Texas Electors Pass Resolution Urging Battleground States to Appoint New Electors

Supporters of President Trump put together miniature flags in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 3, 2020. Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images

As former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday claimed victory in the 2020 presidential election, Texas’s members of the Electoral College voted on a resolution calling on four battleground states to appoint alternative electors to vote for President Donald Trump.

The resolution, authored by elector Mark Ramsey, was passed 34-4 by the Texas electors, who also condemned the U.S. Supreme Court for dismissing a lawsuit challenging election results led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last week.

The resolution requests the legislatures of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin set aside the election results and appoint new electors to back Trump. According to The Texas Tribune, all four battleground states had already cast their electoral votes for Biden.

“When other countries have faced massive election fraud, the end result has been a collapse of rights, a collapse of the economy, and an inevitable slide to tyranny,” Ramsey said, noting that his resolution was meant to show how the country “can again be a shining light and not take a destructive pathway.”

All of Texas’s 38 electoral votes were awarded to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Trump carried the nation’s biggest red state with 52 percent of the vote in November, marking the slimmest winning margin by a GOP presidential candidate in the state since 1996.

Biden addressed the nation on Monday night, during which he denied that voter fraud occurred in the 2020 election, claimed Electoral College victory, and called on Trump to concede the race.

“Altogether, Vice President-elect Harris and I earned 306 electoral votes—well exceeding the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory. 306 electoral votes is the same number of electoral votes Donald Trump and Mike Pence received in 2016. At that time, President Trump called his Electoral College tally a landslide. By his own standards, these numbers represented a clear victory then. And I respectfully suggest they do so now,” Biden said, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “In America, politicians don’t take power—the people grant power to them.”

Since Election Day, Trump and third-party groups have pursued legal challenges to the outcome of the election in six states. Some of the lawsuits included allegations of widespread fraud, including through the manipulation of voting machines by Dominion Voting Systems.

“The integrity of our elections remains intact,” Biden added. “Now it is time to turn the page as we’ve done throughout our history.”

Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.