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Image Source : AP How Congress will depend Electoral College votes
The congressional joint session to depend electoral votes is mostly a routine, ceremonious affair. But President Donald Trump’s repeated, baseless efforts to problem Democrat Joe Biden’s victory will carry extra consideration than ordinary to subsequent Wednesday’s joint session of the Senate and the House.
The congressional depend is the ultimate step in reaffirming Biden’s win, after the Electoral College formally elected him on December 14. The assembly is required by the Constitution and consists of a number of distinct steps.
Republicans who’re echoing Trump’s baseless claims of fraud have stated they may formally object to the outcomes, forcing votes within the Republican-run Senate and the Democratic-controlled House that can virtually definitely fail. A bunch of House Republicans had been on the lookout for a senator to signal on as a result of there should be help from not less than one member of every chamber to pressure the votes. That help got here Wednesday from Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a potential contender within the 2024 GOP presidential major.
Hawley’s problem comes regardless of a plea from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Republican senators not be a part of the futile House effort. McConnell instructed his caucus on a non-public name earlier this month that it could be a “terrible vote” for Senate Republicans to must take.
A have a look at the joint session:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN CONGRESS MEETS IN JANUARY?
Under federal regulation, Congress should meet on January 6 to open sealed certificates from every state that include a report of their electoral votes. The votes are introduced into the chamber in mahogany bins.
Bipartisan representatives of each chambers learn the outcomes out loud and do an official depend. The president of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence, presides over the session and declares the winner.
WHAT DOES THE CONSTITUTION REQUIRE?
The Constitution requires Congress to satisfy and depend the electoral votes. If there’s a tie, then the House decides the presidency, with every congressional delegation having one vote. That hasn’t occurred because the 1800s, and Biden’s electoral win over Trump was decisive, 306-232.
HOW DOES THE SESSION UNFOLD?
The two chambers meet noon to depend the votes. If the vp can’t preside, there may be precedent for the Senate pro-tempore, or the longest-serving senator within the majority celebration, to guide the session. That’s presently Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
The presiding officer opens and presents the certificates of the electoral votes in alphabetical order of the states. The appointed “tellers” from every chamber, members of each events, then learn every certificates out loud. The tellers report and depend the votes, The presiding officer pronounces who has gained the bulk votes for each president and vp.
WHAT IF THERE’S AN OBJECTION?
After a teller reads the certificates from a state, any member can arise and object to that state’s vote on any grounds. But the presiding officer won’t hear the objection until it’s in writing and signed by each a member of the House and a member of the Senate.
If there may be such a joint request, then the joint session suspends and the House and Senate go into separate periods to think about it. For the objection to be sustained, each chambers should conform to it by a easy majority vote. If they don’t each agree, the unique electoral votes are counted.
The final time such an objection was thought of was 2005, when Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, each Democrats, objected to Ohio’s electoral votes by claiming there have been voting irregularities. Both chambers debated the objection and rejected it. It was solely the second time such a vote had occurred.
MIGHT A CHALLENGE SUCCEED?
It’s extraordinarily unlikely, provided that the House is managed by Democrats and that a number of Senate Republicans, together with McConnell, have acknowledged Biden’s victory. McConnell requested his fellow Republican senators on the personal name on December 15 to not take part any House objection.
Several different high-ranking Republicans agreed. The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, stated earlier this month that if the Senate had been compelled to vote on a problem “it would go down like a shot dog.” Thune stated it didn’t make sense to place senators by way of a vote when “you know what the ultimate outcome is gonna be.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, stated any such effort by congressional Republicans could be “futile” and a mistake.
There was no widespread fraud within the election, as has been confirmed by a spread of election officers and by William Barr, who stepped down as lawyer normal final week.
WHAT IS PENCE’S ROLE?
The function of the vp as presiding officer is usually an ungainly one, as will probably be for Pence, who can be charged with saying Biden’s victory — and his personal defeat — as soon as the electoral votes are counted. It can be particularly tense for the previous Indiana congressman as a result of his boss, Trump, has refused to concede.
But he gained’t be the primary vp put in an uncomfortable state of affairs. In 2001, Vice President Al Gore presided over the counting of the 2000 presidential election he narrowly misplaced to Republican George W. Bush. Gore needed to gavel a number of Democrats’ objections out of order. In 2016, Biden presided over the depend that declared Trump the winner. Biden additionally shot down objections from House Democrats that didn’t have any Senate help.
ONCE CONGRESS COUNTS THE VOTES, WHAT’S NEXT?
The joint session is the final official probability for objections, past court docket instances which have to date confirmed ineffective for Trump and his group.
“I think there comes a time when you have to realize that, despite your best efforts you’ve been unsuccessful,” Cornyn stated earlier this month.
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