All eyes on Pence, objections as Congress prepares to declare presidential electionâs winner Last Updated: Dec. 30, 2020 at 11:37 a.m. ET First Published: Dec. 29, 2020 at 10:39 a.m. ET By Vice President Mike Pence Getty Images Email icon Resize icon
Vice President Mike Pence will become the center of attention in Washington and across the country on Jan. 6 when the newly elected Congress, presided over by the vice president, will count Electoral College votes and declare the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Objections by lawmakers also look set to get attention, as one Republican senator announced Wednesday that he plans to a move that would delay next weekâs proceedings.
made. andrew, justin, thank you. appreciate your being here. reminder, go to smerconish.com, answer this survey question. more than 2,000 have already done so this hour. wherein formally or under oath will president trump ultimately be interviewed by mueller s team or invoke his fifth amendment right? we ll show you results at the end of this hour. speaking of which, let s check in on more social media. betwe from twitter. there is no seasonable reason to know citizenship unless you plan to round up noncitizens for some nefarious activities. nancy, the justice department would say that for enforcement of the voting rights act, that is important information for them to have at their disposal. you be the judge. still to come, when does a small town want to be erased from the map? when it is the popular secret short cut recommended by apps
should noncitizens decline to participate out of fear of acknowledging their status? the justice department says it needs the information to insist with enforcement of the voting rights act. skeptics worry the intent is to produce an undercount of communities with large undocumented populations. lawyers at the commerce department are evaluating the legal basis for the question. joining me now, andrew benverag and also justin leavitt. although the census does a lot of things, the primary responsibility is to get a body count. how might that be impacted by the this one question? yeah that is right. the fifth sentence of the constitution right after it says we have a congress, right after it says we have a house of representatives, says the census is supposed to take a count of every person in the country. that is job one.
they are running to stay in place if the census count is accurate. you put this question on the census, and you get a lot of people refusing to respond, that means that the population count is going to be off. it will be wrong. and that is also going to mean that these states texas, north carolina, georgia, alabama, will lose seats rather than gain seats. if you are a republican in congress, looking to hold the republican majority, you are hoping, you re counting on those seats from texas and north carolina and the fast growing southern states. if the census count is wrong, those are seats that the republicans simply will lose. so who gets to decide, how does it get sorted out? i think part of it will be decided by the supreme court, part of it will be decided by the not yet appointed director of the census bureau. and part of it ultimately is decided by congress. because congress eventually and i think it is in april decides exactly what questions go on the census. and justin is r
dill gans. there s a lot at stake. mr. trump has taken on the entire establishment. not just in the democratic party, but also in the gop and also much of the media who we all know doesn t like him very well. there s a lot for him to defend. i myself am originally from st. louis, i can tell you we know there was fraud going on in st. louis. many many people were in fact arrested for it, so it s something that all voters should be aware of, and i don t think that i think mr. trump would be irresponsible to say we weren t going to have poll watchers and things like that, for example, i m glad he s ahead of this. it s not a perfect system. to effect a presidential outcome, the way that it s being framed at least by donald trump is that it s overwhelming, and again, this is justin leavitt, a professor in los angeles, studies fraud allegations. found that 31 incidents of voter