Election delay? "In the end, the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination

[soothsayer]

Aw hell no

Link to tweet

?s=21

Don't look away. The Secretary of State is wrong on the law and wrong on the facts: only Congress can adjust the date of an election.

Pompeo is trying to hand Bill Barr's corrupt Justice Department the sweeping power to delay our election. We can't let that happen.



Michael Beschloss
@BeschlossDC
Secretary of State Pompeo this morning, in response to Senator Tim Kaine, on whether a President can delay a Presidential election:
"In the end, the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination."

[Cha]

1. KR!

[SoonerPride]

2. Who will stop them?

I love all the very sure scholars who say well he can’t do that.

As he goes right ahead and does it anyway.

Instead tell me how we stop him.

Waving a piece of paper at them is feckless.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. They don't decide when to hold the election.

What do you mean who will stop them? That's like asking who's going to stop him from declaring tomorrow Monday. He can say anything he wants, it won't change the fact tomorrow is Friday.

Even if the Justice Department announces they'll delay the election, the election won't be delayed just because they said so.

[SoonerPride]

5. The emoluments clause says he can't line his pockets while in office

Or take funds allocated by law for one purpose and spend it on another.

So yeah those laws sure stopped him.

If he signed an executive order in his stupid sharpie scribble it would most definitely cause a court fight. Which he would lose. But in the meantime some states may indeed not hold their election

All he wants is chaos and there is no power to stop him from sowing even more chaos prior to November.

But please stop saying “he can’t do something”

That’s been said for 4 years and all he does is go ahead and do it anyway

[Drunken Irishman]

6. This is a silly comparison.

Stop it. Those things are not comparable.

He literally has NO power to move the election. Zero. Zilch. Everything you compared it to can be done - it's a tangible, possible thing that can be done, whether ethically, or lawfully correct. But this is not about doing something. He can't just proclaim the election is moved this November to, say, March of next year and it suddenly is moved from November to March. No more than he could get up there and declare Canada now the 51st state.

He literally has no control over when the election is held. He has control over lining his pockets, or breaking laws. This is completely and totally different.

So, I will reiterate it just for you: HE CAN'T DO THIS.

[SoonerPride]

8. Well since you put it all caps then I'm reassured.

🙄

Thanks.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. Glad you came to your senses.

There is no way Trump can delay the election. It's that simple.

[regnaD kciN]

7. Technically speaking...

…I’m assuming that, if he announces a postponement, legislatures in red states can go along.

Blue states won’t.

So, the election is held entirely in blue states, and Biden wins every electoral vote. December 14 (the legal deadline for certifying electors) comes and goes. (Keep in mind that the next president only needs to win a majority of legally-appointed electors, not the proverbial 270, if less than 538 electors are picked by the 12/14/20 deadline. If, say, only Vermont held the election, and Biden wins the state, he’ll win the presidency, 3 EV to 0 EV.) What’s Trump going to do then? Go to SCOTUS and demand proceedings be stopped because he ordered a postponement, in complete defiance of the Constitution?

CAVEAT: This assumes that RBG remains well and on the Court. Should her seat fall vacant, Trump would be able to seat another loyalist, which could well give him a 5-4 majority for anything he wants to do. Then it’s goodbye, democracy.

[Drunken Irishman]

12. Technically, no...

It's not up to the state legislatures - as it is mandated in the Constitution that congress set the date on which requires states to appoint presidential electors. This date is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, or, in 2020, Nov. 3rd. This is when the electors are chosen by the voters. So, they would not be allowed to go along with it.

But this is a massive assumption that even GOP states would go along with it because that also impacts down ballot races.

This is all just fantasy. Trump has no intentions of postponing the election. He just wants to plant seeds of doubt so when he does lose, he can save face and go off into the sunset stating ranting and raving about how he had the election stolen from him.

[Drunken Irishman]

18. Nothing was modified on those dates.

There were a lot of modifications but believe it or not, they have not modified anything related to when the election is held.

[Drunken Irishman]

20. I am - I looked at it.

My concern remains with slowing down the Post Office, plus closing polling locations to dampen turnout. I think that is the biggest obstacle right now.

[wryter2000]

10. The polls open

People vote

[SoonerPride]

11. Or they don't open and people don't vote

States have been very good about closing polling places.

If he signs an EO postponing the election I have no doubt some states would follow that order.

My stupid state of Oklahoma being one of them.

The governor and legislature is all trump all the time.

[wryter2000]

13. As someone pointed out

Blue states won’t close.

McConnell isn’t backing him on this. Plus, the master of distraction put this out on the day of John Lewis’s funeral to get people worked up. It seems to have worked.

[regnaD kciN]

14. REPUBLICAN states are "very good about closing polling places"...

As I noted above, since you only need to win a majority of electors appointed by 12/14, let Republican states postpone the election. Democratic states won’t, and that just means a larger majority for Biden. Trump can’t stop that.

[Drunken Irishman]

15. Cool. Then Oklahoma's electoral votes won't count.

The Constitution is clear as day on this with its deadlines. Come January 6, a joint-session of congress will vote count the results. If Oklahoma did not have an election, and therefore weren't able to appoint electors, then their electors are not counted to a majority.

Ultimately, if every GOP-leaning state refused to appoint electors because they delayed the election beyond what is written into the Constitution, the total electors that are available (currently 538) decreases and therefore, so does a majority.

So, let's assume Alabama, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho, Mississippi, Utah, and the Dakotas decide to delay the election, and therefore are unable to appoint electors by January 6th, that means 47 electoral votes are now removed from the majority needed to win the presidency.

So, instead of it being 270 (a majority of 538), the candidate would need 245 to win.

Here's the kicker, though: Trump just pissed away 47 electoral votes that were sure to go to him.

In this scenario, if every other state kept their electors, and Biden wins all of Hillary's states from 2016 + just Pennsylvania, Biden wins a majority of appointed electors (252 electors, 245 needed to win).

He becomes the next president.

This is a gambit Trump does not want because the Constitution is 100% clear here. This isn't a law he can skirt around. It's written specifically that way so things like this do not happen. Sure, you can point to all the time the president breaks the laws, but this isn't just law. It'd be like Trump deciding to run for a third term if he had the chance. Just because he says he's going to do it does not mean he can defy the already established mechanisms in place that will make it literally impossible for him to do so.

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.

[regnaD kciN]

4. We can haz coup?

[Lock him up.]

16. The gangster-Regime's ignorant mob boss chickened out...

... walked back the notion of delaying this year's election
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/30/trump-hosts-coronavirus-briefing-after-floating-idea-election-delay/5547391002/

Watta criminal doofus

RICO TRUMP$ AND ACCOMPLICE$
ESTABLISH EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL