Former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called the Congressional Republicans effort to undermine the impending inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden by sabotaging the Electoral College contrary to conservative values, CBS News reports.
“Efforts to reject the votes of the Electoral College and sow doubt about Joe Biden’s victory strike at the foundation of our republican,” Ryan said in a statement, calling Congressional Republicans’ efforts a “federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans.”
Ryan said it would be “difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act. … The fact that this effort will fail does not mean it will not do significant damage to American democracy.”
At least 100 House Republicans and 11 Republican Senators plan to object to the votes in the Electoral College certified by no fewer than five swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia.
The effort will not, however, succeed in installing lame duck president Donald Trump in a second term. Many Republicans in the Senate have voiced opposition to the action by the radical anti-Constitutionalist Republicans. It would take a majority vote in both the Senate and the Democratic-controlled House to reject electors from the states.