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Amid the tense political environment heading toward November’s election, Joe Biden’s administration has designated the certification of the presidential vote in early 2025 as a “National Special Security Event” to prevent a repeat of the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the designation, acknowledging that the once-mundane process of officially recognizing the winner of an election is now loaded with risk.
That risk is especially heightened given the role Donald Trump played in inciting his mob of supporters to march to the US Capitol in 2021 in an effort to stay in power.
Polling shows a tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as he seeks to return to the White House, while baselessly maintaining that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The January 6, 2025, counting and certification of 2024 electoral votes will now get the same level of security as the Super Bowl or UN General Assembly, according to Politico.
This is the first time such a designation has been granted for the process and follows a request made by the Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser — who was mayor at the time of 2021 Capitol riot.
Various reports, including from the House Select January 6 Committee and the Government Accountability Office, also called for Secretary Mayorkas to consider a National Special Security Event for the certification of the 2024 election.
“National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,” said Eric Ranaghan, the special agent in charge of the US Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division. “The US Secret Service, in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants.”
Such a designation unlocks significant resources from the federal government, as well as from state and local partners, to form a comprehensive security plan.
The US Secret Service assumes its mandated role as the lead agency for the design and implementation of the operational security plan.
Formal planning is now underway through an executive steering committee of senior representatives from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
Presidential inaugurations, which occur two weeks after Congress certifies the election results, are already designated as National Special Security Events. Planning for the January 20, 2025, inauguration has been ongoing for several months.
On January 6, 2021 then-president Trump addressed “Stop the Steal” protesters on the Ellipse and urged them to “fight like hell.”
They took that appeal literally, attacking the legislative complex and battling law enforcement for several hours as they attempted to storm the building in order to prevent the formal certification of the 2020 election results at a joint session of Congress.
Lawmakers, their families, and staffers fled for their lives as the rioters stalked the halls, invaded representatives’ offices, and called for the hanging of Mike Pence, Trump’s then vice-president who had rejected his boss’s call to subvert his ceremonial role at the session by blocking the certification process.
The attack resulted in Trump’s historic second impeachment and more than 1,000 prosecutions of would-be insurrectionists who joined the fray.
In its investigation of that day and the events leading up to it, the House January 6 select committee in its 2022 final report urged the Biden administration to consider declaring next year’s joint session a major security event.
