Arizona Republicans met Monday to cast an alternate slate of electors with state GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward saying the move has "historic precedent."
The Republican electors cast their 11 electoral votes for President Donald Trump, in opposition to the official electoral votes cast the same day for Democrat Joe Biden, who was declared president-elect with 306 official electoral votes.
The electoral votes of all 50 states and the District of Columbia will be opened at a joint meeting of Congress on Jan. 6, where they will be officially certified. The Republicans in Arizona contend their electors should be counted as "true," according to Ward, and the states 11 votes counted for Trump.
Ward, in a video posted to YouTube, pointed to 1960, when Hawaii, voting in its first presidential election as a state, sent two slates of electors to Washington, D.C. In a close vote, Hawaii's governor declared Republican Vice President Richard Nixon the winner, but with recounts continuing, Democrats also sent their own electors.
Eventually, Democrat Sen. John F. Kennedy was declared the winner, and although Republicans planned to object to counting the state's three electoral votes for Kennedy, the person in charge of the proceedings, Nixon himself as the sitting vice president, asked for unanimous consent for the votes for Kennedy to count — they would not have affected the outcome — and his fellow Republicans complied.
Similarly, Ward said, Arizona Republicans have transmitted their results "to the proper entities in Washington, D.C., for consideration by Congress. We believe that we are the electors for the legally cast votes here in Arizona."
Ward said the election is "far from over" as Trump continues to pursue legal avenues to overturn the election in Arizona and other swing states.
Alternate electors met in other states as well in hopes the last-ditch strategy can keep Trump in office another four years in what they believe to be an election stolen through fraudulent means.
GOP Michigan electors were turned away Monday when they tried to deliver their votes to the state Senate. US News & World Report noted, "Trump loyalists in Pennsylvania met in Harrisburg and cast what they described as a 'conditional vote' for Trump." Republicans in Georgia and Wisconsin also voted for an alternate slate of electors, Breitbart reported.
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