EPOCH TIMES — The House of Representatives and the Senate on Sunday adopted rules that outline how the counting of Electoral College votes will take place on Jan. 6.
The rules were passed without recorded votes. Instead, a voice vote was used in both chambers.
The guidance, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), says the chambers will meet in a joint session on Jan. 6 presided over by Vice President Mike Pence.
Pence, as president of the Senate, will open “all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes,” the rules state, a nod to how seven states sent so-called competing electors, or certificates for both Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, to Washington.
The certificates and papers will be opened, presented, and acted upon in alphabetical order, starting with Alabama.
This is when dozens of Republicans—50 representatives and 12 senators, according to an Epoch Times tally—are planning to object to some certificates, alleging election irregularities including voter fraud and failure to follow state election laws.
That will trigger a withdrawal from the joint session and a two-hour debate, followed by votes in each chamber. Only with a majority vote from both the House and the Senate would a challenge be upheld, which even supporters find unlikely, considering Democrats who control the House and Senate Republican leadership, including McConnell, have expressed disapproval with the plan to object.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a letter to colleagues on Sunday noted that objections can happen but said, at the end of the day, Biden “will be officially declared the next president.”
“On Monday, we will have a clearer picture of how many state votes will be subject to an objection. Our choice is not to use the forum to debate the presidency of Donald Trump,” she added.
Reps. Ron Estes (R-Kan.), Tracey Mann (R-Kan.), and Jacob LaTurner (R-Kan.) said Sunday they will join in the objections, saying in a statement that several states are “facing serious allegations of voter fraud and violations of their own state law.”
“This action is not taken lightly and comes after extensive study and research. Kansans deserve to know that all legal, and only legal, votes were counted. We hope our actions begin to restore the confidence of tens of millions of our fellow Americans that feel their sacred right to vote is under attack,” they added.
Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) also announced Sunday they’ll object.
