# Certificate of Vote The **certificate of vote** is the document the presidential electors themselves sign when they meet in their state capitals in December, recording their ballots for President and Vice President on separate ballots as the [[Twelfth Amendment]] requires. Each certificate of vote is paired with the state's [[Certificate of Ascertainment]] and sent to Congress, the Archivist, the state's secretary of state, and the federal district judge in the district where the electors met. The distinction matters procedurally: the ascertainment says *who the electors are*, the certificate of vote says *how they voted*. Under the [[Electoral Count Reform Act]] these are the only two objects an objection at the January 6 joint session may target — that the electors "were not lawfully certified," or that an elector's vote was not "regularly given." See [[Electoral College Process Flow]]. This is a stub — expand with the redundant-transmission design (six copies to five recipients) and its origin in nineteenth-century mail failure. ## See Also - [[Electoral College Process Flow]] - [[Certificate of Ascertainment]] - [[Faithless Elector]] - [[Twelfth Amendment]]