Joyce Vance on Disturbing news from Georgia . . . and a little joy too.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

https://open.substack.com/pub/joycevance/p/disturbing-news-from-georgia?r=lxca0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Today, emails between county election officials in Georgia surfaced, revealing that election deniers from 2020 are busily working on a plan to call the results of November’s election into question—presumably only if Trump loses. Apparently, they are gifted fortune tellers and have determined, before the first ballot has ever been cast, that the 2024 election will be overwhelmed by fraud. Amazing.

Election officials from at least five Georgia counties are involved, calling themselves the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition. According to people who have reviewed the emails, many of the people involved in the exchanges had already, as of earlier this year, refused to certify election results. The goal of their plan is to hamper certification of the election results if Trump loses.

This news is not a surprise. As we’ve discussed previously, there are some efforts underway to pretend the purely ministerial obligation election officials have to certify completed counts is something else, a process whose outcome these officials have the discretion to challenge. If this sounds familiar, it’s roughly akin to the idea of delaying certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2020, to throw the election into chaos amidst claims of (nonexistent) fraud. It’s a recipe for a coup.

When we discussed this in August, we noted that “The duty of these officials to certify election results is ‘ministerial’—a task they are required to do. They lack discretion to question the vote counts.

All of it at the link, including the part that gives joy.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Failure to certify does not trigger a contingent election in the house

If somehow, a state were permitted to commit the unconstitutional act of failing to send electors to congress, it would simply reduce the number of electors needed to win the presidency to below 270 electoral votes.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I have never read about this possibility. Are you sure?

[elleng]

3. Working on it! Clause 3 Electoral College Count

And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-1/clause-3/#:~:text=Clause%203%20Electoral%20College%20Count&text=And%20they%20shall%20make%20a,the%20President%20of%20the%20Senate.

[markodochartaigh]

5. The 1876 election which led to the

Electoral Count Act makes for interesting reading.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876_United_States_presidential_election

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Read article II, clause 2 & 3 of the constitution

It says each state shall appoint electors, and that the president is the one who receives the majority of appointed electors.

That says to me that a state does not have the choice not to send electors, but in any case, the president is decided by the majority of duly appointed electors, not by the majority of the maximum possible electors.

The only contingent elections decided by the house in the past have been in cases where three or more candidates won electoral votes, but no candidate won a majority of the total EV’s.

Only two candidates will win EV’s this year, so the only possible scenario where a contingent election occurs would be in the case of a 269-269 tie.

[pat_k]

4. Courts will slap them down. County canvas certification is a mandatory first step.

It is NOT up to election officials to resolve disputes. It is only their duty to count the ballots in accord with the rules to the best of their ability, document every step in accord with the rules, and certify that they have done this.

Then, and only then, when there is a crystal clear record of what was, or was not counted, can a would be challenger raise issues. If a challenger believes votes were counted that shouldn't have been, or that votes weren't counted that should have been, they take the challenge to court. But you can't do that until you have certification of what was or wasn't counted in the first place.

Resolving disputes and challenges is for the courts, after the counties certify their canvas.

I have absolutely no doubt that courts will slap these people down so fast they won't know what hit them. They are attempting to usurp the role of courts in elections, and courts, however conservative, don't take kindly to such things.

States set the date to certify the results early enough to allow a period of time for any recounts or challenges to be resolved before the final Certification of Ascertainment declaring the truly final official results for the state. The deadline for the Certificate of Ascertainment is December 11, six days before the electors meet and cast their vote based on the results on December 17.

The timelines are pretty tight, but courts move very fast on challenges and counties know how to complete recounts within the time allotted.

Even if a challenge was running up against the December 11 and December 17 deadlines, those could actually be shifted. If a court absolutely needed more time to resolve a challenge it would be within its power to delay. While deadlines in the law are to be treated solemnly, a court can choose to balance the importance of an accurate result against the importance of meeting an arbitrary deadline. The dates are arbitrary because they were originally set to provide time for the certificate to be conveyed to the meeting and for the electoral votes from the meeting to be conveyed to Washington by December 25. In our modern world, we don't actually need that much time. It is really only the final date that is inviolate (barring an act of Congress). If accuracy demands a few more days, I don't think there is anything that would stop a court from moving the date for the Certification of Ascertainment to be issued to 12/20 and the date for the meeting of electors to 12/21. That would still leave plenty of time to get the electoral votes to Congress by 12/25.