KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall both held steadfast in their opposition to the certification of the Electoral College results after President Donald Trump supporters stormed the nation’s capitol on Wednesday.
Hawley said, once the Senate reconvened after an hours-long recess, that Congress is the “appropriate” place for concerns about the integrity of U.S. elections to be addressed.
“This is the lawful place where those objections and concerns should be heard,” Hawley, a Republican, said. “This is the forum that the law provides for our laws, provides for those concerns to be registered, not through violence, not by appealing from ballasts to bullets, but here in this lawful process.”
The Missouri senator also said he doesn’t believe that certification of the Electoral College votes is a formality or “antique ceremony.”
“The opportunity to be heard, to register objections is very vital because this is the place where those objections are to be heard and dealt with debated and finally resolved in this lawful means peacefully, without violence, without attacks, without bullets,” Hawley said.
Overall, Hawley called for an investigation into “irregularities fraud” and election security reform.
“We need to find a way to move forward on that together, that the American people from both parties all walks of life can have confidence in their elections,” Hawley said, “and that we can arrange ourselves, under the rule of law that we shared democratically.”
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall (R) said he has given “much consideration” to objecting to Electoral College votes. He said that in “several states” the authority of legislatures to determine voting rules was “usurped by governors, secretaries of states and activist courts.”
“I rise in hopes of improving the integrity of the ballot, to hold states accountable to the time proven constitutional system of the Electoral College,” Marshall said. “This is why it is the formation of electoral commission to give constructive suggestions and recommendations that states can make to make our elections, once again, safe, free and fair.”
A spokesperson for Hawley told 41 Action News that the Missouri senator plans to object to Pennsylvania when Congress returns to joint session.
“When the Senate and House go back to their chambers for the debate on Pennsylvania, he will yield his speaking time to move toward a vote,” the spokesperson said.
