A Republican Senator in the US Senate, Sen. Mitt Romney has called the “ploy” by a group of senators, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, to reject Electoral College votes in the just concluded US presidential election, a threat to democracy.
On Jan. 6, Congress will meet to formally count the votes cast by the Electoral College. Democrat Joe Biden got 306 while President Donald Trump received 232. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the White House. An 1887 law allows for a challenge to a state’s electoral votes if an objection is made in writing by one senator and one member of the House.
If an objection is raised, then both the House and Senate will debate the issue in their chambers for up to two hours, followed by a vote whether to reject or accept the electors.
On Sunday, a bipartisan group of 10 senators, including Romney, issued a statement again objecting to the effort to overturn the Electoral College results.
“At this point, further attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election are contrary to the clearly expressed will of the American people and only serve to undermine Americans’ confidence in the already determined election results,” they wrote.
Romney pointed out that more Americans participated in the 2020 election than any before it. He also noted that the Justice Department found no evidence of voter fraud and Trump’s attempts to challenge the election in different courts failed.
He said the argument from some of his Republican colleagues that having senators reject electors will increase confidence in elections is “nonsense.” Romney said Congress is a partisan body. He said having members of Congress substitute their judgment for the voters and the courts imperils public trust.
Romney said Trump’s call for his supporters to come to the Capitol when the matter is being debated has the potential to cause “disruption and worse.”
So far, 12 Republican senators have said they will attempt to challenge, and possibly overturn the results in several states. The first was Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who announced his intentions last week. That was followed on Saturday by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was joined by 10 other Republicans, including all of the newly elected Republicans in the Senate.
Other GOP senators have joined Romney in denouncing the effort to challenge the results.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Saturday that she will affirm the 2020 election. She said the courts and state legislatures have honored their duty to hear legal allegations and found nothing that would warrant overturning the election results. She urges her colleagues from both parties to join her in “maintaining confidence” in U.S. elections.