Stevenson’s army, January 3

About a dozen GOP Senators have pledged to challenge the electoral votes from several swing states.
Read their statement.  They speak of “allegations” of fraud, not “evidence.” They say a challenge is necessary because so many people, especially Republicans, tell pollsters they believe there was fraud.
And what they propose — which would have to get both houses of Congress to vote such a bill — is what they call an” emergency 10-day audit” of the returns. What they want is a return to the 1877 electoral commission that voted on partisan lines to give the presidency to Rutherford Hayes by a one-vote margin. Wikipedia has a good backgrounder.
How clever! They have a precedent. It sounds so reasonable. And if anyone doubts that this massive task could be completed by January 20, Peter Navarro assures us that “We can go past that date if we need to.”
Last month I sent this CRS report on how the counting is supposed to go, by law.

Today [Sunday] at noon,the 117th Congress begins. In the House, the first item of business is electing a Speaker. But the vote may be quite close.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).