Republican Representative Denver Riggleman of Virginia called the decision of Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley to contest the polling results of the Electoral College during an appearance on Monday on MSNBC “horrible”.
President-elect Joe Biden won popular and electoral votes in the November elections. But President Donald Trump argued without foundation that widespread electoral fraud caused Biden’s victory and encouraged Republicans in Congress to challenge the official count of electoral votes, which would confirm Biden’s victory. Hawley is the first senator to announce that he would contest the vote. Riggleman said on Wednesday that Republicans who chose to join Hawley’s efforts may be doing so for political reasons.
“Politically for them, it can be great for their base, for fundraising, for things like that, but nationally, it sucks,” Riggleman told MSNBC. “I think it’s incredible that now we have Republicans who are actually opposing federalism and wanting a kind of overthrow or this kind of ‘let’s throw voters out, let’s ignore the states, we’ve already litigated that and we’re going to move on.’ the only thing I can say is that it’s crazy. “
Riggleman implied that Hawley decided to accept the election challenge because “he must have talked to some individuals who thought his fundraising could increase a lot if he did something like this”.
Newsweek contacted Hawley’s office for comment.
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In a statement released on Wednesday, Hawley said he could not “vote to certify the polling place on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, have not followed their own state election laws.” Hawley also said that companies like Facebook and Twitter interfered in the November election to favor Biden.
“At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of electoral fraud and take steps to ensure the integrity of our elections,” added Hawley. “But so far, Congress has not acted.”
Democrats vehemently denounced Hawley’s decision. In a Wednesday appearance on CNN, Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen described Hawley’s choice as “grossly irresponsible”.
Van Hollen said that Hawley was “further undermining public confidence in our democratic process, relying on Trump’s false narrative that somehow the election was, you know, fraudulently won by Joe Biden and what he did now is put that up for a vote in the House and Senate. “
Republicans contesting the electoral vote should not void the election in favor of Trump. If a challenge is submitted, lawmakers can take up to two hours to debate the objection while the vote count is postponed. After meeting again, Congress would vote on whether to allow contested results to be counted. Both the House and the Senate must agree to the final decision.
Objecting to counting Congressional electoral votes could be one of Trump’s final ways to maintain the presidency. However, members of Trump’s legal team have pledged to continue filing lawsuits on his behalf until the day of the inauguration.
In a statement released in December, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and legal advisor Jenna Ellis said “they will continue to defend electoral integrity until the legal vote is counted fairly and accurately.”