Challenge to the Electoral College vote needs YOUR help! Contact your U.S. Rep and Senator today!
January 5, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A number of Republican U.S. Senators claim that the Constitution prevents them from challenging suspect slates of Electors. But is this true?
Senator Tom Cotton stated, “Under the Constitution and federal law, Congress’s power is limited to counting electoral votes submitted by the states.” There are roughly 25 Republican U.S. Senators who appear reluctant to support an electoral vote challenge.
But the principal author of the Fourteenth Amendment, Republican Congressman Jonathan Bingham (OH), and the father of the Republican Party, President Abraham Lincoln, clearly explained that state legislatures and Congress have a joint responsibility to verify the authenticity of the certification of electors and electoral votes.
The Republican Congress on February 8, 1865, passed Joint Resolution, HR 126, which “declared that Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee were in, ‘such condition on the eighth day of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-four, that no valid election . . . was held’ and that these states were not entitled to representation in the electoral college.” (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 8, page 271)
President Lincoln agreed with and signed the Congressional Resolution, noting that, “the two Houses of Congress, convened under the twelfth article of the Constitution, have complete power to exclude from counting all electoral votes deemed by them to be illegal; and it is not competent for the Executive to defeat or obstruct that power by a veto, as would be the case if his action were at all essential in the matter.” (The Congressional Globe, February 9, 1865, page 688)
Further, members of Congress, both pro-and anti-slavery, both before and after 1865, held that Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate had an obligation to evaluate the legality and conformity of certifications of electors and their votes as a necessary condition for approval by Congress acting as the Electoral College.
Senator William Eaton (CT): “Let me suppose that the condition of the country just after the next presidential election should be as it is now and has been for years past, though I hope it will not be. … I apprehend that if a return came in here that I believed was a fraud, that I had no doubt the seal of the State was fraudulently placed upon, I would vote against the reception of that return … .” (Congressional Record, February 25, 1875, page 1783)
Congressman Jonathan Bingham (Principal Author, 14th Amendment, OH): “I am convinced that it is the office and duty of the House and Senate to see that no votes are counted, which, by the certificate opened and read in their hearing, were given contrary to the express requisitions of the Constitution and the statutes….” (The Congressional Globe, February 11, 1857, page 659)
Senator Charles Stuart (MI): “… the Constitution has devolved upon the Presiding Officer the duty of receiving these votes, of keeping them, of opening them in the presence of the two Houses, of counting them, and declaring the result. What votes he shall count it is entirely competent for Congress by law to declare.” (The Congressional Globe, February 11, 1857, page 646)
Senator Robert Toombs (GA): “I again affirm … that it is competent for the two Houses in their separate capacities, to decide which are the votes under the Constitution. … The point is, what are the votes to be counted? I insist that nothing shall, by legal intendment or implication, assert the doctrine that anybody can determine what are votes except the Senate and House of Representatives or that anyone can prevent them from deciding that question.” (The Congressional Globe, February 11, 1857 page 649)
Senator David Reid (NC): “The President of the Senate does not open the votes in the presence of the two Houses in their individual characters; but the two Houses are assembled in their character as a Senate and House of Representatives under the Constitution; and I infer that the counting of those votes is to be directed and controlled by the two Houses. … The Framers of the Constitution seemed to contemplate, if there was any power given to revise at all a contested election of President, that it should be jointly in the Senate and House of Representatives.” (The Congressional Globe, February 11, 1857 page 647)
Senator George Edmunds, (VT): “The Constitution requires that the vote of each State shall be opened by the Presiding Officer, the President of the Senate. When opened the votes are to be counted. The question on which the whole thing turns, … is what is a vote of a state.… We all agree that every vote of every State ought to be counted. We all agree that whatever pretends to be a vote, or looks like a vote but is not a vote, should not be counted.” (Congressional Record, February 25, 1875, page 1767)
To justify their inaction, some Republicans in Congress now are pretending that there is some constitutional bar to their challenging a slate of electors approved by the Governor. This view is a fabrication – purely pretextual. Their predecessors firmly believed that Member of Congress had an obligation to exclude slates of electoral chosen by unconstitutional procedures and corrupted by fraud.
Voters must contact their Senators and Congressmen immediately – today, January 5 and even the tomorrow morning (January 6) – to urge support for the challenge to the Biden electors that will occur tomorrow.
Challenge to the Electoral College vote needs YOUR help! Contact your U.S. Rep and Senator today!