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WASHINGTON – Eleven Republican senators, led by Texan Ted Cruz, announced they would oppose Joe Biden’s victory during the joint House and Senate session to ratify the result on Wednesday. The initiative, which seeks to cause confusion in a generally symbolic procedure, is considered to have no chance of succeeding.
The congressional meeting, in which parliamentarians will count the votes cast by delegates to the Electoral College on December 14, is the last formal step in the US electoral process before Biden’s inauguration on January 20. MPs say they intend to block ratification unless there is a “10-day emergency audit” in some states where Biden won, going against the popular vote and state officials, including Republicans, who certified the results in their jurisdictions.
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The initiative has no chance of success: objections to certification must be approved separately by the two Houses of Congress. The House will remain under Democratic rule for the next parliamentary term, which takes office on Sunday, and many Republican senators recognized Biden’s legitimate victory, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In practice, this is yet another attempt to transform a routine process, which usually goes unnoticed, into a long and confusing session to please the Trump base. Furthermore, the pressure on senators from other parties is increasing.
According to Cruz, who plans to run for the Republican presidential candidacy in 2024, and his allies, the audit is essential to discover “complaints of electoral fraud and unprecedented illegal conduct.” Local Democratic and Republican officials attested to the fluidity of the election, as did international observers. Additionally, the courts have rejected more than 60 actions brought by Trump and his allies to overturn the election results in key states.
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In their statement, Republicans cite as precedent the 1877 presidential feud between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford Hayes, in which there were allegations of fraud in several states:
“In 1877, Congress did not ignore these accusations, and the media did not reject those who portray them as radicals trying to undermine democracy,” the statement said. “On the contrary, Congress created an Electoral Commission, made up of five senators, five deputies and five judges of the Supreme Court, to weigh them up and resolve the dispute.”
None of the 11 parliamentarians, however, objects to the result of the legislative disputes that elected them, using the same ballots and under the protection of the same electoral laws as the presidential race.
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The 11 join Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to say he would question the Electoral College result on Wednesday. For a motion to be discussed, it is necessary that at least one senator and one deputy can object. According to CNN, about 140 MPs are expected to do so on Wednesday.
Cruz’s maneuver has the backing of Senators Ron Johnson (Missouri), James Lankford (Oklahoma), Steve Daines (Montana), John Kennedy (Louisiana), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee) and Mike Braun (Indiana). They were also joined by Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Roger Marshall (Kansas), Bill Hagerty (Tennessee) and Tommy Tuberville (Alabama).
The initiative is unrelated to the lawsuit filed earlier this week by Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas, who was trying to change congressional certification rules, in an attempt to award Vice President Mike Pence, who is also president of the Senate. – the power to reject the result in the states that gave victory to Biden. The lawsuit was dismissed by federal court on Friday after Pence himself challenged the validity of the lawsuit.
However, the pressure is increasing on Pence, who will preside over the joint session on Wednesday and who, by law, is in charge of announcing the result of the presidential elections. Biden had 81 million popular votes, 7 million more than Trump. In the Electoral College, where the election is decided, he had 306 votes, against 232 for Trump.
“This move will not change the fact that President-elect Biden will take office on January 20, and his baseless allegations have already been dismissed by Trump’s own attorney, dozens of courts and election officials from both parties,” said Michael Gwin. . spokesman for the Democratic campaign.
