Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on Wednesday that if Congress overturns the results of the 2020 presidential election, "it would damage our republic forever," according to The Hill.
McConnell, at the start of the Senate's first debate to confirm the Electoral College vote, said that "if this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We'd never see the whole nation accept the election again."
He added, "I believe protecting our constitutional order requires respecting the limits of our own power. It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and states on this extraordinary thin basis. … I will vote to respect the people's decision and defend our system of government as we know it."
McConnell went on to say that he "supported the president's right to use the legal system, dozens of lawsuits. … But over and over the courts rejected these claims, including all-star judges whom the president himself has nominated."
He noted that President Donald Trump's claims of fraud weren't "anywhere near the massive scale" required to change the election result, which he said was not "unusually close," considering President-elect Joe Biden won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump's 232.
"Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence," the majority leader said. "The Constitution gives us here in Congress a limited role. We can't simply declare ourselves a national board of election on steroids."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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