Rep. Adrian Smith, the Republican who represents Nebraska’s sprawling, largely rural 3rd Congressional District, said on Monday that he plans to object this week to the presidential election results from the Electoral College.

Smith, in a Facebook post, said Nebraska and many other states conducted elections during the coronavirus pandemic that honored the rule of law and maintained confidence in the integrity of the process. Others, he wrote, “frankly did not.”

The Gering, Nebraska, congressman is taking a different position from the state’s two senators and its two other House members — all Republicans. They appear unlikely to join the faction in Congress attempting to overturn November’s results. President Donald Trump has insisted that he won the race instead of President-elect Joe Biden, citing unsubstantiated allegations that were repeatedly rejected by state and federal courts.

Republicans have not complained about the elections in states where Trump won. Instead, Smith and others are targeting states that certified Biden as the winner and where the Trump team lost legal challenges.

“Like many Nebraskans, I am deeply concerned about the election process in other states,” Smith wrote. “This wasn’t a typical election — jurisdictions nationwide adjusted their procedures due to the pandemic.”

Congress’s Jan. 6 role in certifying the 2020 Electoral College vote gained new urgency this weekend, after release of a recorded phone call in which Trump pressured Georgia’s secretary of state, a fellow Republican, to “find 11,780 votes” to claim an unearned victory in the state.

Trump and some of his allies have tried and failed for weeks to flip the presidential election results his way. This week, they are pressing Congress to reject former Vice President Biden’s 306-232 win in the Electoral College. Biden beat Trump by 7 million votes nationally, amid record turnout.

The Washington Post on Monday listed Nebraska’s senior senator and Trump ally, Deb Fischer, as a yes vote for certifying the 2020 Electoral College results, citing a letter it obtained from Fischer to one of her constituents that acknowledged Biden’s victory.

Her office has not yet confirmed her position separately to The World-Herald. Her letter said, “I look forward to working with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to keep our nation safe, update our infrastructure, and provide opportunities to families.”

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a frequent Trump critic, announced last week that he would oppose his colleagues’ push to contest Electoral College votes from Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania. So far, a dozen GOP senators have said they will oppose certification. More than 100 House members, including Smith, have said they plan to object.

Sasse called these efforts to politicize Congress’ formal certification of states’ Electoral College votes a “dangerous ploy” by “ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage.”

Smith defended his decision by bringing up the challenge by fewer than a dozen House Democrats of Electoral College votes after the 2016 election. He wrote that Nebraskans in his district “overwhelmingly supported President Trump” and that they “deserve to see Congress have that debate.”

Thus far, there has been no known effort to contest Nebraska’s election results, where Biden won a single electoral vote from the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District. Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts and other GOP state officials certified the state’s election results and said they saw no evidence of fraud.

Ricketts has acknowledged Biden’s win and said Monday that Congress should certify his victory, but also should investigate claims of voting irregularities.

Ricketts, a staunch Trump supporter, said the goal of the GOP senators who plan to vote against ratifying the Electoral College results on Wednesday is to push for the creation of a Senate commission to investigate claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election.

“With the substantial number of people who are questioning the integrity of our voting system, I think it would be good for Congress to do that,” the governor said.

A spokeswoman for Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen and Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse said on Monday that no one in their offices had been contacted by the White House, the president or anybody on his campaign’s behalf in recent weeks to contest the results. Trump won four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes.

Reps. Don Bacon and Jeff Fortenberry, Republicans who represent the Omaha area and eastern Nebraska, respectively, have both acknowledged Biden’s Electoral College victory publicly.

Reached Monday, Bacon said he was leaning toward voting for certification but wanted to hear what his colleagues had to say, out of respect.

“I intend to listen to the debate from beginning to end and support all efforts to investigate fraud so that we could learn if it occurred,” he said. “If fraud is found, I believe it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

But Bacon said the role of Congress in counting the Electoral College votes certified by the states is limited by the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act.

“Our Founders intended the president to be selected by the states, and not by Congress,” he said.

Bacon also described as “wrong” the president’s request that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger find him 11,780 votes, one more than needed to win. He said the president had chances to challenge Georgia’s results in court.

“We work our hardest before an election to win. But then after the election, we count on the election authorities and secretaries of state to ensure votes are counted in a uniform and standardized manner county by county.”

The Post lists Iowa’s senior senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, too, as a yes vote for certification of the Electoral College vote. A Grassley spokesman told a Des Moines TV station that he has “no plans to object” to the results. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, has not yet discussed Electoral College certification.

Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra, the Republican who replaced Steve King in northwest Iowa, was sworn into office Sunday. He has not yet taken a position on the Jan. 6 vote. His office says he needs to hear more from his constituents and colleagues before deciding.

The Midlands delegation’s lone Democrat, Rep. Cindy Axne of southwest Iowa, offered no comment. But her office confirmed that, as expected, she plans to vote to certify the election’s formal results.

Iowa, like Nebraska as a whole, voted for Trump. The nation, for Biden.

World-Herald staff writer Paul Hammel contributed to this report.

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