WASHINGTON — An effort by Republican House members to formally object to Wisconsin’s electoral votes Thursday morning fell flat after receiving no support from the U.S. Senate.
A Republican lawmaker from Texas said he and 70 other House representatives object to Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes for Joe Biden, but as a political science expert explains, the lawmaker’s challenge was largely symbolic.
In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert formally objected to the federal certification of Wisconsin’s election results citing claims of fraud and irregularities that have been widely disputed as false.
“Democrat leaders in Milwaukee illegally and unconstitutionally created more than 200 illegal polling places, tens of thousands of votes were changed by workers despite election workers’ objections, plus so many other illegalities to fraudulently create a 20,000 vote lead,” Gohmert said.
Even other Republicans called Gohmert’s objection a theatrical performance. Gohmert failed to convince even one Republican senator to push the objection to a vote. Earlier in the hearing, congressional votes objecting to Arizona and Pennsylvania’s results failed. In fact, Sen. Lindsey Graham did the opposite and affirmed Wisconsin’s results.
“All I can say is count me out, enough is enough,” Sen. Graham said. “I’ve tried to be helpful, but when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that they didn’t violate the constitution of Wisconsin. I agree with the 3 but I accept the 4.”
UW-Madison political science professor Howard Schweber said he isn’t surprised by Gohmert’s unwillingness to accept Wisconsin’s presidential results, but he said one thing is certain — there was no widespread fraud in the state as the Republican claims.
“They are preposterous,” Schweber said. “They’ve been tested literally dozens of times.”
Schweber believes there is one way to restore faith that Wisconsin runs fair elections, by having Republicans in the state legislature come out with a strong statement that the allegations are false.
“They have always been completely unwilling to do that and at the end of the day that’s where the fault lies for some of this,” he said.