Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., indicated Thursday that he is exploring all possible procedures at his disposal to delay certification of the Electoral College results during a joint session of Congress on Friday.
Perlmutter hasn’t committed to putting up a roadblock to finalizing the results, but his office confirmed that he is “reviewing certain laws and the U.S. Constitution as it pertains to efforts to undermine our electoral process.”
The rules allow lawmakers to protest the counting of Electoral College votes, but because the votes are counted during a joint session of Congress, a senator would also have to protest the results to halt their certification.
Perlmutter was reacting to intelligence community officials’ statements during hearings on Capitol Hill Thursday about Russia’s meddling in the November elections. Intelligence officials say Russia was behind the hacking into Democratic emails last year in an attempt to sway the election.
“It is clear Russia intervened in an attempt to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Perlmutter stated. “This action by a foreign nation was unprecedented, violated our Constitution and undermined the founding pillars of American liberty and democracy.”
“This is not about trying to stop Donald Trump from becoming president,” he insisted.
“This is about the fact that our liberty, freedom and democracy were compromised by Russia’s intrusion into America’s election,” he continued. “We cannot allow a foreign nation to ever influence our elections because it harms our liberty, freedom and independence. This is bigger than just one election, and for the sake of our democracy, we must remain vigilant.”
A report in Politico said Reps. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., are also considering challenges to the vote.
Objections from the trio of Democrats—or any of their colleagues—are being encouraged by a variety of good government groups and liberal activists who circulated a legal brief Thursday detailing how to object and claiming that a sizeable chunk of the Electoral College was not legally allowed to participate in voting that took place in statehouses Dec. 19.
“We have reason to believe that there are at least 50 electoral votes that were not regularly given or not lawfully certified,” the brief reads. “We are non-partisan — Democrat, Republican, and Independent. We live in different parts of the country, urban and rural, Red states and Blue states,” the coalition stated.
Democrats lodged formal protests during certification of both the 2004 and 2000 Electoral College results.
If Congress threw out enough votes to put Trump below the 270-vote threshold, lawmakers would choose the president from three people who received the most Electoral College votes Dec. 19—Trump, Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell.
It is highly unlikely that the GOP-controlled Congress will deny Trump certification of any of his 304 Electoral College votes.
The threat of potential challenges may be inducement enough to keep Republican lawmakers who may have been inclined to skip the usually perfunctory session from leaving town early. A quorum of both chambers must be present to certify the results.
