Elie Mystal: That "Little Secret" Between Trump and Johnson? Here's What It Could Mean. [View all]

[Gaugamela]

Watch “MAGA” Mike Johnson on December 11. If he refuses to extend the election certification deadline on that date, then their plan is to gum up the works and throw it to the Supreme Court. Mystal goes into more detail, but that’s my tl;dr version.

A little Halloween reading:

If enough states refuse to certify the results of the election and submit a slate of electors—with the Supreme Court’s blessing—the math is not actually hard for Trump. Let’s say Vice President Kamala Harris wins the bare majority of Electoral College votes necessary, 270, but the Republican legislature in Wisconsin refuses to submit the state’s 10 electors by the deadline. In this scenario, the new total number of electors becomes 528, not 538—and Trump needs only 264 electoral votes to “win.” If you take Wisconsin and Nevada’s six electors out of the mix, Trump needs only 262 electoral votes to “win.” He’ll likely achieve those numbers without having to win one of the “blue wall” states.

It’s possible to play with the numbers until you find a “tie” scenario at which point the contingent election goes to the House of Representatives, but the far more likely situation is that Trump decreases the overall number of electoral votes available until he can claim a majority of the ones remaining.

And this is where Speaker Johnson becomes critical to the whole “secret” plan. In 2020, Nancy Pelosi was speaker of the House. If states had tried to get cute and not submit their electors by the December 11 deadline, Pelosi would just have extended the deadline. But Speaker Johnson surely won’t. If electors are not submitted by December 11, he’ll likely declare the process “over” and say that the electors appointed by that date are the only ones allowed to vote for president.

Crucially, Johnson can do this even if Republicans lose the House and Johnson is removed from power. The new House isn’t sworn in until January 3. As the violent MAGA people in your family already know, January 6 is when the House certifies the results of the Electoral College, but that is just a ceremonial day. By the time we get to January 6, the electors are supposed to have voted. December 11 is the deadline for appointing electors, December 25 the deadline for voting. Mike Johnson will still be in charge on both of those days.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/little-secret-trump-johnson-election/