Sen. Josh Hawley’s decision to challenge the election of Joe Biden as president is dangerous nonsense and desperately wrong in every way.
Missouri’s junior senator said Wednesday he’ll challenge the Electoral College results when Congress opens presidential ballots next week. He’s the first senator to make such a pledge.
If he follows through, both houses of Congress will needlessly debate the outcome of this year’s election, as millions of Americans battle a pandemic. What a waste.
Missourians must see Hawley’s decision for what it is: misguided ambition, coupled with a shockingly cynical approach to democracy. Hawley’s lust for the White House, he is telling us, is more important than your right to vote.
He should forgo the challenge next Wednesday. If he does not, Missourians should never forget his craven effort to throw away the votes of millions of Americans.
It is anti-democratic. Any challenge to Joe Biden’s election has no basis in fact.
“I cannot vote to certify the Electoral College results on January 6,” Hawley said Wednesday, “without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws.”
News flash, Sen. Hawley: Allegations of ballot irregularities and state law violations have been raised repeatedly in Pennsylvania and other states. They are false. Judges have rejected them dozens of times. Election officials of both parties have rejected them. Recounts and signature-matching have revealed no substantial voting errors.
The allegations are not only wrong, they defy logic. Why would Democrats fix election results in only a handful of states? Why wouldn’t they fix votes for Senate and House races in places like Kansas? The answer is self-evident: They didn’t.
President-elect Biden won a fair, free election Nov. 3 by 7 million votes. The voters’ choice has been ratified by electors in the states, whose ballots will be confirmed by Congress on Jan. 6. Any suggestion otherwise is unpatriotic and fraudulent.
Hawley doesn’t stop at fraud, however. In his statement Wednesday, the Republican senator says he’s still mad at Twitter and Facebook.
“I cannot vote to certify,” he said, “without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of Joe Biden.”
Again, to no one’s surprise, Hawley has the facts wrong. There is evidence Facebook, in particular, was more supportive of President Donald Trump than the Democratic nominee.
Twitter? The social media site has published more than 5,700 Trump tweets and retweets just this year. That’s pretty leaky censorship.
BUT EVEN if Hawley had the facts right, he would be wrong on the Constitution. Exercising free-speech rights in an election is not interference. It’s, um, free speech.
