Why GOP’s Objection To Certify Election Was Different Than Previous Years

The GOP needs to take accountability for their actions and stop finger-pointing at Democrats, saying, “They did it first.”

Multiple Republicans, have taken to social media and TV interviews to defend how they objected to certifying the election for Joe Biden on January 6, 2021. One of the main excuses they have given is, “Democrats objected in 2001, 2005, and 2017.”

It’s true. Democrats DID object to certifying certain states in those elections. However, unlike the Republicans, their reason(s) was based on ACTUAL evidence of voter fraud, suppression, and irregularities.

So, this triggered a recount by hand. Gore then demanded a recount by hand in 4 crucial counties. The Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, had also worked on the Bush campaign and demanded that the recount by hand be completed in one week. The Gore campaign petitioned the majority-Republican Florida Supreme Court to extend that time. They did, by an extra week.

The results came in.

Only two counties were able to finish the recount on time, which then put Bush in the lead by about 500. Gore petitioned the Florida Supreme Court again to examine 70,000 questionable ballots. That’s when they discovered that the voting method was flawed because of the way holes were punched into the ballots.

Clarence Thomas’ wife.

Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, was working for the Heritage Foundation back in 2000. Which, was campaigning for Bush. Of course, back then, it raised a lot of conflict-of-interest questions. Ginni Thomas has been back in the news again recently, as she cheered on the violent insurrection on January 6, on Twitter.

After the Supreme Court stopped the recount, Gore conceded and Bush was awarded Florida’s electoral votes, giving him enough electoral votes to with the White House. Gore was the first presidential candidate in 112 years to lose the electoral college but win the popular vote. (Of course, only 16 years later, it happened again with Trump’s win.)

That is why Democrats objected to certifying Florida’s votes for the 2000 election. Although several House Representatives submitted their objections, they were unable to get a Senator to sign it. There was no debate and their objections were denied.

On top of that, the Secretary of State Ken Blackwell ruled that Ohio would not count provisional ballots, even those from properly registered voters, that was submitted at the wrong precinct. This ruling was ultimately upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Ken Blackwell has his very own page on Ohio’s ACLU website, for the mass amounts of voter suppression he’s been responsible for over the years. As all GOP villains have done, Blackwell later went to work for Trump.

There was plenty of evidence of voter irregularities and voter suppression in Ohio’s 2004 race.

This is why Democrats in the House objected to certifying its results. This time, Democratic Senator, Barbara Boxer from California, signed their objection and it went to debate.

The House had a two-hour debate, 31 Democrats agreed with the objection, 267 Republicans did not agree with the objection. Aside from Boxer, no other Senator agreed to the objections. Ohio went to Bush.

Those states were Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Alabama.

It’s important to note that the Supreme Court case which overturned certain parts of the voting rights act, Shelby v Holder, initiated from Shelby County, Alabama. What else in Alabama? Selma. The assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama helped lead to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, in the first place. Alabama has a long history of voter suppression.

Representative Jim McGovern gave three reasons that he was objecting to the Alabama election.

1. The electors were not lawfully certified.

This was true. Two of the electors from Alabama were dual-office holders, in direct violation of statutes prohibiting dual-office holding.

2. The confirmed and illegal activities engaged by the government of Russia.

Also, true. Alabama was one of 21 states which were targeted in an attempted to hack their election systems. It’s unclear whether or not, Russia was able to change votes in Alabama, although Alabama Republicans will say it didn’t happen. That’s not all. Alabama Governor, Robert Bentley, was meeting with the Russians along with Jeff Sessions. You know, the same meetings which ultimately led to Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russian investigation.

3. Widespread violations of the Voting Rights Act, which illegally suppressed thousands of votes.

True, again. Leading up to the 2016 elections, Alabama closed 31 driver’s license offices throughout the state. The closures took place in the Black Belt region, which is predominantly African-America, and disproportionately disenfranchised voters in that area.

That was a violation of the law and the Constitution. The vote that she cast in this election was illegal.

Bondi also had a long history with Trump. In 2013, while she was AG, she received dozens of complaints about the Trump University scam. Initially, she was going to join New York to sue Trump, but then Trump donated $25,000 to her campaign and she dropped the suit. Bondi was hit with both ethics and bar complaints. She also had to pay a fine to the IRS. In 2016, she endorsed Trump and made headlines for leading a “Lock her up” chant at a Florida rally. During Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, Bondi was hired to be part of his defense team, while simultaneously working as a Qatar lobbyist.

All GOP villains lead to Trump.

Georgia.

Representative Pramila Jayapal objected to Georgia’s vote certificate. She was unable to get out the reason why she was objecting, as Biden interrupted her to say there would be no debate.

