Senate GOP leaders implore Rand Paul and others not to make them vote on Electoral College challenge

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and two of his top GOP deputies urged members on a call on Tuesday not to force the chamber to vote on challenges to the Electoral College count, saying it would put Republicans in the precarious position of voting against Donald Trump’s interests.

It’s a “terrible vote” for the GOP, Mr McConnell told his fellow Senate Republicans on a call on Tuesday, Politico’s Jake Sherman reported on Twitter.

Several House Republicans, led by Congressman Mo Brooks, have been courting Trump-aligned senators such as Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to challenge the Electoral College votes from five states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — over claims of widespread voter fraud.

Just one senator and one House member would need to sign onto the formal challenge to force each chamber into two hours of separate debate before voting to uphold or throw out the electoral results.

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden defeated Mr Trump in Monday’s Electoral College vote, 306-232, putting him well above the 270-vote threshold to cinch the presidency.

Congress is scheduled to certify those results on 6 January, three days after the new 117th Congress has been sworn in.

Conservatives, led by a defiant Mr Trump, have been arguing for weeks that there was widespread election fraud in the five states in question, although the paucity of evidence they have presented so far has led to a string of humiliations in the state and federal court systems.

So far, no senator has stepped up to the plate to sign onto Mr Brooks’ challenge to the election results.

If Congress were to scrap the electoral results in the five states in question, neither Mr Trump nor Mr Biden would have the necessary 270 votes to claim the presidency. The House of Representatives would then vote for president by state congressional delegation. Republicans will control more state delegations than Democrats in the next Congress even though Democrats will have a slight overall majority in the chamber.

It won’t get to that point.

While Mr Brooks may be able to cajole at least one senator into forcing a vote on the Electoral College’s integrity, the motion to toss the results into the fire is certain to fail since majorities in both the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-held Senate are needed to pass it.

Democrats and even several Republicans in both chambers have roundly rejected the GOP’s legal challenges to the election results. Actually overturning the will of the Electoral College — whose composition is determined by the American people’s vote on 3 November — would represent an even more momentous step away from democracy.

“Madness,” Utah GOP Senator Mitt Romney told reporters last Tuesday. “This is madness. We have a process. Recounts are appropriate. Going to the court is appropriate. Pursuing every legal avenue is appropriate. But trying to get electors not to do what the people voted to do is madness.”

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota and Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt of Missouri added to Mr McConnell’s plea to Senate Republicans to quietly rebuff Mr Brooks’ efforts.

Earlier in the day, Mr McConnell and several other GOP lawmakers acknowledged Mr Biden as the president-elect, a sharp departure from Mr Trump, who has said he will continue fighting the election results.

"As of this morning, our country has officially a president-elect and a vice president-elect,” Mr McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Many millions of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes that will determine who is sworn in on January the 20th.

“The Electoral College has spoken. So today I want to congratulate Joe Biden. The president-elect is no stranger to the Senate. He’s devoted himself to public service for many years. I also want to congratulate the vice president, and our colleague from California, Senator [Kamala] Harris."

He called it a national milestone that she will be the first female vice president.

Mr Biden confirmed that he had a “good conversation” with the majority leader on Tuesday.

“I called him to thank him for the congratulations,” the president-elect said. “Told him that although we disagree on a lot of things, there's things we can work together on.”

Mr Biden will be sworn into office on 20 January.

The Trump administration is still refusing to accept the election over.

At a press conference on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the administration “has taken all statutory requirements necessary to either ensure a smooth transition or a continuation of power.”

There will not be a continuation of power.