PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Congress will meet in a joint session on Wednesday to certify the Electoral College votes and acknowledge the appointment of a new president.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump vows to continue fighting to stay in office. He’s pressing Republican lawmakers to back the creation of a congressional committee to investigate his claims of voter fraud — which have already been discredited.
Congress has a historic — yet simple — task to perform, but the largely ceremonial meeting could face a challenge.
Andrew Shankman, a history professor at Rutgers University–Camden, explained a group of Republicans, led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, is threatening to slow down the count by demanding a probe into election fraud.
“So what Cruz is saying is, ‘We have an unprecedented number of people who believe there is fraud.’ But why do they believe there is fraud?” Shankman asked. “They believe there is fraud because the people with a vested interest in trying to pretend there is have been insisting there is. So, what they do is they create the problem and then say, ‘Now we have to investigate the problem.’
“All (Congress is) allowed to do, legally and constitutionally, is receive votes that have already been certified — ironclad, set through the states — and count them,” he continued. “It doesn’t get to make the votes. It doesn’t get to change the votes. It’s simply counting what has already been certified.”
Shankman believes the Republican group won’t find support in either the full House or Senate if they try to press the issue.
“Both Republican and Democratic state officials are saying we have certified our votes, this is our electoral delegation,” he said. “There is nothing to see here. And, Congress has no authority or power or reason to investigate.”
Challenges to the electoral vote date back to the mid-1870s, said Shankman, but none of the conditions that spawned an investigative commission back then are apparent in the 2020 election.
“They will acknowledge that certification of Joe Biden as president-elect,” Shankman predicted. “There will be an inauguration on Jan. 20, and he and Kamala Harris will become president and vice president. Nothing can change that. That’s a guarantee.”