WASHINGTON (AP) – Wednesday’s joint congressional meeting to count electoral votes has gained additional importance this year as congressional republicans associated with President Donald Trump pledge to try to undo Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and the will of the American people.
The Republicans – a dozen senators and many more members of the House – cite Trump’s repeated, groundless allegations of widespread fraud. They say they will officially object to the results and enforce votes in the Republican-led Senate and Democrat-controlled House that will almost certainly fail.
There was no widespread election fraud, as confirmed by a string of election officials and by William Barr, who stepped down as attorney general last month. Neither Trump, nor any of the lawmakers who promised to oppose the count, have provided credible evidence that would change the outcome.
Nearly all of Trump’s and his allies’ legal challenges have been rejected by judges. The Supreme Court, made up of three Trump-nominated justices, has also rejected requests to hear a few cases intended to invalidate the election outcome in key states on the battlefield.
Congressional meeting on January 6 marks the final step in reaffirming Biden’s victory, after the Electoral College officially elected him in December. The meeting is required by the constitution and involves several separate steps.
A look at the joint session:
WHAT HAPPENS IF THE CONVENTION MEETS ON WEDNESDAY?
Federal law requires Congress to meet on Jan. 6 to open sealed certificates of each state containing a record of their election votes. The voices are brought into the room in special mahogany boxes used for the occasion.
Two-part representatives from both chambers read the results aloud and count officially. The President of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence, chairs the session and declares the winner. The session starts at 1:00 PM EST.
WHAT DOES THE CONSTITUTION REQUIRES?
The constitution requires Congress to meet and count electoral votes. If the votes are tied, the House decides on the chairmanship, with each congressional delegation having one vote. That hasn’t happened since the 1800s and Biden’s election victory over Trump was decisive, 306-232.
HOW DOES THE SESSION COME FROM?
The two chambers meet in the afternoon to count the votes. If the vice president cannot chair, there is precedent for the senate pro-tempore, or the longest-serving senator in the majority party, to lead the session. That’s Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa right now.
The presiding officer opens and presents the certificates of electoral votes in the alphabetical order of the states. The appointed “tellers” of the House and Senate, members of both parties, then read each certificate out and record and count the votes. At the end, the presiding officer announces who won the majority votes for both the president and vice president.
WHAT IF THERE IS AN OBJECTION?
After a teller reads a state’s certificate, any member can stand up and object to that state’s vote for any reason. However, the presiding officer will only consider the objection if it has been drawn up in writing 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 adjourned and the House and Senate go into separate sessions to consider it. For the objection to be accepted, both chambers must agree with a simple majority of votes. If they do not both agree, the original election votes are counted unchanged.
The last time such an objection was considered was in 2005, when Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Senator Barbara Boxer of California, both Democrats, objected to Ohio’s election votes, claiming there were voting irregularities. Both the House and the Senate discussed the objection and easily dismissed it. It was only the second time such a vote had taken place.
WHO HAS EXPECTATION TO OBJECT?
Dozens of House Republicans and a smaller group of GOP senators are expected to object to the count of some swing states where Trump has committed alleged fraud, despite the consensus from non-partisan election officials and even Trump’s former Attorney General that no used to be. None of the members provided detailed evidence, and none of them objected to the swearing-in of lawmakers in Congress who won the election with the same votes.
In the Senate, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first to say he would join the House Republicans. On Saturday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz announced a coalition of 11 additional senators who pledged on Wednesday to vote against unspecified state selectors unless Congress appoints an election commission to immediately audit the election results. Hawley and Cruz are both among the potential 2024 presidential candidates.
The challenges have divided the party. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has urged his colleagues not to object. In a private conversation last month, he said the mood 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 Senate Republican. Thune said last month that all objections “like a shot dog” will disappear in the Senate.
On Sunday, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said the challenge is “bad for the country and bad for the party.”
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PENCE?
Pence’s role is largely ceremonial, and he has no power to influence the outcome, despite Trump’s opposing wishes.
The vice president’s role as presiding officer is often a tricky one, as it will be for Pence, who will be charged with announcing Biden’s victory – and his own defeat – once the electoral votes are counted.
Pence won’t be the first vice president to find himself in an awkward situation. In 2001, Vice President Al Gore chaired the 2000 presidential election count, which he narrowly lost to Republican George W. Bush. Gore had to confuse the objections of several Democrats. In 2017, Biden presided over the count who declared Trump the winner. Biden also fired objections from House Democrats who had no support from the Senate.
WHAT IS ONCE THE CONVENTION COUNTS THE VOTES?
The joint session is the last official opportunity for objection, aside from lawsuits that have so far proved ineffective for Trump and his team.
“I think there will come a time when you have to realize that you haven’t been successful despite your best efforts,” Cornyn said earlier this month.
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AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.