Rep. Greg Pence is not saying where he stands on President Donald Trump’s intensifying efforts to sow doubt in the results of the 2020 presidential election or whether he will formally object to certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win today.
Trump has enlisted support from a dozen Republican senators and up to 100 House Republicans to challenge the Electoral College vote when Congress convenes in a joint session today to confirm Biden’s 306-232 win, The Associated Press reported.
The president has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite nonpartisan election officials and now-former U.S. Attorney General William Barr saying there wasn’t any, according to wire reports.
Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He’s also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The group of House Republicans has said it plans to challenge the election results in battleground states that Trump lost, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada, according to wire reports.
Neither Trump nor any of the lawmakers promising to object to the count have presented credible evidence that would change the outcome. They also have not expressed concerns about the results in states that Trump won.
At least three members of Indiana’s Congressional delegation have said they plan to object to the certification of Electoral College votes in at least one state today.
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, is among 11 Republicans who said Saturday they will reject electors from certain states unless Congress appoints an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results.
Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Indiana, issued a statement Monday that she will formally object to “certain electors from contested states” if Congress cannot reach a bipartisan agreement on conducting an “emergency audit” of presidential election results.
On Sunday, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, said via Facebook that he plans to object to certifying results in some states.
However, Pence, who was sworn in for his second term Sunday, has remained quiet, opting not to respond to multiple requests for comment on his position.
If Pence were to vote to certify the election results, it would an abrupt about-face from last month when he signed an amicus brief in support of an ill-fated lawsuit filed by Texas to overturn the outcome of the presidential election by invalidating the results in four battleground states Trump lost.
It also would be the first time that Pence breaks with Trump on any vote since the Columbus native took office in 2018.
Currently, Pence is the only member of Congress who has voted in line with Trump’s position 100% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.
And Trump has made his position clear.
On Monday, Trump said he would “fight like hell” to hold on to the presidency and appealed to Republican lawmakers to reverse his election loss to Biden.
Electoral voters won by President-elect Biden are “not gonna take this White House!” he shouted as supporters cheered at an outdoor rally in Georgia just one day after reports surfaced that the president raised the prospect of “criminal offense” if that state’s Republican secretary of state failed to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win, according to wire reports.
Though he got nothing but cheers Monday night, Trump’s attempt to overturn the presidential election is splitting the Republican Party, with several current and former GOP officials condemning the effort.
Other Republicans, however, plan to object to the Electoral College tallies in an attempt to avoid angering Trump along with large portions of the Republican base, who have bought into the president’s unsupported claims of widespread election fraud.
Wednesday’s congressional joint session to count electoral votes is the final step in reaffirming Biden’s win, after the Electoral College officially elected him in December. The meeting is required by the U.S. Constitution and includes several distinct steps.
Bipartisan representatives of both chambers read the results out loud and do an official count. Columbus native Vice President Mike Pence will serve as the presiding officer of the session and declare the winner.
Vice Presidents Pence’s role is largely ceremonial and he has no power to affect the outcome, despite Trump’s wishes to the contrary.
During the session, the vice president will open and present the certificates of the electoral votes of each state in alphabetical order. The appointed “tellers” from the House and Senate, members of both parties, then read each certificate out loud and record and count the votes.
After a teller reads the certificate from a state, any member of Congress can stand up and object to that state’s vote on any grounds. But the presiding officer will not hear the objection unless it is in writing and signed by both a member of the House and a member of the Senate.
If there is such a request, then the joint session suspends and the House and Senate go into separate sessions to consider it. For the objection to be sustained, both chambers must agree to it by a simple majority vote. If they do not both agree, the original electoral votes are counted with no changes.
