The Vice-President Counts – UPDATED

The Twelfth Amendment says: “The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” By statute, that is to occur this year on January 6. That statute also lays out a procedure for handling objections to votes. Judge Jeremy Kernodle of Tyler rejected a challenge to that process, as the process is in detailed in  Section 15 of 1887’s Electoral Count Act, stating: “Plaintiff Louie Gohmert, the United States Representative for Texas’s First Congressional District, alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives. Under well settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing.”  Gohmert v. Pence, No. 6:20-cv-660-JDK (E.D. Tex. Jan. 1, 2020).

A Fifth Circuit motions panel (Higginbotham, Smith, Oldham) dismissed an effort at immediate appeal: