PoliticoRepublican lawsuit may force Mike Pence’s hand in effort to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat in US election
- The US vice-president is set to oversee certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win next week
- This latest move by congressman Louie Gohmert could force Pence to publicly pick a side in Trump’s ongoing bid to challenge the election results
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Kyle Cheney on politico.com on December 28, 2020.
US congressman Louie Gohmert and President Donald Trump's defeated electors from Arizona may force Vice-President Mike Pence to publicly pick a side in Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Gohmert and a handful of the would-be electors sued Pence in federal court on Monday in a long-shot bid to throw out the rules that govern Congress' counting of electoral votes next week.
It is an effort they hope will permit Pence – who is tasked with leading the January 6 session of the House and Senate – to simply ignore President-elect Joe Biden's electors and count Trump's losing slates instead.
The lawsuit asserts that the 1887 law known as the Electoral Count Act, the vague statute that has long governed the electoral vote counting process with minimal drama, unconstitutionally binds Pence from exercising total authority to choose which votes to count.