Saturday 7 November 2020

If the Electoral College Fails to Deliver?

 We basically go the  back-up plan....the Contingent Election.  

In this method, with the 20th Amendment (1933), the new incoming House would have a vote....state-by-state, to deliver the 'winner'.

Number of times that it's been used?  Three (1801, 1825, and 1837).

What happens if they start on 3 January, and cannot complete this by 20 January?  The law says that the Senate requirement of voting for a VP....would then trigger the VP to be a temp-President. 

If the Senate, by 20 January, has failed do it's job?  Then you go to the House Speaker being the temp-President.

If the Senate is in turmoil on 3 January, and missing one or two folks because of vote problems?  There's no real laws to cover that type of problem.

Acceptance by the general public?  No, I would suggest a large segment of the public will be angered enough over this method to trigger civil conflict for the next four years.  But here's the thing....the area of the US to be looted or burnt?  It's Democratically-in-control cities.  So it's hard to imagine this being really positive.

4 comments:

bob searcy said...

i find it absurd that trump is being ridiculed for questioning the vote tallying . if somehow the end results caused trump to win the country would literally burst into flames .
thats classic gaslighting ; im gonna do some shady stuff and if you question it were all going to scream nonsense in your face until you relent .

Schnitzel_Republic said...

My wife (the German) kinda expected that winner would be announced Wednesday morning (hoping it'd be Biden). But the counting business lingered on. So by Wednesday night, the lingering continued, and then the question arose from her....can't you guys count? I think in essence that is the problem existing.

Everything has to be computer-drive...millions spent by each state, and the counting is now at the same time-consumption as it was in the 1980s. It doesn't make sense. Adding in the Covid-fear and mail-in game...it just made trust impossible to convey across the fifty states.

In the end, I suspect that five to six states will be dragged to the Supreme Court and they will be unable to convey trust to the judges. They will throw out the entire results and thus the EC doesn't function on 13 December. We go to the House method on 3 January.

But this also means that all the Senate and House races are questionable as well in those 5 to 6 states. To me, this makes those results lacking authority as well. Having another Senate/House race in those states before 3 January? Physically impossible. So a mess is being generated....that will consume what patience we have left.

bob searcy said...

sir,
i think america is bucking for a confrontation between the givers and the takers . the productive givers ( imo ) understand that part of being an adult is not getting what you prefer at times but living with it . the takers were already rioting and looting even before they had a cause ( police protecting themselves and the public is not a very legit cause ) , again , ( imo ) .

yea , things could get stupid because the rural americans are shocked at what is being permitted in the name of liberalism / inclusiveness .

bob searcy said...

ps.
i love your blog . wouldnt miss it even for one day . im an old coldwar soldier ( hash smoker ) myself . :)>