A few things of note here. First, there is no guarantee that Mike Johnson will even be in a position to do anything about it. It’s the new Congress that counts these votes, so if Democrats can pick up a few seats then Jeffries will be Speaker.
Second, recall that they made some changes to the EC voting process:
They increased the threshold of members who need to object to 1/5 of each body (so, 87 House members + 20 Senators). Is it possible they already have these people in the bag? Possibly, especially since the yo-yos who objected last time haven’t really had any consequences to that.
They also clarified exactly two grounds for challenges:
The electors of a state were not lawfully certified
An elector’s vote was not “regularly given”
But I suppose there is nothing to really stop them from claiming the electors were not lawfully certified, even if they were. They are still complaining that Jack Smith wasn’t lawfully installed, and even got a judge to buy into it.
Maybe not about having congresspeople objecting. They’re going to try and engineer an electoral college 269-269 tie.
It’s a fucking longshot, and if they still think it’s a plan worth putting effort behind, that speaks to what they think their chances of winning above board are.
I mean, they can’t really engineer a tie. If the vote ends up that way that’s one thing, but if they have found a way to manipulate votes why not go for the win?
They could lean on certain states to change their certification, but that didn’t work in 2020, there’s no reason to assume it would work now. These battleground states have had a lot of attention put on them, their Governors and Secretaries of State aren’t going to roll over like that.
No, I think the game they are playing is to purposefully sabotage the certification process at the local level so key Harris wins can be neutralized. If Harris wins GA or AZ, I am fully expecting the local election boards to do everything they can to stall the certification. They’ve basically been telegraphing that, so much so that there have been recent court rulings telling those local boards they can’t do that.
That’s fair, but I was catching this from the article:
Professor of law Melissa Murray, a constitutional law expert and co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, appears to agree.
“So, the plan is to have an Electoral College tie (which will likely require contesting swing state vote counts),” she writes. “A tie in the Electoral College will then require a vote in the House of Representatives, where the GOP, led by Speaker Johnson, has a (thin) majority…”
Yeah, I saw that in the article, and immediately dismissed it for all the reasons I already stated.
Plus, many of the more likely tie scenarios involve Nebraska, one of only two states which appoint EC votes based on congressional district. If Harris wins the lone vote for the district with Omaha in it, it makes it far less likely to end in a tie. Maybe That’s what Trump is on about, then: more pressure on Nebraska to change its EC allocation process.
They are still complaining that Jack Smith wasn’t lawfully installed, and even got a judge to buy into it.
That judge being Aileen Cannon, who Trump nominated, has been obviously slow walking his case, is clearly doing everything she can to protect him, and even she wasn’t stupid enough to try this argument until Clarence Thomas dropped a big fat hint in a SCOTUS decision to give her cover.
Cannon is also on the leaked shortlist to be Donald’s AG if he disgraces the office again (there are thoughts it might have been an intentional leak to somehow shore up Cannon’s ‘Special Prosecutors are just a figment of our imagination, we’re hallucinating the hundreds of years of precedent’ reasoning to Judge Chutkan, like ‘See, this potential future AG says it, that’s gotta count for something’) , “The defendant offered me a very prestigious job” seems like a pretty major conflict of interest that should definitely have her removed from the case.
I’m sure that will come up in the confirmation hearing, which is why the Senate is so important. And why the Democrats keep focusing on Texas even though Kamala has a very slim chance there. Cruz is vulnerable, and if Allred takes that seat and keeps the Senate in Democratic hands it will go a long way to limit the damage Trump can do by limiting his choices.
Idk about Allred actually getting Cruz. He’s in Texas, he’s black and polling I’ve seen has been largely unchanged with Allred down 3-5%. As seems usual we’re counting on women and minorities to do enough to stop the worst but I really wonder if we can get the best.
Voters seem to have goldfish memory every election about how conservatives keep fucking us everytime they’re in power.
A few things of note here. First, there is no guarantee that Mike Johnson will even be in a position to do anything about it. It’s the new Congress that counts these votes, so if Democrats can pick up a few seats then Jeffries will be Speaker.
Second, recall that they made some changes to the EC voting process:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Reform_and_Presidential_Transition_Improvement_Act_of_2022
They increased the threshold of members who need to object to 1/5 of each body (so, 87 House members + 20 Senators). Is it possible they already have these people in the bag? Possibly, especially since the yo-yos who objected last time haven’t really had any consequences to that.
They also clarified exactly two grounds for challenges:
But I suppose there is nothing to really stop them from claiming the electors were not lawfully certified, even if they were. They are still complaining that Jack Smith wasn’t lawfully installed, and even got a judge to buy into it.
Maybe not about having congresspeople objecting. They’re going to try and engineer an electoral college 269-269 tie.
It’s a fucking longshot, and if they still think it’s a plan worth putting effort behind, that speaks to what they think their chances of winning above board are.
I mean, they can’t really engineer a tie. If the vote ends up that way that’s one thing, but if they have found a way to manipulate votes why not go for the win?
They could lean on certain states to change their certification, but that didn’t work in 2020, there’s no reason to assume it would work now. These battleground states have had a lot of attention put on them, their Governors and Secretaries of State aren’t going to roll over like that.
No, I think the game they are playing is to purposefully sabotage the certification process at the local level so key Harris wins can be neutralized. If Harris wins GA or AZ, I am fully expecting the local election boards to do everything they can to stall the certification. They’ve basically been telegraphing that, so much so that there have been recent court rulings telling those local boards they can’t do that.
That’s fair, but I was catching this from the article:
Yeah, I saw that in the article, and immediately dismissed it for all the reasons I already stated.
Plus, many of the more likely tie scenarios involve Nebraska, one of only two states which appoint EC votes based on congressional district. If Harris wins the lone vote for the district with Omaha in it, it makes it far less likely to end in a tie. Maybe That’s what Trump is on about, then: more pressure on Nebraska to change its EC allocation process.
That judge being Aileen Cannon, who Trump nominated, has been obviously slow walking his case, is clearly doing everything she can to protect him, and even she wasn’t stupid enough to try this argument until Clarence Thomas dropped a big fat hint in a SCOTUS decision to give her cover.
Cannon is also on the leaked shortlist to be Donald’s AG if he disgraces the office again (there are thoughts it might have been an intentional leak to somehow shore up Cannon’s ‘Special Prosecutors are just a figment of our imagination, we’re hallucinating the hundreds of years of precedent’ reasoning to Judge Chutkan, like ‘See, this potential future AG says it, that’s gotta count for something’) , “The defendant offered me a very prestigious job” seems like a pretty major conflict of interest that should definitely have her removed from the case.
I’m sure that will come up in the confirmation hearing, which is why the Senate is so important. And why the Democrats keep focusing on Texas even though Kamala has a very slim chance there. Cruz is vulnerable, and if Allred takes that seat and keeps the Senate in Democratic hands it will go a long way to limit the damage Trump can do by limiting his choices.
Idk about Allred actually getting Cruz. He’s in Texas, he’s black and polling I’ve seen has been largely unchanged with Allred down 3-5%. As seems usual we’re counting on women and minorities to do enough to stop the worst but I really wonder if we can get the best.
Voters seem to have goldfish memory every election about how conservatives keep fucking us everytime they’re in power.