In 2016, Paul Manafort met with Russian officials to discuss the elections in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Computer scientists flagged anomalies in the results of several counties that used electronic voting in three swing states. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. This prompted calls for recounts. However, an obscure 1954 Michigan law prevented recount votes in Michigan.

New York.

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee objected to certifying the votes from New York. Even though Jackson Lee is a Democrat and New York went to Hillary Clinton, she objected because of the voter suppression, which took place in the state.

In December 2016 the Attorney General of New York put out a civil rights report on voting access in the state of New York. The report stated that during the 2016 presidential election, it received 1,500 complaints about voting access (which was ten times the average). Voters reported problems accessing the polls, ranging from issues with registration to concerns about procedures at polling places, and questions about directions given by poll workers. Jackson Lee later said, “My goal is to ensure that the principles upon which this nation was built, the whole concept of democracy is followed no matter what party prevails.”

North Carolina.

Representative Raul Grijalva objected to the North Carolina certification. He tried to object to violations of the Voting Rights Act and confirmed hacking by the Russian government, but Biden shut him down with the no debate rule.

In the 2016 election, North Carolina deliberately disenfranchised Black voters. The federal appeals court described it as deliberate intent and overturned their voting law in 2017.

West Virginia.

Although there was no debate, Russia was again the topic of why the results of West Virginia were disputed. Although in 2016 there were no direct accusations of Russia hacking West Virginia, there was a video posted online of how to hack West Virginia elections.

Wisconsin.

During the 2016 election, because of a voting law (that violated the voting rights act), 200,000 votes were intentionally suppressed. Most of those suppressed votes were Black. In turn, Donald Trump only won the election there by 22,000 votes.

Aside from that, Wisconsin was also one of the 21 states that were targeted by Russia. Wisconsin was also specifically discussed between Paul Manafort and Russian political consultants when they spoke of which states to target.

During the 2017 certification of election results, no Senator ever signed the objections, and none of the objections went to debate.

An important distinction of the 2001, 2005, and 2017 objections to certification.

In each and every single one of those years, there was never a media outlet or elected official who came out and said none of these claims are true. No one ever pointed to fake news or debunked news as the reason why Democrats objected.

In 2000, Florida did screw up. That is a fact. Despite screwing up, the Supreme Court gave Florida to Bush. That is a fact. A Supreme Court Justice’s wife was involved. Also, a fact. In 2004, Ohio partook in voter suppression, which led to the disenfranchisement of Black voters. That is a fact. In 2016, voter suppression took place, electoral votes were illegally cast, and Russia hacked into the election systems in several states. These are all facts.

The reason why the 2021 certification process was different, was because Republicans didn’t object to facts. They objected based on fake news and political ambition.

Next up to debate was Jim Jones.

Jones began his argument by saying that during the campaign Biden would get 50 people at an event, but Trump’s rallies brought in crowds of 50,000. Even though it is the dumbest argument ever, Reuters fact-checked it. It says, “there is a pandemic, moron,” (I’m paraphrasing).

This is why Biden was a better choice than Trump. Because Biden wasn’t willing to kill people to have a political rally, unlike Trump. In fact, according to this study done by Stanford University, more than 700 people gave their lives to attend Trump rallies during the pandemic. Trump had no moral compass.

Jones went on to say that a federal judge extended voter registration 18 days…because it was a pandemic and we didn’t want people to die. That’s the reason Jim Jordan was objection because people were able to safely register to vote during a pandemic.

He went on to say that everyone who registered after the original deadline was still able to vote. He said during after the deadline, more than 32,000 people in Maricopa County alone, registered to vote. When they cast their vote, it was an illegal vote because they registered in the time a judge extended them to. THIS is the reason Republicans wanted to overturn the election. Absolutely mind-blowing.

Biggs added that citizen investigators used the limited amount of public information they had and found that over 500 people who voted didn’t update their address on their voter registration cards. Then, he submitted a stack of 1,000 affidavits supporting his claim. Affidavits from citizen investigators…likely Trump supporters. 🙄

When she finished her rant, you could hear Nancy Pelosi let out a little giggle along with the entire Democratic side of the House. Remember, this was before the insurrection, Boebert’s insane behavior was still laughable at that point. Boebert then yielded the floor to Brian Mast.

Mast said he had a simple question, “Could the chair honestly tell Americans that with pending Supreme Court case over legal observers not being allowed to observe and inspect signatures, that the laws and constitution were not violated to change voting outcomes?”

Mast then said he will await a response.

Pelosi responded by saying, “The gentleman has 25 seconds remaining.”

Then Mast shouted, “Then I will repeat my question,” and he repeated his question.

This was a circus. Although correct, that one of the widely-debunked lies about the election had to do with observers, that lie was tied to Pennsylvania and Michigan. That lie was never used in Arizona’s case. At the time, they were debating Arizona, which made his question pointless. Pelosi didn’t answer the question, because it was stupid and she wasn’t obligated to.

