WASHINGTON (AP) – Wednesday’s joint session of Congress to count election votes has gained importance this year as Republicans in Congress allied with President Donald Trump pledge to try to undo Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and subvert the will of the American people.
Republicans – a dozen senators and many more members of the House – cite Trump’s repeated baseless allegations of widespread fraud. They say they will officially oppose the results, forcing votes in the Republican-led Senate and the Democratic-controlled House that will almost certainly fail.
There were no widespread election frauds, as confirmed by several election officials and William Barr, who resigned as attorney general last month. Neither Trump nor any of the lawmakers who promised to oppose the count have presented credible evidence that will change the outcome.
Almost all of the legal challenges posed by Trump and his allies have been dismissed by the judges. The Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated judges, has also denied the request to hear a couple of cases aimed at invalidating the election result in key battlefield states.
The January 6 congressional meeting is the latest step in reaffirming Biden’s victory, after the Electoral College officially elected him. in December. The Constitution requires the meeting and includes several different steps.
A look at the joint session:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE CONGRESS MEETS ON WEDNESDAY?
Under federal law, Congress must meet Jan. 6 to open stamp certificates from each state that contain a record of its electoral votes. Votes are taken to the chamber in special mahogany boxes that are used for the occasion.
Bipartisan representatives from both chambers read the results aloud and make an official count. Senate President Mike Pence presides over the session and declares the winner. The session begins at 1:00 p.m. EST.
WHAT DOES THE CONSTITUTION REQUIRE?
The Constitution requires Congress to meet and count the electoral votes. If there is a tie, the House decides the presidency and each congressional delegation has one vote. This has not happened since the 1800s and Biden’s electoral victory against Trump was decisive, 306-232.
HOW DOES THE SESSION UNFLOW?
The two chambers meet at noon to count the votes. If the vice president cannot preside, there are precedents for the pro-tempore Senate, or the most senior senator in the majority party, to lead the session. He is currently Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
The President opens and presents the certificates of the electoral votes in alphabetical order of the states. The “cashiers” appointed by the House and Senate, members of both parties, read each certificate aloud and record and count the votes. In the end, the president announces who has won the majority of votes for both the president and the vice president.
AND IF THERE IS AN OBJECTION?
After an ATM reads the certificate of a state, any member can stand up and oppose the vote of that state for any reason. But the president will not hear the objection unless it is written and signed by both a member of the House and a member of the Senate.
If there is such a request, the joint session is suspended and the House and Senate participate in separate sessions to consider it. For the objection to be upheld, both chambers must accept it by simple majority. If both do not match, the original election votes are counted unchanged.
The last time this objection was raised was in 2005, when Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and California Sen. Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, opposed Ohio’s election votes, claiming there were irregularities. in the vote. Both the House and the Senate debated the objection and easily rejected it. It was only the second time this vote had been taken.
WHO IS EXPECTED OBJECT?
Dozens of House Republicans and a smaller group of Republican senators are expected to oppose the counting of some swing states where Trump has been swindled, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials and even the ‘former Trump attorney general that there was none. None of the members has presented detailed evidence and none of them oppose the oath of Congress lawmakers who won elections in the same ballots.
In the Senate, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley was the first to say he would join House Republicans. On Saturday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz announced a coalition of 11 additional senators who vowed to vote against unspecified state voters Wednesday unless Congress appoints an election commission to immediately audit the election results. Hawley and Cruz are among the possible candidates for the 2024 presidency.
The challenges have divided the party. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has urged his colleagues not to oppose, saying in a private call last month that the vote would be “terrible.”
Several other Senate Republicans have also criticized the effort, including Texas Sen. John Cornyn and South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. Thune said last month that any objection would fall “like a dog shot” in the Senate.
On Sunday, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said the challenge is “bad for the country and bad for the party.”
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PENCE?
Pence’s role is mostly ceremonial and has no power to affect the outcome, despite Trump’s wishes to the contrary.
The vice president’s role as president is often awkward, as it will be for Pence, who will be in charge of announcing Biden’s victory – and his own defeat – once the election votes are counted.
Pence will not be the first vice president in an awkward situation. In 2001, Vice President Al Gore presided over the countdown to the 2000 presidential election that he narrowly lost to Republican George W. Bush. Gore had to dismiss the objections of several out-of-rule Democrats. In 2017, Biden presided over the count that declared Trump the winner. Biden also rejected objections from House Democrats who had no Senate support.
ONCE THE CONGRESS HAS THE VOTES, WHAT NEXT?
The joint session is the last official opportunity to object, beyond the court cases that have so far proved ineffective for Trump and his team.
“I think there comes a time when you realize that despite your best efforts, you haven’t been successful,” Cornyn said earlier this month.
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AP Congress correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.