Former Vice President Mike Pence defended his actions presiding over Congress’s certification of the 2020 Electoral College results to a pro-Trump voter during a campaign stop in Iowa on Wednesday.
Pence was holding a campaign event in Sioux City, where a participant told him that Biden should not be the president and asked if he has ever doubted himself that he had the power to reject the certification of certain states’ results on Jan. 6, 2021, and send them back for further review.
Pence responded that he believes the issue “continues to be misunderstood.”
“I know by God’s grace I did exactly what the Constitution of the United States required of me that day,” he said. “I kept my oath.”
Pence said that after Election Day, 60 lawsuits were filed to review the results in various key states that decided the election. He said some “election irregularities” occurred, pointing to instances where states expanded voting by mail in response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At the end of the day, when Iowa certified your results and sent them to Washington, D.C., when Indiana certified our results — the Constitution of the United States, in Article II, it’s the job of the vice president is to serve as the presiding officer of a joint session where you open and count the votes,” he said.
“Don’t take my word for it. Go read the Constitution,” he added.
Former President Trump repeatedly called on Pence to reject the results of the key states that clinched Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election and send them back to the states for further review. Pence insisted that he did not constitutionally have the power to do so, and his role presiding over the joint session of Congress to read the votes was only ceremonial.
Trump’s campaign launched many challenges to the results in the weeks following the election, but audits and the lawsuits confirmed Biden’s wins in every state challenged.
Pence said the Constitution is clear, and that though he had the power to hear any objections from members of Congress, which he did, he did not have the authority to go farther than reading and counting the votes.
“No vice president in American history ever asserted the authority that you have been convinced that I have,” he told the voter, adding that Trump was wrong about his authority before and now.