victory. George Herbert Walker Bush, the first president Bush was the vice president during that election, and he presided over his own electoral count victory."
As for how much power the vice president has in the process, Professor Berman said after January 6th, Congress made it even more clear that the role is simply ministerial.
"All the vice president does is open the envelopes, take the paper out that the states then send in, hand it to someone else, and then that someone else reads them aloud," Berman said.