In short, when the Colorado and Minnesota cases arrive in Washington, the Supreme Court will confront a desperate race against time. If it fails to decide the cases rapidly, it will provoke a constitutional crisis once the polls close and each state decides who won the election. Under current law, state legislatures must report their Electoral College winners in time for Vice President Kamala Harris to report the results to a joint session of Congress meeting on Jan. 6, 2025. Once she inspects the ballots, she is likely to find that none of the three candidates—neither Biden, nor Trump, nor Trump’s proxy—has won a majority of the electoral votes. At this point, Harris will confront a dilemma that will make Vice President Mike Pence’s predicament in 2021 seem modest by comparison.
she is likely to find
Why would she be likely to find that? If trump isn’t on the ballot, the votes would probably go to Biden and he would win that state. If Slate is meaning that the r’s would try not to certify the election, they’re going to do that regardless. Harris will certify as usual.
What they’re discussing is the possibility that Biden doesn’t make it to 270 electoral votes, and the remaining votes are split between Trump and whomever else Republicans write in. I don’t think it’s a very likely scenario, but it is possible under our electoral system.
I totally agree that it’s a possible scenario, but they said that it’s likely to happen. Likely is doing a ton of heavy lifting there. I still go with the Trump winning as being far worse since he’s going full dictator before even running. He’s telling everyone that’s what he’s going to do and what he and his fellow r’s are planning.
The problem in this scenario (however likely) is that if Democrats don’t take back the House in 2024, Republicans get to pick the next President. In the event that the Electoral College fails to identify a clear winner, the House gets to decide who should be President. I’m not willing to bet there are enough “never Trumpers” in the House to avoid installing him anyway.
Even if dems win a majority in the house, they may not have a majority of state delegations. the house vote is by state delegation.
Right, good point.
Wouldn’t the former VP certify before that would happen though?I see, you’re saying if someone didn’t reach the 270. I can’t believe we have to discuss these technicalities for a coup, I hope to god there are people working on this. Between the r’s blocking all of the military promotions, the election gerrymandering and now this, we can’t watch our country get taken away in slow-mo by him again.
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If a swing state leaves off trump, the popular vote could easily end up going to “stick it to the libs”… The very act itself of disallowing a major name could easily sway voters in that direction.
The sort that would vote trump will vote for “not biden” under whatever name you slap on there. They could literally run mickey mouse and pull the electoral if people understand that they’d be handing the matter over to the house by doing it, because the house is a trump win (I DO NOT share the authors opinion that this would be a contest or conflict… Without a 270, I believe the house will very quickly hand trump a victory).
Disallowing trump is gonna generate “red no matter who” sentiment, and it’s blatantly obvious that the voting public can and will go for that. I think kicking trump off a select few ballots could easily end up backfiring.
Disallowing trump is gonna generate “red no matter who” sentiment, and it’s blatantly obvious that the voting public can and will go for that. I think kicking trump off a select few ballots could easily end up backfiring.
Among some. The same ones who would be red no matter who, no matter who.
Disallowing Trump will shake things up for real. Consider its impact on the primaries and how influential they are in deciding the nominee? What does that do if Trump isn’t on the ballots in those states? How can a state GOP party have Trump on the ballot for the primary but not the general?
No, those always red votes are always red votes… Im talking swing states.
Imagine trump is on the primary ballot in CO, and he wins easily. Then, in direct defiance of the primary voters votes, his name isn’t on the general ballot, and the name is instead a distant second place runner up.
The optics of that are that the blue tam stacked the deck. That they have a thumb on the scale. The fat grey area waffly voting bloc that makes a swing state a swing state will be incentivised to vote against the stacked deck. Vote for the runner up, the second best, generate a stalemate and hand it off to the house, resulting in the stacked deck losing.
The EC is so outdated and fucked up.
Please don’t let the supreme court choose shit…
Don’t really have a choice. Which is why they should have impeached Thomas and a few others (or packed the court)
Isn’t that essentially letting him get away with it? With everything?
I didn’t say I like it. But the US government is a system of laws; and those laws say the SCROTUS has the final authority on constitutional matters.
We can either ignore those laws (and become the enemy, really) or overthrow the government.
We can either ignore those laws (and become the enemy, really) or overthrow the government.
Can you help me parse that? I don’t quite understand what you are saying.
The US Supreme Court is enshrined by laws as the heights judicial court in the country.
Eventually the matter of trump’s elegibility is going to wind up before it. Your choice at that point is to either accept its authority- even if they’re corrupt assholes who have no business having power; or over throwing the lawful government.
Republicans would simply ignore the court (as they have in the past- in this context they’re the enemy we’d become.).
Note, I’m not advocating an insurrection, either (and become more like them.) but I do see the US as walking a dark path… and I’m scared and impotent.
Eventually the matter of trump’s elegibility is going to wind up before it. Your choice at that point is to either accept its authority- even if they’re corrupt assholes who have no business having power; or over throwing the lawful government.
So regardless, one side will end up in a no-win situation forced to reject the will of the Supreme Court (through this lens).
Yeah I don’t know how they’ll rule. I’m also not 100% that it will get there. Its wildly uncertain times. But thanks for adding more words. I wasn’t quite getting your point before.
Just because they’ve made some heinous decisions doesn’t make them all wrong. And they’re certainly not beholden to Trump just because he put 3 of them on the bench. That’s the whole idea behind lifetime appointments. They’ve already won their seats, and politicians can go fuck themselves if they don’t like it.
They just told Alabama to go fuck themselves on voting rights. There was another tangentially related (to Trump) voting case they refused to hear. Don’t be so sure they won’t defer to a lower court’s decision if Trump’s kicked off the ballot.
Disclaimer: I’m not laying bets here people. I’m not totally nuts.
You say that but the conservative justices clearly have powerful perks from rich republican donors. The agenda isn’t set by trump, it’s set by those who like him upon others. So I’d give it a 0% chance of the Supreme Court stepping in. Even aside from this issue, they want us to decide.
I have a hunch that in places where a proxy appears to pull electoral votes that ‘cult of personality’ voters won’t show up. They want the Trump name. An ad-hoc write-in campaign, or even the inclusion of the increasingly rightward-leaning (and recognizable) Kennedy name would easily handicap a proxy candidate - allowing a Biden win.
I’m not saying the republicans wouldn’t try to let the house pick, but I think (hope?) they wouldn’t get far enough with that plan to try it.
SCOTUS didn’t save him in 2020 and they’re not going to save him in 2024.
I wish I could trust them to do the right thing.
that’s why they stacked the supreme court, to dismantle the USA, maybe they’ll stop all the colonization and genocide instead of engaging in “business as usual” … right?
What goes around comes around… the USA has been going around spreading shit, it’s coming around.
