(REUTERS): United States Senator Ted Cruz has announced to spearhead a drive by nearly a dozen Republican senators to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory when Electoral College results are tallied in Congress on January 6.
The initiative appears certain to fail as it flies in the face of rulings in dozens of courts and the findings by officials in several key states, that there were no widespread voting problems.
The Republicans’ statement, signed by Cruz and six other current senators along with four senators-elect, asserts that “allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.”
The group said that when Congress convenes in a joint session on Wednesday, they will demand the creation of a special commission to conduct an “emergency 10-day audit” of the election results.
The statement further informed that individual states could then convene special legislative sessions and potentially revise their vote totals. It was not immediately clear which states would be subject to the proposed audit, Cruz’s office said.
Democrats and some moderate Republicans blasted the move by the senators as undemocratic. A spokesman for the Biden campaign, Michael Gwin, dismissed the move as theater that is not supported by any evidence.
“This stunt won’t change the fact that President-elect Biden will be sworn in on Jan. 20, and these baseless claims have already been examined and dismissed by Trump’s own attorney general, dozens of courts, and election officials from both parties,” he said.
