11 US Republican Senators To Object To Electoral College Results On Wednesday

Eleven Senate Republicans on Saturday announced that they will object to the Electoral College results Wednesday, when Congress convenes in a joint session to formally count the votes.

GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Ron Johnson (Wis.), James Lankford (Okla.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Kennedy (La.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Mike Braun (Ind.) and Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) said in a joint statement that they will object to the election results until there is a 10-day audit.

“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,” they said. “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.

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“Accordingly, we intend to vote on Jan. 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 added.

The group’s announcement means that at least a dozen GOP senators will object on Wednesday. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) was the first senator to announce he would be joining a band of House conservatives to force a debate and vote on the Electoral College results.

Cruz, like Hawley, is considered to be a potential 2024 White House contender.

President Trump, who has endorsed efforts to challenge the election results in Congress, has claimed that the election was “rigged” or that there was widespread voter fraud, an assertion that has been rejected in dozens of court cases and by election experts.

The objection on Jan. 6 will not change President-elect Joe Biden’s win, but it is putting GOP incumbents up for reelection in 2022 in a political bind because they will have to pick between supporting claims of fraud, which many of them have spoken out against, or voting against the president and potentially fueling a primary challenge.

If an objection has the support of a member of the House and a member of the Senate, the two chambers separate and debate it for up to two hours. Both the House and Senate would then vote on whether to uphold the objection, which would require a majority in both chambers to be successful.

The group of 11 Republicans acknowledged on Saturday that their efforts would ultimately fall short.

“We are not naïve. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise. But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue,” they said. “A fair and credible audit – conducted expeditiously and completed well before Jan. 20 – would dramatically improve Americans’ faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President.”

THE HILL