Objections of the Electoral College in Congress: what to know

The House and Senate will meet at 1 pm on Wednesday for a joint session of Congress to certify electoral victory for President-elect Joe Biden, and a group of Republican lawmakers intend to raise objections to the results.

Counting traditional election results for each state is the final step in choosing an American president. It is usually a lackluster procedure, but President Trump has changed that, calling on his Republican allies in Congress to fight for him to the end.

A good number supported Trump, but other Republicans drew their last breath of resistance as detrimental to democracy and contrary to the U.S. Constitution.

“Challenging a state’s certification, considering how specific the Constitution is, would be a violation of my oath of mandate – this is not something I am willing to do and it is not something that oklahoma would like me to do,” Senator Jim Inhofe , R-Okla., Said in a statement on Tuesday announcing that it will accept Biden’s victory.

On the other side of the divided Republican Party are lawmakers who are responding to the frustrations of voters who continue to believe that the election was stolen from Trump. More demonstrations are planned in Washington, DC, and Trump is expected to address the crowd at 11 am

Representatives Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Said that at least 100 House Republicans are supporting the objections. In the Senate, at least 13 Republicans said they would object to the results in some way, with Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., And Ted Cruz, R-Texas, leading the way.

LOEFFLER MUST OBJECT TO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS CERTIFICATION

“I don’t know the result, but I think it’s worth fighting for,” Greene told Fox News of the final effort to prevent certification.

Greene hopes that the objections will spark a debate in Congress over allegations of electoral fraud that the courts have not addressed so far. Greene spoke to Trump about electoral irregularities outside Air Force One when she accompanied him to a rally in Georgia Monday night.

“It is our duty to object,” said Greene. “… The American people deserve to at least start listening to the evidence of the fraud.”

To prepare for the debate, the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Party team prepared a 41-page memo outlining alleged electoral problems in six states, such as making postal ballots more readily available during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The last-minute push for postal voting in many states, coupled with measures to eliminate long-standing safeguards for postal voting, created conditions conducive to electoral administration errors or election-related crimes,” says the memo obtained by Fox News States.

House Republicans are preparing to challenge electoral votes in at least six states won by Biden – Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada. As of Tuesday afternoon, it was unclear how many states would obtain support from a senator, which is necessary for any debate to begin.

Cruz will object to Arizona, with a focus on creating an Electoral College commission to audit the results and not necessarily to annul the election results, according to a known source. Hawley was limited to Pennsylvania. And Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, who was projected to lose her Georgia Senate seat to Democrat Raphael Warnock after Tuesday’s election, should oppose certification in Georgia.

GOP SENATORS ‘STILL DISCUSSING’ WHAT STATES TO OBJECT DURING JAN. 6 ELECTORAL COLLEGE CERTIFICATION

Biden won the Electoral College vote 306-232, but Trump refused to give in and instead repeated unproven allegations of widespread electoral fraud that were rejected by the Supreme Court, his attorney general, state election officials and dozens of others courts.

Some Democrats have opposed the election results in the past, when Republican Party presidents won, but they have spoken out strongly against the latter effort.

Representative Steny Hoyer, the majority leader in the House, says Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud are “seditious” and attacked Republican leaders who refused to acknowledge that Biden won the election fairly.

TRUMP PUTS PRESSURE INTO PENCE BEFORE THE ELECTION SHOWN AT THE CONGRESS

“They chivalrously supported with their silence, or with their active participation, the president’s false claim – his seditious claim in many ways that the vote was not fair,” said Hoyer on Tuesday. “… It is a tragedy that they did this.”

Here are some things you should know before the Joint Session meeting:

VP Mike Pence will have a ceremonial role

When the House and Senate meet on Wednesday at 1 pm, Vice President Mike Pence is expected to chair the Joint Congressional Session.

Trump put pressure on Pence to help him through this process, insisting that Pence has the power to oppose the ballots and telling a crowd in Georgia on Monday that he expects Pence to “pass us”.

But regardless of how much the president increases the volume of his vice president, White House officials told Fox News that Pence “will follow the law” on Wednesday.

Electoral votes will be brought to the Chamber of Deputies in mahogany boxes.

Pence will begin counting the votes for each state in alphabetical order, starting with Alabama and then Alaska.

The first objection expected is to come from Arizona, where Biden won.

The objections only work if there is support from a senator and a deputy.

Under the Electoral Counting Act, a petitioner from the House and Senate must challenge a state’s electoral ballot paper, and the objection must be in writing.

Cruz has indicated that he will join the Chamber to challenge Arizona, according to a known source. Cruz led a group of about a dozen senators who say they would oppose certification of the results of the Electoral College, unless there was an emergency 10-day audit of the results by an electoral commission. Cruz is expected to raise the issue of the Electoral College commission – but do not set aside the results of the elections.

The debate is scheduled for two hours, with Democrats and Republicans taking turns talking.

As soon as there is a joint challenge, the senators will return to their Chamber, and the Chamber will remain in their Chamber to debate the merits of the voters of that state.

Members will have a limit of five minutes to speak.

Democrats have former impeachment managers leading their debate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed deputy Adam Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and deputy Zoe Lofgren, chairman of the House Administration Committee, to lead the Democratic response. Both are former impeachment managers.

Others prepared to lead the debate are Dep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., A professor of constitutional law, and Dep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., Who is part of the Judiciary Committee.

Democrats representing the contested state will also speak out in defense of the validity of electoral results.

A majority vote in the House and Senate is required to reject a state’s voter list.

After the debate, the House and Senate will vote on whether to accept voters from that state.

It is a roll call vote that will document the position of each legislator in relation to voters in each state.

It is necessary for the House and the Senate to reject a state’s electoral votes. If that happens, the electoral ticket will simply disappear. It would be as if Arizona had never voted.

This can take a long, long time.

After the votes in that particular state, the Chamber and the Senate return together and begin counting for the other states.

If there is another joint objection, the House and Senate split up again for another two hours of debate and a vote on the contested state.

The time required to separate, debate and vote in each state can be three to four hours.

The process is repeated until all states are counted.

The votes are not on Trump’s side

Since Democrats control the House and a sufficient number of Republicans, both in the House and in the Senate, accept that Trump lost the election, these objections are a remote effort.

At the end of the process, Biden and Kamala Harris must be certified as the next president and vice president of the United States.

The inauguration would be on January 20.

Chad Pergram, Jason Donner and Paul Steinhauser of Fox News contributed to this report.