Every state in the union has certified its election results and each state's electors have cast their electoral ballots for the 2020 election, with President-elect Joe Biden securing 306 electoral votes—well over the 270 required to take the White House.
Nevertheless, conservative outlets continue to peddle outgoing President Donald Trump's delusional claims that widespread election fraud coordinated by Democrats somehow delivered a false victory to Biden.
Trump's frivolous lawsuits, bizarre state legislature hearings, and countless lies on Twitter have brought him no closer to the presidency, but they have succeeded in undermining faith in the electoral process among a significant number of Americans.
Next week, Vice President Mike Pence will oversee a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives where he'll read the electoral votes aloud for Congress to officially acknowledge.
Trump's allies are under the collective delusion that this somehow gives Pence the power to determine the results.
The far-right Rasmussen polling group amplified this Republican fantasy, and they quoted Soviet Union ruler Joseph Stalin to do so.
Come January 6th:
(Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. - Stalin)
"Come January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence will be presented with the sealed certificates containing the ballots of the presidential electors.
1/4
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) December 27, 2020
At that moment, the Presidency will be in his hands.
And there is nothing stopping Pence, under the (plenary and unappealable) authority vested in him as President of the Senate, from declining to open and count the certificates from the six disputed states.
2/4
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) December 27, 2020
If they are (as more than 70% of Republicans believe) certificates from non-electors appointed via voter fraud, why should he open & count them?"
If the votes of all 7 contested states are registered as zero, President Trump will have 232 votes, Joe Biden will have 222.
3/4
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) December 27, 2020
Per the 12th Amendment: "[T]he votes shall then be counted[.] ... The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President[.]"
Reader comments?
4/4
More here - https://t.co/ehnnu84Lgi
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) December 27, 2020
Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley responded to Rasmussen's assertion in an email to The Hill, saying:
"The Vice President is not supposed to control the outcome of the process for counting the electoral votes from the states. That's true from the perspective of the Constitution as well as the Electoral Count Act ... The Vice President chairs the joint session, but does not decide what electoral votes to count."
Foley added that the framers of the Constitution knew future Vice Presidents would likely be on presidential tickets, and accounted for this by safeguarding the results from their influence.
Rasmussen's argument was widely mocked, especially for its invocation of Stalin.
Quoting Stalin is always a sign that everything is going great. https://t.co/WgRAdOQk4W
— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) December 28, 2020
You really are on the wrong side of history if you're quoting Stalin. https://t.co/8nBJ2AF8am
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) December 28, 2020
Trump's favorite pollster, @Rasmussen_Poll, cites former Russian dictator Joseph Stalin as an argument for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the will of the American people on January 6th. https://t.co/FXAAI7AoqS
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) December 28, 2020
Conservativism 2020: What would Stalin do? https://t.co/m9fV427I3K
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) December 28, 2020
I see we've reached the “approvingly quoting Stalin" stage of the Trumpist meltdown https://t.co/ow7xB3C6sn
— Dylan Scott (@dylanlscott) December 28, 2020
Stalin was responsible for executing nearly a million of his own citizens & many millions more died from massacres, forced labor, forced deportation, famine & detention. But sure, we'r'e now at the point in this shameful story when he's the source for the Trumpist coup thinking. https://t.co/Rh2kmNkgFr
— Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss) December 28, 2020
The ill-advised tweet did nothing for the pollster's reputation.
Thanks for letting us know that we don't even have to pretend to take your polling seriously in the future.
— djthomp (@Ruldar) December 28, 2020
🚨CONSUMER ALERT🚨
The legal analysis provided here is inconsistent with the US Constitution, federal law, and VP Pence's Oath of Allegiance.
Note also Rasmussen has earned a reputation for skewing polling data to embellish the popularity of anti-democracy candidates.
— Christopher C. Alberto (@ChrisAlbertoLaw) December 28, 2020
This quote is basically the end of any charade that this poll serves as anything but despot propaganda.
— josh s. (@joshshepperd) December 28, 2020
President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be inaugurated on January 20th.