Mitch McConnell started the debate. Despite being long known for being highly-partisan, that wasn’t the tone he took this time. He told the other Republican senators, “Look here, you jackasses. I’ve been in congress like 200 years and no one has ever before tried to overturn the election because of conspiracy theories. Give it up losers.” (I’m paraphrasing, you can see his comments below.)

What did he say was his reason for signing the objection to Arizona? Because a recent poll said 39% of Americans believed the election was rigged. “It’s not just Republicans that believe that,” he said, “It’s also 31% of Independents and 17% of Democrats.” He didn’t say what poll he was referencing, but it likely came from OAN, Breitbart, or some other right-wing media outlet that regularly churns out lies.

He asserted that we needed to take those Americans who doubted the election into consideration. He never mentioned the big lie, the lies he spread, or the lies regularly put out by right-wing media. Cruz proposed a 10-day emergency audit and pause the certifying of the election until then.

Because of those lies, the Trump cult didn’t believe the election was legitimate, even though there was no evidence to say otherwise. In Lankford’s mind, that was a good enough reason to overturn democracy.

He was in mid-speech when the violent insurrectionists broke into the capitol. He didn’t get a chance to finish, not until later that night.

What happened when the insurrection was over and Congress returned?

When Lankford returned to the podium, he spoke of peace and Joe Biden being president.

Mike Lee was the next Republican to debate. He said he changed what he initially had planned to say and then said that Congress’ role in elections was limited to what was said in the Constitution. Every Republican who spoke after that repeated nearly the same thing. Kelly Loeffler, Ben Sasse, Roger Marshall, and even Rand Paul. Then Josh Hawley had the floor.

Ultimately six Republicans voted to sustain the object to Arizona. Those Senators were Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Roger Marshall, John Kennedy, and Tommy Tuberville. 93 other Senators voted to overrule it.

The debate on Arizona continued in the House afterward as well.

Unfortunately, the House lacked the same humility as the Senate.

Elise Stefanik (R-NY), brought up several election lies. She said in Pennsylvania the State Supreme Court and Secretary of State unilaterally and unconstitutionally rewrote election laws eliminating signature matching requirements.

Stefanik’s issue with Georgia.

She said the Secretary of State in Georgia also overturned signature matching. This was a lie, also started by Donald Trump. The law in Georgia changed less than a year before the election after the notoriously racist state was caught discarding minority and Democrat votes disproportionately. They had a Civil Rights lawsuit slapped on them and the law was updated with the state board of electors, that if the signature doesn’t match, they are required to notify the voter and try to rectify the issue.

Stefanik claimed that Wisconsin allowed mail-in voters to vote without a valid ID. There is no telling where she heard that lie from, I was unable to find any articles on right-wing media or fact-checking sites. She may have made that one up off of the top of her head, however, Wisconsin GOP officials have said there was no evidence of voter fraud.

Then she said in Michigan, poll watchers were blocked from witnessing voter counts. That was a complete lie. Michigan had over 400 poll watchers and stopped letting people in because they had MORE than enough. She said, “Also the illegal counting of late ballots.” A statement deemed completely false by PolitiFact. Stefanik concluded by also saying that Michigan was hand-stamping ballots with the previous day’s date. Factcheck called this unfounded and a moot point since they didn’t take accept ballots after November 3.

It’s interesting to watch Mike Pence and Amy Klobuchar’s faces during each objection after the insurrection. Not only are they likely tired after a long and traumatic day, but it looks like they’re also tired of the Q-caucus’ shit.

Before we get into why Hice’s objection was total nonsense, I have to note that the video I was watching didn’t say his name at the bottom, and when I Googled Georgia Congressmen to find out his name, (thinking I could just quickly find his picture), here is what I found:

Georgia definitely has a type.

Hice’s Georgia objection.

Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, is a name you are likely now familiar with. You’re familiar because of Trump’s hour-long call, which Raffensperger recorded, and was repeatedly played on the media in the days leading up to the election. While, Hice didn’t specify what actions the secretary of state supposedly took, the New York Times fact-check all of Trump’s claims in that phone call. Georgia Republicans repeatedly said that there was no evidence of voter fraud and everything that Trump said was false.

Hice did not have a Senator’s signature, the objection could not be debated, and certifying the election went on. Then they got to Michigan.

Now ousted congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene stood to object to certifying the Michigan elector votes. She claimed that the reason was that the error rate proceeds the rate the FEC allows at .0008% and people who signed affidavits under the threat of perjury, their voices haven’t been heard in a court of law.

Marjorie Taylor Greene does math?

MTG’s .0008% nonsense was based on a report put out by a company called Allied Security Operations Group. Allied Security Operations Group is a Dallas-based group that tried to help Trump and his allies with lawsuits seeking to overturn election results.

