re: #328 Targetpractice

We’re back to worrying about things which won’t happen.

Based on what Ghouliani is saying, they’ve given up on changing enough votes to flip any states and are gambling the remainder of their dwindling luck on Repubs in multiple state legislatures to declare that the voters are “fraudulent” and selecting their own slate of electors instead. Because a dictator installed via constitutional crisis is totally “legit.”

***

Provisions in 3 U.S.C. §15 include a procedure for making and acting on objections to the counting of one or more of the electoral votes from a state or the District of Columbia. When the certificate or equivalent paper from each state (or the District of Columbia) is read, “the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any.” Any such objection must be presented in writing and must be signed by at least one Senator and one Representative. The objection “shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof…. ” During the joint session of January 6, 2001, the presiding officer intervened on several occasions to halt attempts to make speeches under the guise of offering an objection.

Also:

The joint session does not act on any objections that are made. Instead, the joint session is suspended while each house meets separately to debate the objection and vote whether, based on the objection, to count the vote or votes in question. Both houses must vote separately to agree to the objection. Otherwise, the objection fails and the vote or votes are counted. (3 U.S.C. §15, provides that “the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes…. “). These procedures have been invoked twice since enactment of the 1887 law. The first was an instance of what has been called the “faithless elector” problem. In 1969, a Representative (James O’Hara of Michigan) and a Senator (Edmund S. Muskie of Maine) objected in writing to counting the vote of an elector from North Carolina who had been expected to cast his vote for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, but who instead cast his vote for George Wallace and Curtis LeMay. Both chambers met and voted separately to reject the objection, so when the joint session resumed, the challenged electoral vote was counted as cast. In that instance, the elector whose vote was challenged was from a state that did not by law “bind” its electors to vote only for the candidates to whom they were pledged. The instance of a “faithless” elector from a state that does, in fact, bind the elector by law to vote for the candidate to whom listed or pledged has not yet been expressly addressed by Congress or the courts.

On the italics, that was addressed by the Supreme Court on the faithless electors from the 2016 election, holding those laws to be constitutional.

The challenge would go both ways: Democrats objecting to the bullshyte electors and Republicans objecting to the real ones. Assuming both objections fail (GOP in the House, Dems in the Senate), all electors for that state are set aside and the number required to win is reduced. Additionally, representatives from that state may not be seated in the new Congress. Any state which does this is voting to have no representation.

Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of Congress (Congressional Research Service, PDF)