Pence Welcomes Futile Bid by G.O.P. Lawmakers to Overturn Election – The New York Times

In their statement, the Republicans cited poll results showing most members of their party believe the election was rigged, an assertion that Mr. Trump has made for months, and which has been repeated in the right-wing news media and by many Republican members of Congress.

A fair and credible audit conducted expeditiously and completed well before Jan. 20 would dramatically improve Americans faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next president, they wrote. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it.

They also acknowledged that their effort was likely to be unsuccessful, given that any such challenge must be sustained by both the House, where Democrats hold the majority, and the Senate, where top Republicans including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, have tried to shut it down.

We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise, the senators wrote.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, called the Republican effort a publicity stunt that would ultimately fail, but said it was dangerous nevertheless, amounting to an attempt to subvert the will of the voters. She noted in an interview that hundreds of millions of votes had already been counted, recounted, litigated and state-certified across the country.

These baseless claims have already been examined and dismissed by Trumps own attorney general, dozens of courts and election officials from both parties, said Mike Gwin, a spokesman for Mr. Bidens campaign.

While lawmakers have sought to register their opposition to past presidential election results by challenging Congresss certification, the move has generally been more symbolic than substantive, given that the loser had already conceded and senators rarely joined with members of the House to force a vote. But as Mr. Trump continues to perpetuate the myth of widespread voter fraud, a growing number of Republicans in Congress have been eager to challenge the results, either out of devotion to the president or out of fear of enraging the base of their party that still reveres him even in defeat.

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Pence Welcomes Futile Bid by G.O.P. Lawmakers to Overturn Election - The New York Times