The report said, “The allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines is of 1 in 250,000 ballots (.0008%).” In fact, the FEC has no such guideline and regulates campaign finance, not election software. 

One of the affidavits Greene was referencing was signed by Russell Ramsland, an Allied Security Operations Group. And another, it mixed up the voting data between Michigan and Minnesota.

They did not have a senator to sign the objection to Michigan, so certifying the election continued.

No one knew what he was talking about. Brooks didn’t have a Senator’s signature and the certifying continued.

Then they got to Pennsylvania. Scott Perry (R-PA), objected to certifying the election in his own state, just as Jody Hice did. Perry said he was objecting on the grounds of multiple constitutional infractions, that they were not under all of the known circumstances were regularly given (whatever that means).

Not only was this due to the coronavirus, but also delays in the mail after the Trump administration removed 711 mail sorting machines, in attempts to slow down the mail a month before the election. Perry also said that the Supreme Court allowed the use of drop boxes, where ballot harvesting could have occurred.

There was a photo circulating around on social media of an election employee delivering ballots, however, Republicans lied and called the employee an unidentified citizen. The Philadelphia Commissioners Office confirmed that he was one of their employees. Ballot drop boxes have been used all over the country for years, and no one ever had a problem with them before, until Trump came along.

Perry ranted on.

He said that responding to the Secretary of State, the Supreme Court ruled that mail-in ballots need not authenticate signatures. Earlier in 2020, the Secretary of State gave guidance that said local ballot officials cannot toss ballots based on signature comparison alone. The document said, “The Pennsylvania Election Code does not authorize the county board of elections to set aside returned absentee or mail-in ballots based solely on signature analysis by the county board of elections.”

Just as in other states, it was the Trump campaign that challenged this, stated that matching signatures on ballots to signatures on voter rolls were necessary to prevent fraud. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed. There was nothing in Pennsylvania election laws that authorized tossing ballots on signature analysis alone.

Perry kept repeating how the Secretary of State had taken actions that were unlawful and unconstitutional. However, each one of his reasons were reasons that didn’t exist.

Dan Meuser (R-PA), John Joyce (R-PA), Glenn Thompson (R-PA), Andy Harris (R-MD), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), Fred Keller (R-PA), Yvette Herrell (R-NM), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Brian Babin (R-TX), Ted Budd (R-NC), Kat Cammack (R-FL), Jodey Arrington (R-TX), all repeated Scott Perry’s easily debunked lies. Except for Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Woo. It was out there.

MTG added her own flair and said she wanted to point out that all of the cases that were thrown out were based on standing, not voter fraud.

• From PolitiFact: In more than 60 cases, judges “looked at the allegations that Trump was making and determined they were without any merit.” TRUE.
• From Factcheck: (all separate cases)
  • “The judge also noted that the Trump campaign provided no evidence of fraud.”
  • “the judge described Trump’s campaign arguments as “meritless,”
  • “The judge ruled that Boockvar “lacked statutory authority”
  • And they go on…and on…

I told you it was out there.

I know that quote was all one sentence, but that’s how she said it. Secondly, I’m guessing she still hasn’t read the Mueller Report. I have. There was collusion. Barr started the lie that there wasn’t collusion, knowing the majority of Americans would never take the time to read it.

Which reminds me, once Merrick Garland is sworn in, we can get the unredacted version right?

Greene wasn’t done, “The same fake news that took the word of Christine Ford over Justice Kavanaugh. The same fact-checkers who told you that Dominion machines weren’t connected to the internet and couldn’t be hacked are the same people who are telling you there’s no voter fraud.”

Who elected this woman?

Why the 2021 certification objections were different than in previous years.

In 2001, Democrats objected because Republicans cheated. The Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, and the Republican Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, did not act in a fair and impartial manner. Harris cut the counting time short, to favor the Bush campaign, a campaign she worked on. Clarence Thomas’s wife also worked on the Bush campaign, likely influencing his decision. These are all facts.

In 2005, Democrats objected because Republican Ken Blackwell partook in so much voter suppression that the ACLU gave him his very own page on their site. The voting machines in Ohio were also found to have switch votes to the Republican candidate. These were facts.

In 2017, Democrats objected because there was wide-scale voter fraud, Republican electoral acted illegally, and Russia hacked into several voting systems while colluding with the Republican candidate’s campaign. It is a fact that all of these things happened.

In 2021, Republicans objected because of the lies they made up. Every reason cited by them was widely debunked before January 6th. Republicans knew these things were lies, and they objected anyway.

The modern day Republican party is full of liars and cheaters. They have continuously shown that they don’t care about democracy, the truth, or the American people, they only care about winning.

Remember this next time you go to the polls.