Did Democrats Object the Last Three Times a Republican Won the White House?

A tweet from Charlie Kirk is partially correct but is missing context.

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Populist  provocateur Charlie Kirk claimed in a recent tweet that in “The last 3 presidential elections where a Republican won the White House, Democrats in Congress objected to the electoral votes.” He added: “But now that Republicans are doing it, they’re outraged.”

Kirk is partially correct: The 2000, 2004, and 2016 presidential elections saw some congressional Democrats object to the final electoral count. In 2000, the New York Times reported that “a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, joined by a few sympathizers, tried in vain to block the counting of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, protesting that black voters had been disenfranchised.” While members of either chamber of Congress may object to the certification of a state’s electoral votes, without at least one supporter in both chambers such objections are not formally considered and do not go to debate. As such, the objection to Florida’s electoral votes in 2000 quickly failed without a senator joining the cause. The 2016 election certification faced similar objections from the House that failed to find a supporter in the Senate.

The closest parallel to the upcoming objection to certifying the election results promised by 11 Republican senators and dozens of Republican representatives occurred in 2005, when then-Sen. Barbara Boxer joined Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones in objecting to the certification of Ohio’s electoral votes. 

Kirk is correct that some Democrats objected to the electoral votes of the last three presidential elections won by Republicans. However, only one of those elections saw an objection similar to what some congressional Republicans are now attempting to do with support in both the House and the Senate. 

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

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  7. JohnM

    To my mind Charlie Kirk’s tweet is false taken as a whole. The intent of the tweet is to take a fact and then make an utterly false equivalency between what the republicans are doing and what the democrats did. Just because democrats did something similar ( on a much smaller scale) does not make them, or others, hypocrites for objecting to Cruz, et al.. Democrats, in their objections, were not supporting an insurrectionist president bent on over turning the results of an election. They were not contributing to a false, wide spread conspiracy theory that rampant, multi state, election fraud took place. Their objections, albeit wrong, were so inconsequential that they weren’t even reported on. They weren’t throwing gas on a fire, they were spitting into the wind, alone.

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  8. Butch Kamena

    Ah, the landmine of being a fact checker. :-)

    Three points:

    1. The point raised by some commenters that this is different because the candidate hasn't conceded is irrelevant. Neither Kirk in his tweet or Alec Dent in his fact check mention anything about, so it isn't relevant to the accuracy of the fact check.

    2. The fact check itself is reasonably close. I might have said true, but lacking context, rather than partially true but lacking context. It's a fine line, though. Kirk's tweet is narrowly focused - Democrats in Congress have challenged three consecutive Republican Electoral College victories - and within that narrow framework, is entirely correct. But, the context here is that the Republican effort is far larger and much more organized. That's worth noting, and because that's still within Congress, which Kirk explicitly identified, it is germane in a way what the President has done isn't.

    3. If I find fault with the piece, it's opening with the adjective "Populist provocateur ..." My old journalism classes from 35 years ago would call this "loaded language." I don't question it has some accuracy, but a fact check should be using language that's more neutral like, "Trump supporter Charlie Kirk." Don't slant the fact check by starting with language that tilts the playing field.

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    Mike from Jersey

    This fact check is beyond stupid. Kirk wasn’t “partially” correct. It is a statement of fact. Some congressional Dems objected the last three elections won by a Republican. Full stop. There is no debate on this. It’s a GD fact. What the heck has happened to journalism?

    Did the Bears lose to the Packers last weekend? While this is “true” statement given the actual score, you can say they didn’t lose because they still made it into the playoffs.

    Oohhh...this is fun!

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    Theirn Scott

    The objective of the three Democratic attempts to block electors wasn't to overthrown an election.

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