The letter opens by giving credence to President Trump
“The elections held in at least six battleground states raise profound questions, and it is a legal, constitutional, and moral imperative that they be answered,” it says.
But it goes on to note that no states have submitted competing slates of electors, including those with GOP-controlled legislatures.
“Unless that happens between now and January 6, 2021, Congress will have no authority to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election,” the letter states.
“Though doing so may frustrate our immediate political objectives, we have sworn an oath to promote the Constitution above our policy goals,” the letter concludes. “We must count the electoral votes submitted by the states.”
Trump, who has endorsed challenges to the election results in Congress, has claimed that the election was rigged or that there was widespread voter fraud. And the 11 GOP senators, in their joint statement on Saturday, alleged that the 2020 election included unprecedented allegations of voter fraud.
Dozens of attempts by Trump s legal team to challenge the results in key states have been dismissed by the courts and election experts have repeatedly rejected claims of widespread voter fraud. Then-Attorney General William Barr
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But if a member of the House and a member of the Senate support an objection, the two bodies pause the counting of the Electoral College vote, go to their respective chambers and debate the issue for up to two hours. In order for an objection to be successful, something that has never happened before, it would need the support of a majority of both the House and Senate.
DeWine and Tapper went back and forth on the issue during Sunday s episode of State of the Union, with the CNN host blaming Republican claims of voter fraud, that have been rejected by courts and state officials in battleground states, for distrust of the election results among some Americans. We have a lot of people in this country who, you know, are very concerned- DeWine said, during the exchange, before being cut off by Tapper. Because they ve been lied to, Tapper interjected. Governor, because they ve been lied to by President Trump for weeks. Jake, let s stay at the big picture. The big picture, with changes in technology, potential hacking, all of these things, we need to have a commission, as Sen. [Rob] Portman [R-Ohio] says, that takes a long look at this. Not something you can do in ten days, the governor responded.
During the conversation, the president repeatedly asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to find more than 11,000 ballots needed to overcome the gap between Trump and Biden in the state, thereby flipping the state in his favor. The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated, Trump told Raffensperger before questioning the secretary about a rumor that ballots for him were shredded in Fulton County, which is home to Atlanta, the state s largest city and a major Democratic bastion.
ADVERTISEMENT All I want to do is this, the president continued. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.
“Efforts to reject the votes of the Electoral College and sow doubt about Joe Biden’s victory strike at the foundation of our republic. It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans,” Ryan said in a statement.
“The Trump campaign had ample opportunity to challenge election results, and those efforts failed from lack of evidence,” the statement continues. “The legal process was exhausted, and the results were decisively confirmed. The Department of Justice, too, found no basis for overturning the result. If states wish to reform their processes for future elections, that is their prerogative. But Joe Biden’s victory is entirely legitimate.”