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January 3, 2021

More Senators are stepping up to challenge the Electoral College vote

By Andrea Widburg

On December 30, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) became the first senator to make a commitment to dispute the Electoral College results. During a subsequent Senate conference call, Mitch McConnell explicitly called out Hawley without realizing that Hawley hadn’t bothered to show up for the call. McConnell must be really upset today because, on Saturday, eleven more GOP senators announced that they, too, will be objecting to the Electoral College votes:

“America is a Republic whose leaders are chosen in democratic elections. Those elections, in turn, must comply with the Constitution and with federal and state law,” the group wrote in a joint statement.

“When the voters fairly decide an election, pursuant to the rule of law, the losing candidate should acknowledge and respect the legitimacy of that election. And, if the voters choose to elect a new office-holder, our Nation should have a peaceful transfer of power. The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations, and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.”

The allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election “exceed any in our lifetime,” the group added, noting courts, including the Supreme Court, have repeatedly declined to hear evidence of alleged fraud.

The senators called for Congress to appoint a commission to conduct a broad, emergency 10-day audit of the returns in the disputed states. At that point, the states could reconvene and reconsider their Electoral College votes.

The senators brave enough to make this stand include both current and incoming senators. The current senators – all Republicans -- are Ted Cruz (Tex.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), James Lankford (Okl.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Kennedy (La.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), and Mike Braun (Ind.). The senators-elect (again, all Republicans) are Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Bill Hagerty (Ten.), and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.).

The senators are joining a growing wave of Republican members of the House who have announced that they will object to the Electoral College votes. According to Breitbart, at least 140 House Republicans are expected to object to the Electoral College Vote.

Do not underestimate how important this groundswell is. As I noted after Sen. Hawley made his stand, the Mike Pence route is not the only option for remedying the massive voter fraud. If the Senate makes a stand and refuses to certify the contested votes for Biden, that means neither candidate has sufficient Electoral College votes to win the White House.

In that case, the Twelfth Amendment comes into play. It states in relevant part as follows (emphasis added):

[I]f no person have such majority [of Electoral College votes], then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

In the incoming House, 27 states have House members with a Republican majority. Only 20 states have House members with a Democrat majority, and three states are tied. Given the enormous pressure Trump’s 74 million (at least) voters are putting on their Representatives from 2,497 counties across America, that’s a clear victory for Trump.

And don’t let Democrats scare you with their cries of “sedition” and “treason.” They were singing a different song in January 2005 when Babs Boxer (D. Crazy-fornia) objected to Bush’s win in Ohio:

What’s happening now is something that the Founders contemplated might happen and they included provisions in the Constitution for just this eventuality. The Democrats liked the idea when they thought it might work to their advantage. It’s not becoming for them suddenly to turn their backs on a constitutional path they once heartily espoused.

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