WASHINGTON (AP) – A coalition of 11 Republican senators announced on Saturday that they will challenge the presidential election result by voting to reject voters in some states when Congress meets next week to certify the results of the Electoral College that confirmed the president-elect’s victory. Joe Biden.
President Donald Trump’s extraordinary refusal to accept his defeat in the elections and the effort to subvert voters’ will has become a turning point for Republicans and is destroying the party. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell urged Republicans not to try to annul the election.
The 11 senators, led by Ted Cruz, from Texas, said they will vote against certain state voters, unless Congress designates an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of election results. They recognized that the results of the election are unlikely to change.
“We intend to vote on January 6 to reject voters from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘legally certified’ (the statutory requirement), unless and until the 10-day emergency audit is completed,” they wrote in communicated.
“We did not take this action lightly,” they said.
In response to Trump’s unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, bipartisan election officials and Trump’s then attorney general, William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud and that the elections went smoothly.
The next few days are expected to do little to change the outcome. Biden is due to open on January 20, after winning the Electoral College vote by 306-232.
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first to challenge McConnell by announcing that he would join Republicans in the House to challenge state counts during the joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
On the other side of the party division, Senator Ben Sasse, from Nebraska, warned that such challenges are a “dangerous maneuver” that threatens the country’s civic norms.
The issue is forcing Republicans to make choices that will shape the contours of the post-Trump era and an evolving GOP. Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces mounting pressure and a lawsuit from Trump’s allies for his ceremonial role in chairing the session on Wednesday.
“I will not participate in a project to annul the election,” wrote Sasse in a long post on social media. Sasse, a potential presidential candidate for 2024, said he was “asking my colleagues to reject this dangerous ploy”.
Trump, the first president to lose a candidacy for re-election in almost 30 years, attributed his defeat to widespread electoral fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials that there was none. Of the nearly 50 lawsuits that the president and his allies filed challenging the election results, almost all were dismissed or withdrawn. He also lost twice in the United States Supreme Court.
Still, the president pressured Republican senators to continue with their baseless accusations, although the Electoral College has already cemented Biden’s victory and all that remains is Congress’ formal recognition of the count before the new president is installed.
“We are allowing people to vote in their conscience,” Senator John Thune, the second Republican, told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Thune’s remarks as the Republican leader tasked with rounding the vote show that the Republican leadership is not putting its strength in Trump’s demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the seriousness of questioning the result of the election.
“This is an incredibly consistent problem, incredibly rare historically and that sets precedents,” he said. “This is a big vote. They are thinking about it. “
Pence will be carefully observed while presiding over what is normally a routine vote count in Congress, but he is now heading into a protracted confrontation that could last until Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges are set up.
The vice president is being sued by a group of Republicans who want Pence to have the power to overturn the election results, eliminating an 1887 law that specifies how Congress treats vote counting.
Trump’s Justice Department itself may have complicated what is already a highly unlikely effort to overturn the ritualistic count. He asked a federal judge to dismiss the last-minute lawsuit by Congressman Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Arizona Republican voters seeking to force Pence out of the mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote.
In a lawsuit in Texas, the department said it “sued the wrong defendant” and Pence should not be the target of legal action.
“An action to establish that the vice president has discretion over the count, brought against the vice president, is a walking legal contradiction,” argues the department.
A Texas judge dismissed the Gohmert lawsuit Friday night. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, appointed by Trump, wrote that the plaintiffs “allege damage that is not reasonably traceable” to Pence, “and is unlikely to be repaired by the requested measure”.
To avoid a dramatic development, McConnell called a conference call with Republican senators on Thursday specifically to address the next joint session and the vote counting logistics, according to several anonymous Republicans to discuss the conference call.
The Republican leader pointedly called Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Biden’s victory, according to two of the Republicans.
But there was no answer because Hawley did not show up, the Republicans said.
His office did not respond to a request for comment.
Senator Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Who acknowledged Biden’s victory and defended state election systems as valid and accurate, spoke out at the summons, contesting Pennsylvania’s results and making it clear that he disagrees with Hawley’s plan to contest the result, his office said in a statement.
McConnell had already warned Republican senators not to participate in raising objections, saying it would be a terrible vote for colleagues. In essence, lawmakers would be forced to choose between the will of the outgoing president and that of voters.
Several Republicans have indicated that they are under pressure from constituents at home to show that they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.
Related: President Trump in the days since the November 3 election