Accounting firm heads, organization leaders urge Congress to acknowledge Electoral Higher education benefits

Leaders of the Major 4 CPA corporations and other major organizations are stepping in and asking Congress to permit a easy transition to the Biden administration as Congress prepares Wednesday for a certification of the Electoral School vote.

The generally perfunctory vote commonly happens each individual 4 decades without the need of incident in Congress, but this yr, amid continuing allegations by President Trump of voter fraud, a team of Republicans in each the Household and Senate have declared plans to obstacle certification of the Electoral Higher education final results.

President-elect Joe Biden received 306 votes in the Electoral Higher education, as opposed to 232 for Trump. Biden’s margin around Trump is even wider, more than 7 million votes. Even so, Trump and his lawyers have continued to insist on allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities irrespective of dropping above 50 lawsuits. Even so, 12 Republican senators and approximately 140 Republicans in the Residence approach to problem certification of the Electoral Faculty vote on Wednesday. The exertion is not predicted to triumph since it would call for the Democratic-controlled Property to approve, and several Republicans in the Senate have registered their opposition to the effort and hard work. On the other hand, Trump is continuing to strain Republican lawmakers and state election officers, which includes a simply call Saturday with Georgia Secretary of Condition Brad Raffensberger. A recording of the contact, which was posted Sunday by the Washington Post, involved a ask for from Trump for adequate votes to triumph over Biden’s direct of 11,779 votes. “I just want to discover 11,780 votes,” Trump said.

On Monday, a team of business enterprise leaders in New York called on Congress to approve the changeover. “This presidential election has been determined and it is time for the state to go forward,” they wrote in an open letter from the Partnership for New York Town. “President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have gained the Electoral Higher education and the courts have turned down problems to the electoral procedure. Congress must certify the electoral vote on Wednesday, January 6. Attempts to thwart or hold off this process operate counter to the essential tenets of our democracy.

“The incoming Biden administration faces the urgent tasks of defeating COVID-19 and restoring the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Us residents who have lost work and companies for the duration of the pandemic,” they extra. “Our duly elected leaders are worthy of the respect and bipartisan assist of all Us residents at a minute when we are working with the worst health and financial crises in modern-day record. There must be no even further hold off in the orderly transfer of electrical power.”

Signers of the letter incorporated a number of leaders of accounting firms, these kinds of as PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S. chair and senior partner Timothy Ryan, Deloitte CEO Joseph Ucuzoglu, Ernst & Younger U.S. chair and running partner Kelly Grier, KPMG U.S. chair and CEO Paul Knopp, and Mitchell & Titus chairman and CEO Anthony Kendall. Previous Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert, who is now commissioner of the WNBA, also signed the document.

The Partnership for New York Town posted an open letter in November urging a transition to the Biden administration immediately after the election (see story). It was signed by several of the very same organization leaders.