U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse posts how he will vote on the Electoral College results
U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse said Monday he will vote to certify the Electoral College results.
In a tweet posted Monday, Newhouse, a Republican from Sunnyside, voiced support for a statement from several House Republicans saying Congress “must count the electoral votes submitted by the states.”
A joint session of Congress on Wednesday is scheduled to count and certify the Electoral College vote. More than a dozen Republican senators and 100 House Republicans have indicated they will oppose the results.
Newhouse spokeswoman Elizabeth Daniels referred to the tweet in response to the Yakima Herald-Republic’s request for comment. Newhouse is expected to make an additional comment in the coming days, she said.
Newhouse said he was joining his “fellow constitutional conservatives” — U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Kelley Armstrong of North Dakota, Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Tom McClintock of California and Chip Roy of Texas — to certify the electoral votes.
“States select electors. Congress does not,” the group said in a statement Sunday. “We must respect the states’ authority here. Though doing so may frustrate our immediate political objectives, we have sworn an oath to promote the Constitution above our policy goals.”
The letter still references unsubstantiated concerns regarding the election, including the “significant abuses” that resulted from mail-in voting and that there were insufficient safeguards to ensure “legitimate votes” were counted. President Donald Trump and his allies have yet to present evidence of widespread voter fraud.
The president and his supporters have filed more than 50 lawsuits challenging the results, nearly all which have been dismissed or dropped.
The letter also admits that the Electoral College has been the path to victory for Republican presidential candidates, noting that only one has won the popular vote in the last eight presidential elections. The letter acknowledges that disregarding certified electoral votes would delegitimize the system that provided victory to Trump in 2016 and could be a path to victory for a Republican presidential candidate in 2024.
Last month, Newhouse was one of more than 100 Republicans who signed an amicus brief supporting Texas’ lawsuit to challenge the presidential election results.
Newhouse said he was not looking to overturn the results but to address the underlying issue with states using entities outside their respective legislatures to select electors and establish election systems.
After the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the lawsuit, Newhouse issued a statement referring to Joe Biden as president-elect but repeating unspecified concerns regarding the election’s legitimacy.
Newhouse’s office did not respond to a question about Trump’s phone call Saturday with Georgia’s secretary of state in which the president pressured the Republican state official to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state.
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 7:03 PM.