The Electoral College

Tuesday January 5th 2021

Well it is with great amusement that I have been watching the failing actions of #45 President Trump, it has been like watching a slow motion car crash. It has gone from law suit to law suit, all being dismissed, bounced out of court like an Indian rubber ball because of lack of evidence, now as we come to the final count of the votes of the electoral collage we have the emergence of even more evidence of heavy recreational medication being used by eleven republican senators as they plan to try to not accept the results of the November election … like seriously, you just can’t make this crap up.

So on hearing this, I decided to do a little research to see exactly what was going to happen during this process. The American election process is quite different than our Canadian election process, while our process has some rough edges, just like the American process the person with the most votes doesn’t always win, just ask Hilary Clinton. But the major difference Americans vote directly for their President while Canadians vote for the political party and the party with the most representatives, determines our Prime Minister. The Canadian system is directly copied from the British system which while flawed has stood the test of time. The following is what I was able to dig up on the electoral collage as used in the States.

Throughout November and December, each state has certified their results. Then the electoral college voted December 14th 2020 based on those results and made Biden the winner. States then sent their electoral college vote totals to the new Congress to be counted and confirmed. This counting will happen on Wednesday. It’s largely a formality, since election law says Congress has to treat states’ results completed by the safe harbor deadline of December 8th 2020 as “conclusive.”

Tomorrow is the final step in the post-election process. All that’s left after that is to inaugurate Biden on the January 20th 2021.

So what is going on with eleven republican senators? Well it would appear that they are going to contest the votes from certain states that they don’t like the results from. So like any adultescent they are kind of throwing their version of a temper tantrum. Congress will meet in a joint session, meaning both the House and Senate are together. Pence will preside over the process. He could delegate the job to another senator, but no-one expect him to. They will go through the states alphabetically. For each state, clerks sitting below Pence will hand him the envelopes, tell him the votes, and he is supposed to read them out loud. Then Congress will vote on accepting states’ results. For a challenge to proceed, at least one lawmaker from each chamber must object to a state’s electors. More than two dozen House Republicans have said they will try to challenge results, and a dozen GOP senators will join them, even against the wishes of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who has urged senators to stay away from this tactic.

They don’t have to give a detailed explanation of why they object; they just object in writing, which Pence will read out loud. If there’s an objection to a state’s electors raised by both a House and Senate, the chambers have to split up and vote on that objection. They have up to two hours to debate each one. Trump lost about six swing states, and they’re spread out throughout the alphabet … Arizona to Wisconsin. Republicans who question the election results have indicated they will try to challenge all of them. Each time there’s a challenge supported by at least one member of each chamber, Congress has to split off and vote on it. Then they come back together and keep counting states. Voting will also take longer than normal because of coronavirus precautions to space lawmakers apart from each other. What is a normally quick and easy process could get dragged into the wee hours.

Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that legal scholars described as a flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act. The Washington Post obtained a transcript of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.” Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

Trump dismissed their arguments. He even went on to say “The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry.” and then he said “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.” Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.” It is becoming very obvious just how desperate Trump has become that he is down to threatening state officials.

I have really tried to be very quiet about the whole election, trying to just bite my tongue, but as we close in on the last couple of weeks before Biden take over this whole circus is just out of control. I have read enough to realize that Trump has multiple legal issues that will be all over him when he leaves office, that couldn’t be brought against a sitting president … which has always seemed ridiculous to me, lets face it there shouldn’t be two laws one for presidents and one for everyone else. And it would appear that from the fight that Trump is putting up, most of what I have read appears likely.

As always, be safe, stay strong, and be well