Rick Scott says he’s ‘likely’ to reject Pennsylvania electors when Congress votes

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott said he is “likely” to reject electors from the state of Pennsylvania as Congress votes today to certify the results of Joe Biden’s victory.

The Florida Republican accused Pennsylvania’s governor and his administration of taking action leading up to the election that “post a serious threat to the integrity of future elections.” Because of the pandemic and the overwhelming demand for absentee ballots, Pennsylvania allowed for a three-day extension to return mail-in ballots.

“This is absurd, and cannot be tolerated,” Scott said in a statement.

Republicans and President Donald Trump’s campaign mounted several legal challenges in Pennsylvania. Most of them were thrown out and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately declined to weigh in.

Pennsylvania is not the only state where executives took extemporaneous action to help facilitate voting amid the pandemic. In Scott’s own state, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis moved without the consent of the Legislature to allow counties to start canvassing mail ballots earlier than is currently allowed under law. Scott, though, is not challenging Florida’s electors, which went for Trump.

Prior to Wednesday, Scott had not indicated whether he would join Congressional Republicans who vowed to object to the certification of the Electoral College, which Biden won with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. Sen. Marco Rubio has still not weighed in.

Trump’s effort to block the certification never had much hope. Democrats control the House of Representatives and many Senate Republicans didn’t support him. It appears Trump also lost some momentum overnight with Democrats claiming victory in two Senate races in Georgia.

But Trump and his children in the last 24 hours have threatened to primary Republicans who don’t join in their conspiratorial quest to overturn the election. Scott is not up for re-election until 2024 — when he’s also expected to consider a campaign for president.

In a statement, Scott defended Republicans who are standing along side Trump.

“Democrats who are arguing that Republicans fighting to protect the integrity of every vote are a threat to democracy are the same people who tried to overturn the election of Donald Trump every day since he was sworn into office after winning legitimately in 2016,” Scott said in a statement. “Democrat efforts to impeach President Trump — aided by their allies in the media — were a political coup attempt, an illegitimate effort to remove a president from office because Democrats didn’t like the result of the election.”