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Stefanik says she’ll object to certifying Electoral College results

Rep. Elise Stefanik gives a victory speech on election night, Nov. 3, 2020, at the Queensbury Hotel in Glens Falls. (Provided photo — Christopher Lenney, Watertown Daily Times)

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik will not vote to certify Joe Biden as the country’s next president when Congress votes on the Electoral College results Wednesday, she revealed in a press release Monday.

She will instead object to electors from certain states where results have been contested — to no legal avail — by President Donald Trump’s legal team.

Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, said there are enough “serious questions” about the legitimacy of this election for her to take this action.

“I do not take this action lightly,” Stefanik wrote in a statement. “I am acting to protect our democratic process.”

The Electoral College has called the election for Biden 306 to 232. Congress is likely to certify this on Wednesday, despite challenges from Republican legislators. More than 100 House GOP members and 12 GOP senators have publicly stated they will attempt to overturn or stall the results of the election.

Stefanik called on Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution when she said she has “an obligation to act on this matter if I believe there are serious questions with respect to the Presidential election.”

“I believe those questions exist. Tens of millions of Americans are rightly concerned that the 2020 election featured unprecedented voting irregularities, unconstitutional overreach by unelected state officials and judges ignoring state election laws, and a fundamental lack of ballot integrity and security,” Stefanik wrote

Stefanik did not respond to questions of what, specifically, she is worried about in terms of voting irregularities.

Stefanik said tens of thousands of “constituents and patriots across the country” have reached out to her in the past few weeks. She wanted them to know she hears them.

“As a Member of Congress, I am committed to restoring the faith of the American people in our elections — that they are free, fair, secure, and according to the United States Constitution,” she wrote.

Stefanik did not answer a question asking which contested electors she objects to.

Stefanik did not answer if she believes the Democrats attempted to rig this election in favor of Biden.

She also did not answer a question about if Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger constitutes election fraud or extortion. In the call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” and told Raffensperger that not pursuing his claims of voter fraud — which Raffensperger disputed Monday — was taking “a big risk” that could result in criminal prosecution.

While she did not talk to North Country newspapers, Stefanik corresponded with the New York Post on Monday, though she did not provide many more answers.

Twelve Republican senators have proposed appointing an electoral commission to conduct a 10-day audit of disputed states.

Stefanik told the Post she was open to the formation of an election fraud commission but did not issue a formal position on the idea.

The chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, Jay Jacobs, asked Stefanik to resign on Monday.

“Through her statement today indicating her intention to support the effort to contest the legitimately certified electors in the 2020 presidential race, Congresswoman Stefanik has thrown in her lot with those colleagues who seek to violate their Constitutional oath to ‘protect and defend’ the Constitution by seeking to overthrow the legitimately elected incoming president of the United States,” Jacobs wrote in a statement. “Congresswoman Stefanik knows that there are NO ‘contested electors’ for her to oppose as every state, under THEIR Constitutional obligation, has certified the legitimacy of the electors now being sent to the Congress. Similarly, she knows that there has not been presented any unrefuted and discredited evidence of any massive voter fraud in any state that she is going to challenge. She knows that there are NO ‘serious questions’ as to the legitimacy of the electors that she will seek to challenge.”

Mike Anich of the Leader-Herald in Gloversville contributed to this report.

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