Vice President Mike Pence has confirmed it: He is not going to try to throw out electoral votes from states that supported Joe Biden for preside
Vice President Mike Pence has confirmed it: He is not going to try to throw out electoral votes from states that supported Joe Biden for president.
Pence’s workplace, in a press release Wednesday, rejected last-minute entreaties from President Trump, who wished Pence to intervene in Congress’s rely of electoral votes in an unprecedented strategy to block Biden’s win.
“It’s my thought of judgment that my oath to assist and defend the Structure constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to find out which electoral votes ought to be counted and which mustn’t,” Pence wrote in a letter to members of Congress and launched by his workplace.
Again in December, members of the Electoral School solid their votes in accordance with state outcomes — 306 for Biden, and 232 for Donald Trump. The following and remaining step in making the outcomes official earlier than the inauguration is for a joint session of Congress to rely these votes — with Pence presiding. That’s what’s occurring Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier vice presidents have taken a restrained position on this occasion, deferring to Congress and viewing their very own job as primarily ceremonial. (The 12th Modification says Pence’s job is to “open all of the certificates,” and provides that “the votes shall then be counted.” So technically, he’s not even in control of counting, simply of “opening.”)
In current weeks, although, Trump and a few of his supporters have embraced the fanciful authorized idea that as a result of Pence is presiding, he additionally has energy to intervene with the rely, by unilaterally selecting to throw out electoral votes he doesn’t like.
The Vice President has the facility to reject fraudulently chosen electors.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2021
On Monday night time, Trump mentioned at a rally in Georgia, “I hope that our nice vice chairman comes via for us. He’s an important man. After all, if he doesn’t come via, I gained’t like him fairly as a lot.” Trump and Pence reportedly met on the White Home on each Monday and Tuesday.
However Trump’s assertions don’t have any foundation within the legislation or the Structure, as Pence acknowledged. “Our Founders had been deeply skeptical of concentrations of energy and created a Republic primarily based on separation of powers and checks and balances underneath the Structure of the US,” Pence’s letter reads. “Vesting the Vice President with unilateral authority to determine presidential contests can be solely antithetical to that design.”
You’ll be able to learn Pence’s full letter at this hyperlink, or beneath.