By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Republicans in Texas have formally rejected President Joe Biden’s election in 2020 as illegitimate and voted in a state-wide convention that wrapped up last weekend.
The party’s embrace of alleged electoral fraud in a bedrock Republican state came as a bipartisan congressional committee seeks to definitively and publicly debunk the idea that Biden did not win the election, Reuters says in a report.
Biden at the 2020 presidential election received 7 million more votes than rival Donald Trump. Biden also received 306 votes from the Electoral College, more than the 270 needed to win.
The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol is building a case that Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election — including by denying he lost — amounted to conspiracy to illegally hold onto power.
Trump, the 45th US Pesident, has however denied any wrongdoing.
“We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” the Texas party said in a resolution, passed in a voice vote at its convention.
Texas is a major player in US national politics, with 38 electoral votes, the second highest after California. Voters there have backed Republican presidents for the past four decades.
According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, about two-thirds of Republicans believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. State and federal judges dismissed more than 50 lawsuits brought by Trump and his allies challenging the election while reviews and audits found no evidence of widespread fraud.
