GOP prepares to force futile votes challenging Biden’s 2020 win
Congressional Republicans are preparing a futile attempt Wednesday on President Donald Trump’s behalf to overturn the results of the November election by objecting to Electoral College votes cast by at least three states for President-elect Joe Biden.
The push is destined to fail, with Democrats and a significant number of Republicans planning to vote down all of the objections in both the House and the Senate, criticizing the effort both as a hopeless attempt to reverse the election outcome and as a threat to democracy that would subvert the will of the voters.
Track the electoral vote count in Congress
But the joint session that begins at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday is poised to be a messy and contentious affair that will last late into evening and possibly into Thursday before Congress finally affirms Biden’s win over Trump, 306 electoral votes to 232.
Some Senate Republicans are expected to join their House counterparts to object to results in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, and the House objectors are also seeking to force debate over votes in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. Debate will last up to two hours per objection, followed by votes in each chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has sided against those challenging the results, is expected to speak first in the Senate when the chambers recess to debate the initial objection, setting the tone for the rest of the day.
While there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, Trump and his campaign have been pushing baseless and false conspiracy theories that the election was rigged against him. The President and his allies lost dozens of lawsuits across the country both claiming fraud and challenging the constitutionality of state election laws altered due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
All eyes on Pence
As his losses have mounted, Trump has gone after the courts that ruled against him, state election officials and lawmakers who haven’t embraced his conspiracy theories or tried to overturn the will of the voters, Senate Republicans who oppose his anti-democratic push to overturn the Electoral College result and even Vice President Mike Pence, who will preside over Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.
Pence told Trump on Tuesday that he does not have the authority to block Congress from finalizing Biden’s win, sources told CNN, though Trump has denied this and badgered Pence on Twitter Wednesday morning to take actions he cannot. “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!” Trump said.
Trump addressed his supporters who converged on Washington near the White House on Wednesday morning, continuing to pressure Pence to go beyond his authority in Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.
“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing,” Trump said at the rally on the Ellipse. “If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.”
Hundreds of law enforcement officers, including the DC National Guard, have mobilized across Washington to support local authorities during the pro-Trump demonstrations as city leaders are bracing for potential clashes and violence.
Congress’ counting of the Electoral College votes is typically little more than an afterthought, after the Electoral College officially votes for President in December. Just twice since the process was established in the 19th century have votes been forced on Electoral College results, and several other would-be challenges have quickly fizzled because no senator joined them.
McConnell sought to dissuade any senators from signing onto the objections to the Electoral College votes, which would have prevented roll-call votes on the challenges. But last week, Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley announced he would join the objection to Pennsylvania. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, is expected to sign onto the objection to Arizona, while Georgia GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler — who CNN projects has lost her seat to Democrat Raphael Warnock but will remain in office until Tuesday’s Georgia runoff results are certified — has signaled she will object to Georgia’s result.
Joint session in the shadow of Georgia’s runoff
Wednesday’s debate is playing out as Democrats are on the cusp of sweeping the Georgia Senate races and taking control of a 50-50 Senate after Biden is sworn in and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris becomes the Senate’s tie-breaking vote.
Wednesday’s looming votes have created a major divide inside the Republican Party. The Senate Republican fight spilled into the open last week following Hawley’s announcement, with Trump attacking McConnell and other Republicans who haven’t joined.
In the House, No. 3 Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming — daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney — has forcefully pushed back on the objections, while Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has quietly backed them.
For every state where there’s a House member and senator objecting, the two chambers will separate and debate for two hours, before voting on the objection. Aides have predicted each state objection will take as much as four hours.
The states’ votes will be read alphabetically. That means Arizona is likely to be the first objection that Republicans raise. If either chamber votes down the objection after the debate, the states’ votes are counted and then counting continues.
The last time a lawmaker forced votes on the Electoral College results was in 2005, when Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, objected to President George W. Bush’s win in Ohio, which she said was never an effort to overturn the election result. In 2017, a group of House Democrats raised several objections to states Trump won, but they were gaveled down because they didn’t have a senator join — by then-vice president Biden.
