Mike Pence wants our sympathy for the situation he finds himself in as he presides over the final step in certifying the election Joe Biden indisputably won. If he does as Donald Trump wants and rejects the Electoral College vote, he would destroy democracy in the United States and throw the country into chaos not seen since the Civil War.
The U.S Code will keep Pence from succeeding—he’s officially there to open envelopes and tally the already certified votes—but it won’t stop him from trying. He issued a statement over the weekend that he “welcomes the efforts of members... to raise objections and bring forward evidence.”
Fact is there’s been no evidence of fraud dug up over the last two months, despite Trump’s singular attention to finding some. Instead the efforts confirmed the most secure balloting in history: counted, recounted, audited, and surviving 61 court challenges. The argument the insurrectionists make is dizzying, alleging that there are allegations of irregularities that must be examined because Trump has alleged them and they’ve made his 74 million voters angry. They are asking for a 10-day audit of election returns in “disputed states” whose electors they will reject until it is completed. That gets us dangerously close to Inauguration Day.