Electoral College Count: How IL's Congressional Delegation Voted

WASHINGTON, DC — Illinois' congressional delegation — with two notable exceptions — voted to count all 2020 Electoral College votes and confirm Democrat Joe Biden as the nation’s 46th president, despite a fight — both symbolic and literal — by allies of President Donald Trump to subvert the vote and keep him in the White House.

Wednesday’s vote was supposed to be the last hurdle before the Jan. 20 inauguration of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, but a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol Building Wednesday afternoon, putting an end to a joint session of Congress. Capitol Police cleared the building Wednesday evening, and the session resumed shortly after 8 p.m. eastern time.

Illinois Reps. Mike Bost, of Murphysboro, and Mary Miller, of Collinsville, were among more than a hundred House members and half a dozen senators — all Republicans — to vote to throw out Electoral College votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania. The objectors cited no evidence for their allegations of fraud, and large majorities of both parties rejected the effort, with several Republicans who had planned to object changing their minds after Wednesday's violence left four dead on Capitol grounds.

Miller is the same congresswoman who at a rally in Washington on Tuesday praised Hitler for being "right about one thing" in a widely decried speech that was caught on video.

Here’s how Illinois' congressional delegation voted on those objections:

Senators:

• Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Duckworth: No (to reject objections and certify votes)

U.S. Representatives:

• Rep Bobby Rush, Democrat-Chicago: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Robin Kelly, Democrat-Matteson: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Marie Newman, Democrat-Western Springs: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, Democrat-Chicago: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Mike Quigley, Democrat-Chicago: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Sean Casten, Democrat-Downer's Grove: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Danny K. Davis, Democrat-Chicago: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat-Schaumburg: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Jan Schakowsky, Democrat-Evanston: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Brad Schneider, Democrat-Deerfield: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Bill Foster, Democrat-Naperville: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Mike Bost, Republican-Murphysboro: Yes (to throw out votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania)
• Rodney L. Davis, Republican-Taylorville: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Lauren Underwood, Democrat-Crystal Lake: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Mary Miller, Republican-Collinsville: Yes (to throw out votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania)
• Adam Kinzinger, Republican-Channnahon: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Cheri Bustos, Democrat-East Moline: No (to reject objections and certify votes)
• Darin LaHood, Republican-Dunlap: No (to reject objections and certify votes)

As required under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, the 538-member Electoral College voted Dec. 14 on state-certified election results and declared Biden and Harris the winners of the election with 306 electoral votes, compared with 232 for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Illinois' 20 electoral votes went to Biden-Harris. A ticket needed 270 electoral votes to win the election.

The results were then delivered to Pence, who as president of the Senate presided over Wednesday’s joint session of Congress until the U.S. Secret Service rushed him from the chambers.

Counting and confirming the Electoral College votes is largely a formality. Challenges of the validity of the electoral vote have been allowed under federal election law since 1887 under the Electoral Count Act and can be traced back to the contentious 1876 election, which both Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden claimed to win.

Tilden led in the popular vote but not in the Electoral College, where 19 electoral votes from four states were in dispute. The interim solution was a 15-member commission composed of five U.S. representatives, five U.S. senators and five U.S. Supreme Court justices, who decided the election in favor of Hayes. The justices cast the deciding votes after House and Senate members voted along party lines.

Republicans — about a dozen senators and two dozen House members — pledged to object to the 2020 presidential election results based on Trump’s repeated, baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. The president’s grievances escalated over the weekend when he pressured Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and asked him to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state’s presidential election.

To bring the objections to the election results to debate, at least one member each of the Senate or House of Representatives must make them in writing, according to the Congressional Research Service.

In that instance, the two houses separate and debate the question in their respective chambers for up to two hours; vote separately to accept or reject the objection; and then reassemble in the joint session, where their respective votes are announced. Both houses would have been required to vote to reject a state’s electoral votes for any contested votes to be excluded.

The last time a serious Electoral College results challenge was lodged was on Jan. 6, 2001, when then-Vice President Al Gore silenced objections to his defeat the previous November by President George W. Bush.

Gore, a Democrat, won the popular vote by about 543,895 votes, but a U.S. Supreme Court divided along ideological lines voted that Bush was entitled to Florida’s 25 electoral votes. He won with 271 electoral votes, one more than needed to win the presidency.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus argued for 20 minutes to block the count of Florida’s electoral votes, but when no senator signed onto the debate, Gore brought it to a close with his gavel, and Bush was confirmed by Congress as the winner.

“The whole number of electors appointed to vote for president of the United States is 538, of which a majority is 270,” Gore said in declaring his opponent the winner. “George W. Bush, of the state of Texas, has received for president of the United States 271 votes. Al Gore, of the state of Tennessee, has received 266 votes.”

He magnanimously added: “May God bless our new president and our new vice president, and may God bless the United States of America.”

There have been some minor skirmishes before and since then.

James O’Hara, a congressman from Michigan, filed the first formal objection to the Electoral College count in a Jan. 6, 1969, joint session. Richard Nixon had defeated Hubert Humphrey in both the popular and Electoral College tallies the previous November, but O’Hara’s objection centered on a “faithless” North Carolina elector who was pledged to vote for Nixon but instead voted for segregationist George Wallace.

O’Hara’s objection was co-signed by Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie, Humphrey’s running mate on the Democratic ticket. O’Hara’s effort failed and, in the end, one of North Carolina’s 13 electoral votes went to Wallace.

On Jan. 6, 2005, after Bush overcame an election challenge by Democrat John Kerry, winning both the popular and electoral votes, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer joined Ohio Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones in an objection citing concerns about voting irregularities. Kerry did not support the objection, which sought to throw out all of Ohio’s electoral votes.

Boxer was the only member of the Senate supporting the objection, which was supported by 31 House Democrats.

Four years ago, on Jan. 26, 2017, then-Vice President Joe Biden declared that Congress had certified Trump’s 2016 Electoral College win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that she received about 3 million more popular votes than Trump.

Half a dozen House Democrats objected to the Electoral College vote count, but no senators joined the effort. Because of that, Biden repeatedly said the objections could not be entertained, even as Democrats interrupted.

“There is no debate,” Biden said at the time. “There is no debate. If there is not one signed by a senator, the objection cannot be entertained.”