Republican leader Rasmussen in a Twitter thread on Sunday attributed a quote to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin suggesting that Vice President Pence could try to overthrow the result of the presidential election.
‘Those who cast the ballots decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. – Stalin, ‘tweeted the poll before setting out a scenario in which Pence refuses to confirm the results in swing states.
At that moment, the presidency will be in his hands.
And there is nothing that prevents Pence, under the (plenary and unacceptable) authority that entrusted him as president of the Senate, from refusing to open and count the certificates of the six disputed states.
2/4
– Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) 27 December 2020
According to the 12th Amendment: “[T]then he will vote[.] … The person who has the most votes for president is the president[.]”
Reader’s Comments?
4/4
More here – https://t.co/ehnnu84Lgi
– Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) 27 December 2020
Supporters of President Trump
Donald Trump’s New York Post editorial calls on President Trump to ‘start thinking’ about Georgia’s runoff instead of overthrowing the Loeffler election. made similar arguments that Pence, as president of the Senate, has the power to reject the result of the Electoral College.
However, the theory is based on a misreading of US code that simply authorizes the vice president to request states to submit their votes if they do not do so by the fourth Wednesday in December, according to The Washington Post.
‘The vice president is not supposed to control the outcome of the process for counting the electoral votes from the states. This is true from the perspective of the Constitution as well as the Electoral Law, “Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, told The Hill in an email.
“The vice president is chairing the joint sitting, but does not decide which election votes to count,” he added, pointing out that it was clearly understood … that the vice president might be a candidate for the election that considered, and that they do not want this conflict of interest to affect the outcome. ”
T. Greg Doucette, a lawyer and Trump critic who regularly questions the president’s ability to legally dispute the outcome of the election, tweeted that ‘Pence has no power to’ hit ‘anything. He opens the envelopes, gives the certificates to the counters, the counters count. ‘
No
538 voters were appointed; 270 EVs needed to win now
Pence has no power to “hit” anything. He opens the envelopes, gives the certificates to the counters, the counters count
Congress may, by a separate majority vote of each chamber, strike EVs as it sees fit https://t.co/HUMW7ULoJ5
– T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) 22 December 2020
As for the quote attributed to Stalin, who is often called a warning against totalitarianism, it is disputed whether the Soviet leader actually said that. A variation on it appears in Russia in a 2002 memoir by Stalin’s secretary Boris Bazhanov, attributing it to his former boss who discussed a vote by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The Hill issued Rasmussen for comment.
Updated at 3:09 p.m.