A joint session of Congress is set to convene on Monday to certify President-elect Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, once a largely ceremonial and uneventful ritual that was disrupted four years ago by a violent mob inflamed by Mr. Trump’s lie about a stolen election.
There is no hint of a similar scene playing out this time. Unlike Mr. Trump back then, Vice President Kamala Harris has not disputed her loss in November, and unlike Republicans in the aftermath of the 2020 balloting, Democrats have made it clear they have accepted the results.
Ms. Harris is set to preside over the certification in her capacity as president of the Senate, in a ritual that will underscore the importance of a peaceful transition of power even between bitter political rivals.
Still, there are reminders everywhere of the violence that shocked the world on this day four years ago. The Capitol is on heavy lockdown, with tall black metal fencing around the building. Heightened federal, state and local security resources are on hand as lawmakers prepare to convene, starting at 1 p.m., for the constitutionally mandated task of counting and certifying the Electoral College votes.
For the first time, the day has been designated by the Homeland Security Department as a “national special security event.”
It may all seem like overkill on what is expected to be a peaceful and orderly day. But lawmakers and law enforcement officials are determined to be prepared after the violence on Jan. 6, 2021. Four years ago, protesters egged on by Mr. Trump’s false claim that he was the winner of the election stormed the Capitol with clubs and other weapons, instigating a riot that led to the deaths of seven people, including three police officers.
Republicans have tried to forget the trauma of that day and whitewash history. Some Trump loyalists in Congress, like Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, have worked to distance themselves from their previous statements calling for the perpetrators of the violence to be prosecuted and labeling their actions “anti-American.” (Mr. Trump, who has promised to pardon people prosecuted for participating in the riot, has since chosen Ms. Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations.)
Despite a law passed in 2022 requiring a memorial plaque to be hung listing the names of the police officers and other law enforcement agencies who responded to the violence that day, no such commemoration hangs in the Capitol today.
There is, however, a new law in place, enacted in 2022, that has overhauled the congressional certification process to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2021. It makes it much more difficult for lawmakers to move to throw out state’s electoral votes and clarifies that the vice president has no power to do so unilaterally, as Mr. Trump unsuccessfully pressed his vice president, Mike Pence, to do.
The prospects of such a repeat essentially evaporated in November, when Mr. Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
And Democrats, who for years have presented Mr. Trump as a unique threat to democracy and democratic norms, have built the brand of the party on their reverence for the Constitution, including a willingness to accept adverse election results and move on.
“Two months ago, the American people elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States of America,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on Friday as the new Congress convened, prompting wild applause by Republican lawmakers on the floor.
“It’s OK,” he added. “There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.”
Representative Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who served on the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 mob attack, has promised that “there will be no violence” this Jan. 6.
He added: “There will be no attempt to mount an insurrection against the Constitution. It will be a lot more like what we’ve seen for the rest of American history.”
Before the 2021 riot, Mr. Trump addressed his supporters at the Ellipse near the White House, telling them: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” encouraging them to march to the Capitol. In the end, eight Senate Republicans and 139 House Republicans objected to certifying the election results.
This year, Democrats and Republicans alike are hoping for a smooth process. House Republicans on Friday managed to put aside their divisions and re-elect Speaker Mike Johnson to his post, in part because they wanted to ensure a smooth certification of Mr. Trump’s electoral victory.
And Democrats, from the president on down, have telegraphed that they plan to lead by example. Mr. Biden in November extended to Mr. Trump some of the traditions that he was deprived of four years earlier, inviting the president-elect to the White House to acknowledge his victory and telling him that the administration would do “everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, have what you need.”
In her concession speech in November, Ms. Harris said that she had spoken to Mr. Trump and “congratulated him on his victory” and “told him that we will help him and his team with their transition.”
On Monday, Ms. Harris will take on the largely ceremonial role that four years ago put Mr. Pence in the cross hairs of Mr. Trump and the mob of his supporters, some of whom chanted “hang Mike Pence” as they marched through the Capitol.
For Ms. Harris, aides said, presiding over a peaceful transition of power is one of her most important final acts in office.
“These certification proceedings are not just a formality to the vice president,” said Brian Fallon, a former top adviser to Ms. Harris’s campaign. “She considers it a moment to signal to the country that the events of four years ago were an aberration and that our nation’s tradition of the peaceful transfer of power is restored.”
