President Donald Trump’s lawyers are working to persuade lawmakers in Arizona to appoint electors for the Republicans to the Electoral College.
“‘We’re hopeful that Arizona will follow the same path that Pennsylvania has now spearheaded by going first, and by seeing that there is substantial and more than enough evidence that this election was irredeemably compromised,’' Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis said Friday on Newsmax’s ”Stinchfield.”
Each state chooses electors under the Electoral College system. The electors are typically for the candidate that wins the state, but can break from that tradition.
Trump’s campaign says the number of irregularities, including witnesses attesting to fraud, in battleground states should prompt lawmakers to step in and trigger the unusual scenario of intervening in the electoral process.
Ellis said she and attorney Rudy Giuliani will go to the hearing and asserted there will be witnesses talking about the “election official fraud” that took place.
“And we’re hopeful that they will take the same course of action that the Pennsylvania state legislature is now doing and that they will also reclaim their state legislative authority and take back their opportunity, their mandate, and their obligation under the Constitution to select their Electoral College delegation based on the actual election results, counting every legal vote, not based on the corruption and fraud that occurred,” she said.
Republican lawmakers in Arizona have cast doubt on the election process.
The hearing, he added, “is going to reveal a great deal that I think the taxpayers, the voters, are going to be stunned.’’
The Republican Senate president and speaker of the House in the state haven’t committed to participating in the hearing.
‘We’re doing both, with equal speed and enthusiasm and taking advantage of which one gives us the hearing the quickest. And which one will work fastest for us,’‘ he said on Newsmax’s “Greg Kelly Reports.” ’'Because we don’t have a lot of time. We’ve got a lot of evidence; we don’t have a lot of time. And we’re facing a major censorship, so it’s very hard to get this information out to the public.
Republicans control both chambers in Pennsylvania and Arizona. Of six contested states, they hold the majority in the states’ House and Senate in all but one, Nevada.
Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes and Arizona has 11. If both flipped to Trump, he would be within one state of winning the election.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has declared victory but Trump and his campaign say the election isn’t over, citing the legal battles and the uncertainty over electors.
The electors are scheduled to meet on Dec. 14 in their respective states and vote for president and vice president. The electoral votes are received by the president of the U.S. Senate by nine days later and Congress counts them during a joint session on Jan. 6, 2021.
If neither candidate reaches the 270 vote threshold, a secondary scenario starts that sees the House of Representatives choose the president and the Senate choose the vice president.
