At least 3 Michigan Republicans appear ready to object to vote for Biden

At least three of Michigan's Republican members of Congress seem prepared to support objections to the Electoral College vote from several states — including Michigan's apparently — being awarded to President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Others may join them in the attempt, though it's almost certain to fail to keep the vote from being finalized for Biden, who will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. 

Even so, early Monday, one of Michigan's two new members of Congress, U.S. Rep Lisa McClain, R-Bruce Township, said she was prepared to support an objection to the state's Electoral College vote being awarded to Biden, who beat President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election in the state by more than 154,000 votes.

Then, on Monday afternoon, two others — U.S. Reps. Jack Bergman of Watersmeet and Tim Walberg of Tipton — said in a joint statement they would object to the Electoral College count in "disputed states" as well, citing unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and so-called "irregularities" that have been broadly dismissed as not credible.

While they weren't specific, it appeared Bergman and Walberg would object to Michigan awarding its 16 electors to Biden and could object to those won in other states that Biden won. including Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In the statement they said, "Americans deserve to know only legal votes are counted and reports regarding irregularities, fraud and failure to follow election laws are thoroughly investigated."

They called, as have some Republican senators, for an "emergency audit" of election results before the Jan. 20 inauguration, though the date for counting Electoral College votes is set by law. Meanwhile, any effort to deny the votes for Biden is doomed because even if it were approved in the Senate — where Republicans hope to remain in control after Tuesday's two runoff elections in Georgia — it won't be approved by the Democratic majority in the U.S. House. Both chambers must approve objections to the Electoral College count for votes to be denied the winner.

McClain, a political newcomer elected Nov. 3 to replace U.S. Rep. Paul Mitchell of Dryden, said she's ready to "vote accordingly" if what she learns during Wednesday's count of the nation's Electoral College vote "further confirms the concerns voiced to me by folks in the 10th District."

The 10th District includes northern Macomb County and Michigan's Thumb and is a deeply conservative district. Mitchell was a former Republican who didn't run for a third term last year and quit the party last month railing against unsupported claims of fraud and saying it was "unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote."

McClain suggested that election officials in some states "and even some courts" made decisions based on "political bias and drifted from the rule of law," though she wasn't any more specific about the claim. But there have been no substantiated legal claims that have shown widespread corruption or voter fraud in Michigan or elsewhere.  

It's also notable that those members of Congress, including McClain, who appear ready to support an objection to finalizing Biden's victory also won in that same Nov. 3 balloting, a point that Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, brought up on Sunday. He argued that legislators from the states in question shouldn't be seated if there were such widespread problems. His questions forced a nearly unanimous vote that all members should be seated.

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Meanwhile, a number of Republicans, including Roy, have joined with Democrats in saying the decision of the electors awarded on the basis of the popular vote in the states is final and that Biden is the President-elect. That includes a group of U.S. senators including Mitt Romney of Utah — who was born in Michigan and is the son of a former governor and was the Republican nominee for president in 2012 — and former House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who called the effort "anti-democratic and anti-conservative." 

Another Michigan Republican, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, also has denounced the effort to overturn the results of the election. On Monday, he put out a statement reiterating that stance and saying he won't support objections to the Electoral College count.

“Voters — not judges or politicians — must decide elections," he said. "These objections would establish a new precedent allowing the Congress to supersede the will of the people. There have been no cases of fraud discovered that would overturn President-elect Biden’s 154,000 vote victory in Michigan.”

Where courts have looked into the claims raised by Trump, they have been thrown out as not credible, including by Republican judges. And where hand tallies have been done of the results, such as in Georgia — a state with a Republican governor and secretary of state who both supported Trump — Biden was still shown to be the winner. 

In Michigan, the Board of State Canvassers voted in late November to certify the victory for Biden; the state's 16 electors cast their votes for Biden as the winner of the popular vote in the Nov. 3 election on Dec. 14. Wednesday's count by Congress is generally a foregone conclusion, though there is a legal process for objecting to the seating of electors in cases of controversy or where the outcome of an election is doubt.

But the U.S. Constitution gives the authority for deciding how to award electors for president to the state Legislatures. And if McClain and other Republicans uphold objections to the state's slate of electors for Biden, they will be doing so despite the Republican state Legislature's decision not to seat rival electors and the courts not finding the Trump campaign's arguments against the outcome credible. 

But with Trump trying to remain a force in the party despite his defeat and his base a large and vocal one, failure to support his claims could have consequences as well, including the possibility that an officeholder could face a primary challenger in 2022.

As far as the other Republicans in Michigan's congressional delegation, one of them, U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga of Zeeland, told WZZM13 in Grand Rapids that he won't sign on to the initial objection, having not concluded through his own look at the issue that enough votes were in doubt to have changed the outcome. But he said he would consider changing his mind and voting to disallow electors depending on what he heard in the debate.

A request for comment to another member, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, was not immediately returned, though he — as well as Huizenga — late last year joined Bergman and Walberg in supporting a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas in the U.S. Supreme Court asking that results in Michigan, along with several other states, be thrown out. The court dismissed the challenge.

The state's other Republican member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer of Grand Rapids, who, like McClain, is a newly elected member, has said that while irregularities should be investigated, he accepts Biden as the President-elect.

Contact Todd Spangler:tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler. Read more onMichigan politics and sign up for ourelections newsletter.