No, US Rep. Jamie Raskin Didn’t Say Democrats ‘Won’t Be Certifying the Election’
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin said, “Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office.”
As results of the 2024 presidential election started streaming in, a rumor circulated that U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, said the Democratic Party would not certify vote totals if former President Donald Trump wins.
The alleged quote spread with a post by X account @LarryDJonesJr, which included a video of Raskin supposedly making the comment. According to the X post, Raskin said: “Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office.“
(@LarryDJonesJr)
Despite the post putting the alleged statement in quotation marks, Raskin did not say those words. The video in the X post did not show him making the comment, and Raskin responded to the rumor on X, saying the “fictional ‘quote’ is 100% fabricated.“
(X user @RepRaskin)
The video came from a Feb. 17, 2024, panel featuring Raskin at a bookstore in Washington, D.C. The panel centered on a book titled “A Real Right to Vote,” which argues that U.S. legislators should attempt to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the right to vote. The book’s author, legal scholar Richard Hasen, was also on the panel.
Toward the end of the discussion, a participant asked about the practicality of Hasen’s proposed amendment and how it would be enforced. Hasen replied he “did not trust the Supreme Court,” nor other legislative bodies, to enforce the hypothetical amendment and, therefore, his book proposed legal provisions for enforcement.
Raskin added legislators need to play “offense and defense” in order to protect people’s right to vote, claiming for the “vast majority of American history, the Supreme Court has not been a friend to the people.”
The video in the above-mentioned X post started after that comment. Here’s what Raskin said in it:
But the court is not going to save us. That means the only thing that really works is people in motion, amending the Constitution. But again, it’s necessary but not sufficient — because what can be put into the Constitution can slip away from you very quickly, and the greatest example going on right now before our very eyes is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which they’re just disappearing with a magic wand as if it doesn’t exist, even though it could not be clearer what it’s stating.
They want to kick it to Congress, so it’s going to be up to us on Jan. 6, 2025, to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified. And then we need bodyguards for everybody and civil war conditions — all because the nine justices — not all of them — but these justices who have not that many cases to look at every year, not that much work to do — a huge staff, great protection — simply do not want to do their job and interpret what the 14th Amendment means.
Despite the X post’s claim, Raskin’s comment was in reference to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Congress added that section to the Constitution in the 1860s to prevent Confederates who had defected from the U.S. during the American Civil War from holding office. In 2023, a Colorado legal case attempted to apply the provision, arguing President Donald Trump should not be legally able to run for president due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capital. However, in March 2024, the Supreme Court ruled Trump could remain on ballots in Colorado.
Raskin made the in-question remarks weeks before that Supreme Court ruling. Based on his quote, he was expressing support for such legal actions challenging Trump’s ability to run for the presidency, citing the 14th Amendment. He was not talking about results of the 2024 presidential election, much less referencing the certification of vote totals.
In sum, Raskin did not say, “Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office.” The purported quote was misattributed.
