Eastern time on January 6 in the Chamber of the House of Representatives. The joint session to count electoral votes is held at 1:00 p.m. Until 1936, the outgoing Congress counted the electoral votes. The Twentieth Amendment now provides that the newly elected Congress counts the votes. The act also specifies that the president of the Senate presides over the session. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 requires the votes to be counted during a joint session on January 6 following the meetings of the presidential electors. The Twelfth Amendment since 1804 has provided that the vice president, as President of the Senate, receives the Electoral College votes, and then, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, opens the sealed votes. However, the Constitution requires the vice president (as president of the Senate) to preside over the counting of electoral votes. Joint sessions and meetings are usually held in the Chamber of the House of Representatives, and are traditionally presided over by the speaker of the House. A joint meeting is a ceremonial or formal occasion and does not perform any legislative function, and no resolution is proposed nor vote taken. Joint sessions can be held on any special occasion, but are required to be held when the president delivers a State of the Union address, when they gather to count and certify the votes of the Electoral College as the presidential election, or when they convene on the occasion of a presidential inauguration. A joint session of the United States Congress is a gathering of members of the two chambers of the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States: the Senate and the House of Representatives.
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