Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called electoral vote certification “the most important vote” in a liaison with senators this week, according to Senator Mitt Romney, who was on the call. Congress will meet on January 6 to count each state’s electoral votes and reaffirm the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.
The count offers Republican lawmakers who have yet to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory a final attempt to overturn the presidential election results. Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri announced on Wednesday that he plans to oppose certification.
Asked about his interpretation of McConnell’s comments, Romney told reporters on Friday: “I see this as a statement that he believes he is one – it is a referendum on our democracy.”
The joint session of Congress is required by law to ratify presidential results, but it also allows “members to oppose the returns of any individual state as they are announced,” according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Lawmakers can oppose the results – even if it’s not their home state – leaving the door open for representatives who support Trump’s unproven allegations of widespread electoral fraud to interrupt the typically ceremonial process.
Hawley is the only Republican senator to pledge to challenge electoral votes, although several conservative members of the House have vowed to do so. President Trump suggested that Congress should intervene, in the hope that they would hand him a second term after previous efforts to challenge the election results failed.
The Missouri Republican said in a statement that “he cannot vote to certify the results of the electoral college on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, have not followed their own state electoral laws.” He added that “he cannot vote to certify without pointing to the unprecedented efforts of mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of Joe Biden”.
“At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of electoral fraud and take steps to ensure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far not acted,” said Hawley.
Objections must be signed by a member of the House and Senate. If this is achieved, the two houses separate to debate and vote to accept or reject the objection. The House, however, is controlled by Democrats, albeit by a smaller margin, so even if the Senate controlled by the Republican Party rejected a state, there is essentially no chance that the House would.
McConnell asked Republican senators last month not to object when the joint session was called. Other Republican senators, including those close to Trump, suggested that such a move would be fruitless.
While it is unlikely that Hawley’s effort will succeed, Romney called it “dangerous for democracy here and abroad” because it “continues to spread the false rumor that the election was somehow stolen”.
“Look, I lost in 2012, I know what losing is,” said Romney, who ran for president in 2012. “And there were people who said there were irregularities. I have people today who say ‘hey, you know what you really won’ – but I didn’t win, I lost fairly. Of course, there have always been irregularities, but spreading this kind of rumor about our electoral system does not work is dangerous for democracy here and abroad ”.