Senators Lisa Murkowski and Pat Toomey are clashing with fellow Republican lawmakers who have vowed not to vote to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Ted Cruz is leading the senators opposed to certifying the results from key states like Pennsylvania unless an emergency 10-day audit is conducted by an electoral commission. Toomey, however, defended his state claiming Trump’s loss was “explained by the decline in suburban support.”
“A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders,” said Toomey. “The effort by Senators Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.”
He also accused Republicans’ efforts to object to an Electoral College vote of an “effort to disenfranchise millions of voters.”
Murkowski is distancing herself from the opposing group of Senate Republicans saying she “swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution.”
“I will vote to affirm the 2020 presidential election,” she stated. “The courts and state legislatures have all honored their duty to hear legal allegations and have found nothing to warrant overturning the results.”
My statement regarding the upcoming meeting of Congress to formally count the votes of the Electoral College and certify the 2020 presidential election: pic.twitter.com/Bk8jd21Emr
— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) January 2, 2021
Cruz and other senators say the November presidential election “featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud and illegal conduct.”
The group agreed that “voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections” and that “by any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.”
The Supreme Court has refused two lawsuits from Trump’s legal team and lower courts across the country have dismissed over 50 cases.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr also denied claims of election fraud leading up to his resignation saying, “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
