Texas Republicans declare Biden election illegitimate, despite evidence

A supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump sporting a hat with a sticker on it studying “Stop the Steal” attends a rally forward of the U.S. Congress certification of the November 2020 election outcomes, throughout protests in Washington, U.S., January 5, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

WASHINGTON, June 19 (Reuters) – Republicans in Texas formally rejected President Joe Biden’s election in 2020 as illegitimate and voted in a state-wide conference that wrapped up this weekend on a celebration platform that calls homosexuality an “abnormal lifestyle choice.”

The occasion’s embrace of unfounded electoral fraud allegations in a bedrock Republican state got here as a bipartisan congressional committee seeks to definitively and publicly debunk the false concept that Biden didn’t win the election.

Biden obtained 7 million extra votes than rival Donald Trump. Biden additionally obtained 306 votes from the Electoral College, greater than the 270 wanted to win.

The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol is constructing a case that Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat within the 2020 presidential election — together with by denying he misplaced — amounted to conspiracy to illegally maintain onto energy. learn extra

Trump, the forty fifth U.S. president, has 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 occasion mentioned in a decision, handed in a voice vote at its conference.

Texas is a serious participant in U.S. nationwide politics, with 38 electoral votes, the second highest after California. Voters there have backed Republican presidents for the previous 4 a long time.

The White House had no remark.

According to a latest Reuters/Ipsos ballot, about two-thirds of Republicans imagine the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. State and federal judges dismissed greater than 50 lawsuits introduced by Trump and his allies difficult the election whereas opinions and audits discovered no evidence of widespread fraud.

PLATFORM ATTACKS ‘CHOICE’ OF HOMOSEXUALITY

One of the proposed rules within the latest Texas Republican party platform additionally consists of new language criticizing homosexuality and voicing opposition to “all efforts to validate transgender identity.”

“Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice,” it reads, a press release that’s not within the 2020 platform.

Votes on the availability are being tallied and authorized following the bi-annual state occasion conference, a celebration spokesperson mentioned.

The Log Cabin Republicans of Houston, a corporation that represents LGBT conservatives, mentioned it was as soon as once more denied a request to arrange a sales space on the occasion’s conference this week, because it has been for previous conventions. The group referred to as the Texas Republican Convention’s actions “not just narrow-minded, but politically short-sighted.”

However, the group is seeing “no evidence” of different state Republican conventions adopting comparable bans or exclusionary language, Charles Moran, Log Cabin Republican managing director, informed Reuters.

“If anything we are being more included” than in the past, he said, noting that the 2020 Republican presidential campaign had an official pride coalition, and the gay Republican vote doubled between 2016 and 2020. “President Trump was essentially the most pro-gay Republican that now we have ever had,” he added.

Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Heather Timmons and Lisa Shumaker

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