Several Republican Senators led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced that they will object to Wednesday’s certification of the presidential election results unless there is an emergency 10-day audit by an electoral commission.
According to Cruz and the other senators, the November 3 election “featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud and illegal conduct.”
On board with Cruz are Republican Senators Ron Johnson (Wis.), James Lankford (Okla.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Kennedy (Okla.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), and Mike Braun (Ind.), along with Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis (Wy.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.).
This effort is independent of one by Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who last week said that he plans to join Representative Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) in the House in objecting to various states’ failure to abide by their own election laws.
“Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed,” Cruz and the other senators maintained in a Saturday statement. “By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.”
They also argued that there is precedent for the objection to election results, as in the cases of 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017.
“And, in both 1969 and 2005, a Democratic Senator joined with a Democratic House Member in forcing votes in both houses on whether to accept the presidential electors being challenged,” the lawmakers wrote.
They continued:
In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission — consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices — to consider and resolve the disputed returns.
We should follow that precedent. To wit, Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.
If that doesn’t happen, the Republicans contended, then they will be justified in voting against certification.
“Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed,” they wrote.
In a separate statement, Senator Blackburn and Senator-elect Hagerty stated, “Allegations of voter fraud, irregularities and unconstitutional actions diminish public confidence in what should be a free, fair and transparent process. Protecting the integrity of the electoral process is paramount to preserving trust and legitimacy in the final outcome.”
It remains to be seen whether they will bring more members of their party to the cause. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP leaders of the chamber have urged Republicans not to challenge the Electoral College results.
Brooks’ effort in the House also has precedent. In 2005, following George W. Bush’s reelection victory against John Kerry, one Senate Democrat — Barbara Boxer of California — and one House Democrat — Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio — objected. And in 2017, a group of House Democrats objected to President Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, although no Democrats in the Senate joined them.
While these paths to victory remain open for the president, his chances of success are slim due to the current makeup of Congress. The electoral slate of a given state can only be tossed out by a vote of both houses of Congress. This is unlikely to happen given that Democrats still control the House and that the Senate’s Republican leadership is opposed to overturning Joe Biden’s supposed win.
In addition, a number of the Senate’s GOP rank-and-file take issue with these efforts. This includes Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Ala.), and Pat Toomey (Pa.).
“Were Congress to actually reject state electors, partisans would inevitably demand the same any time their candidate had lost,” Romney, a frequent Trump critic, said of attempts to stop the certification of electors from fraud-ridden states. “Congress, not voters in the respective states, would choose our presidents.”
Condemning President Trump’s call to supporters to rally in Washington, D.C., when Congress convenes to certify the election results on January 6, Romney bemoaned: “I could never have imagined seeing these things in the greatest democracy in the world. Has ambition so eclipsed principle?”
Apparently it has — though the words most aptly describe Romney himself, along with this ilk of establishment puppets.
