As the US Congress meets to certify the Electoral College vote, Louisiana Republicans are leading the charge to object to the election of Joe Biden.
House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Metairie released a statement ahead of today’s joint session of Congress
"The Constitution requires that states carry out elections according to the rules established by state legislatures," the Louisiana Republican said. "In a number of states, that did not happen. We cannot turn a blind eye to states selectively choosing which election laws to follow."
Scalise says the founding fathers gave Congress a critical role to play in certifying the election results. The whip says in order to restore confidence in the electoral system, Congress must stand up for the rule of law.
“A few weeks ago I joined many of my colleagues in petitioning the United States Supreme Court to settle these valid concerns. With the Supreme Court declining to issue a ruling on these matters of law, these questions remain unresolved. The only remaining recourse, as laid out in the Constitution, is through Congressional action."
For those reasons, he explained, he will vote in favor of objections to the certification of electoral votes from the states where there have been serious questions about the integrity of the electoral process.
"It is my sincere hope that the debates that take place later today will be the first step in the necessary process of election reform. Every American deserves to have complete confidence that our elections are free, fair, and secure," Scalise said.
Congressman Clay Higgins of Lafayette says he has a constitutional duty to vote against certification because many states changed their election procedures without legislative approval, resulting in illegitimate results.
“In six sovereign states there is a preponderance of evidence to suggest that election laws were violated, which means that the integrity of the election itself was violated,” said Higgins.
Those claims were rejected by the US Supreme Court but are supported by a faction of Republicans, including Higgins and US Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.
Higgins says along with legal concerns over altered voting procedures he’s also seen evidence of large scale voting irregularities.
“There is a tremendous amount of evidence within these states that fraud was committed, sort of six different flavors of fraud,” said Higgins.
Louisiana’s senior Senator Bill Cassidy, said he would vote to certify the election. The Republican says that no evidence has been presented showcasing the kind of wide-scale fraud needed to impact the election.