Question...

[EndlessWire]

In the United States Code (62 stat. 672), Chapter One of Title 3. it says:

Failure to Make Choice on Prescribed Day
§ 2. Whenever any State has held an election for the purpose of
choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day
prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may
direct.

Now, Trump is working to get ballots recounted in several states. The certification deadlines are coming up. If they cannot recount those votes in time and they miss the deadline, regardless of the actual tallies showing trends, doesn't it seem as if the US Code will allow per law that the legislatures can bypass everything and put their own Electors in? What will stop them?

[unblock]

1. federal law may allow this but state law is controlling here

if the state has a law in place that requires certain procedures to be followed, they must be followed.

eta: ianal

[pat_k]

2. I don't think "day prescribed by law" . . .

. . .is the deadline a state sets itself for certification. Recounts and audits can occur after certification. If a legislature "short circuits" the process and intervenes to appoint electors to the loser of the state's vote, then it is up to Congress to toss those electors out as unlawfully appointed on Jan 6.

When the Supreme Court intervened and called the incomplete 2000 election in Florida for Bush on Dec 12, 2000 they rendered the appointment of the electors unlawful (appointed pursuant to an incomplete election as per Florida law). Gore should not have conceded. He and the Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate should have educated the public and fought to toss the unlawfully appointed electors out on Jan 6, 2001. (Pretty much as Justice Bryer instructed them to in his dissent.)

[abqtommy]

3. Thank you for this understandable clarification.