Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is helping lead a Republican fight against the electoral college outcome, insisting that there’s a legitimate reason to question that outcome no matter the fact that courts and officials across the country have already dealt with and roundly rejected systematic fraud claims. He and 10 other GOP Senators and Senators-elect have announced that they intend to object to the certification of Biden’s electoral college victory when Congress meets to consider the numbers on January 6, clamoring instead for the creation of a commission to audit the outcome — again failing to acknowledge the rounds of scrutiny that results across the nation have already been under. During a weekend appearance on the Fox program Sunday Morning Futures, Cruz offered a grossly anti-democratic defense of his effort.
Asked what happens if the audit commission forms and subsequently uncovers evidence of systematic fraud — which there’s absolutely zero meaningful indication will actually take place — Cruz commented as follows:
‘If there’s evidence of fraud, and it’s substantial and significant enough to affect the results in a particular state, then those election results would have to be set aside, and the states would then have to determine: alright, we have a valid claim here, the evidence supports it, we need to conduct elections consistent with the law. The Constitution gives the responsibility of counting the [electoral votes] to the vice president of the United States — Vice President Mike Pence — and to both houses of Congress, and the framers of the Constitution, when they assigned a task to the Congress, they knew what they were doing… The reason they gave it to Congress is they understood there are difficult determinations about what counts as a valid vote… If you have states that are violating the law, that are committing fraud… those are not lawfully certified electors.’
In other words, he is confirming that his plan provides for the potential disqualification of the current election results, meaning Biden’s victory. Watch Cruz’s comments below:
Ted Cruz tells Maria Bartiromo that the "electoral commission" he's demanding could ultimately "set aside" the election results — the implication being that this would clear the way for another Trump term pic.twitter.com/F7xuIe0FYL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2021
Cruz’s suggestion that he and his anti-democratic allies are somehow merely altruistically doing their duty to ensure the security of the election results is ridiculous. Acting like the election results haven’t already been closely scrutinized in every single state is just a grossly ignorant sham. Every single state has long since certified its election results after repeated rounds of close attention to the security of the numbers. To use one example: in Georgia, authorities conducted three tabulations of every single ballot in the state, and in every single one of those efforts, the outcome was the same — a Biden victory.
Cruz and his Republican colleagues who have announced their opposition to the electoral college certification have faced steep criticism.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), for instance, commented as follows:
‘The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic. The congressional power to reject electors is reserved for the most extreme and unusual circumstances. These are far from it. More Americans participated in this election than ever before, and they made their choice.’
There’s no indication that their effort will succeed. Blocking electoral votes would require majorities in both chambers of Congress, and besides the Republican opposition, Democrats control the House.
