During the formal joint session of Congress on Wednesday, 11 GOP Senators, led by Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will do everything in their power to delay the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump.
The group has no evidence of fraud or illegal tampering with the voting machines or the mail-in ballots, and the Senators have a near-zero chance of accomplishing anything, other than to delay the final certification of the Electoral College vote.
In a joint statement on Saturday, the Senate Republicans — including seven senators and four who are to be sworn in on Sunday — called for a 10-day audit of election returns in “disputed states,” adding that they would vote to reject the electors from those states until one was completed. They didn’t say which states they were focusing on.
Readers may remember that according to federal law, all state recounts and court contests over presidential election results must be completed by December 8. We are now nearly a month past that date, and the results are still being disputed in an effort to overturn the vote.
However, while Republicans control the 100-member Senate, Democrats hold a majority of the House of Representatives, making it all-but-impossible for an objection to have a realistic chance of succeeding, according to CNBC News.
Where does Mike Pence stand?
Today, according to the New York Times, Vice-president Mike Pence, who will be presiding over the joint session of Congress on Wednesday, has endorsed the move by GOP Senators to delay the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
While Pence is supposed to preside over what may become a spectacle verging on the ridiculous Wednesday, On Saturday, evening, Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, issued a statement saying that Mr. Pence “shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election.”
The vice president, the statement continued, “welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on Jan. 6th.”
It will come down to both houses of Congress retreating to their chambers for a two-hour debate, and then a vote on whether to disqualify a state’s votes. Both the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate would have to agree to toss out a state’s electoral votes – and it is doubtful that will ever happen.
The two hour limit for debate is set by the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and several federal statutes. The Electoral Count Act comes down to the following statement:
“Objections to individual state returns must be made in writing by at least one Member each of the Senate and House of Representatives. If an objection meets these requirements, the joint session recesses and the two houses separate and debate the question in their respective chambers for a maximum of two hours,” the CRS said. “The two houses then vote separately to accept or reject the objection. They then reassemble in joint session, and announce the results of their respective votes. An objection to a state’s electoral vote must be approved by both houses in order for any contested votes to be excluded.”
