'Rogue governor' scenario spooks senators working to prevent stolen elections

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: NBC News

'Rogue governor' scenario spooks senators working to prevent stolen elections

The power governors hold is of particular concern, experts and lawmakers say, given how many Trump allies who insist he won in 2020 are now candidates in crucial swing states.

May 5, 2022, 4:46 AM EDT
By Adam Edelman and Peter Nicholas

Lawmakers and experts working to prevent stolen elections are sounding the alarm about a scenario they say is both worrisome and foreseeable in 2024 should Donald Trump run: swing-state governors beholden to the former president invoking arcane powers to throw the election his way. ... Such concerns have prompted a bipartisan group of senators to explore ways to address the “rogue governor” scenario as part of their efforts to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that gives governors an outsize role in determining presidential winners and losers. While lawmakers haven’t reached an agreement on amending the statute, experts warn that 2020 was a wakeup call for how the law could be exploited in ways that might prevent the rightful victor from occupying the White House.

“If the election is close and will turn on the outcome of a handful of states, there are reasons to worry about this in the climate we’re in now that partisan actors will seek to manipulate the outcome for partisan reasons, rather than adhering to the lawful outcome of the election,” said elections expert Rick Pildes, a New York University law professor. ... The power governors hold is of particular concern, experts and lawmakers say, given how many Trump allies who insist he won in 2020 are now candidates in crucial swing states. ... The risks are grounded in reality: The last presidential election illuminated how governors could be able to exploit ambiguities in the law to ensure a favored candidate succeeds.

In 2020, dozens of people from five swing states that President Joe Biden won signed documents purporting to be “duly elected and qualified" electors and declaring that Trump was the victor. (In two other states, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, the documents included caveats saying their legitimacy depended on whether Trump was ultimately found to be the winner.) ... If a governor recognized what critics call “fake” electors as legitimate, Congress would be obliged to count them under several conceivable scenarios.

That didn’t happen in 2020, largely because no governor approved a rival slate and Vice President Mike Pence, presiding over the count, refused to validate them. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot is examining how the alternate electors fit into efforts to overturn Biden’s victory. ... Without reform of the Electoral Count Act, however, governors could still pursue various avenues to subvert the popular will in a presidential race, experts said.

{snip}

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/rogue-governor-scenario-spooks-senators-working-prevent-stolen-electio-rcna27373

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Hat tip, Joe.My.God.

Senators Work To Overhaul 1887 Electoral Count Act
May 5, 2022

https://www.joemygod.com/2022/05/senators-work-to-overhaul-1887-electoral-count-act/

[Midnight Writer]

1. What hath TFG wrought?

He and his enablers have done damage to this country that will not be repaired in my lifetime.

[FoxNewsSucks]

2. With the help of certain democratic senators

The voting rights legislation would have gone a long way in blocking and preventing the cheating and stealing

[bluestarone]

12. You're probably right, BUT i refuse to give TFG ANY credit for it.

This (in my mind) is way over his head. HE is the pawn in this game. Lots of evil people and years of planning is what i really believe is happening here. It was almost pulled off, BUT they are not done. Every future election is trouble, until it's fixed!

[oldsoftie]

3. Well, get something written up & vote on it. It shouldn't take a damn year.

Most of you idiots are lawyers so GET IT DONE. And enough GOP members will vote for it so get on with it.

[groundloop]

6. I'm afraid to think how our current Supreme Court would rule on such a law.

Certainly there'd be some sort of right wing challenge to any new voting rights law that sought to ensure a level playing field, with the current cast of characters on the Supreme Court I'm not at all convinced it would be allowed to stand.

But yes, we can't just sit back and watch our democracy slide into oblivion without at least attempting to rescue it.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. "dozens...from five swing states...Biden won signed documents purporting to be...electors"

And PA was one one of them although our Governor is a (D) and just ignored their loon crap.

A copy of their submission is here - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21177777-fake-pa-electoral-votes-2020

The one thing that legal analysts did note about the PA submissoin was that contrary to the other states that submitted theirs, the nuts that did ours actually put a sort of "disclaimer" into the document that they believe can "clear them" of any legal jeopardy -

NARA-21-0174-A-000030 CERTIFICATE OF THE VOTES OF THE 2020 ELECTORS FROM PENNSYLVANIA


********** WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, on the understanding that if, as a result of a final non-appealable Court Order or other proceeding prescribed by law, we are ultimately recognized as being the duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America from the State of Pennsylvania, hereby certify the following:

(their purported "disclaimer" bolded)

Apparently the other states didn't have anything like that. So we will have to see what results in this case of falsification of government documents and other illegalities (IMHO) involving the GOP in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

But here is the irony of that article about "Rogue Governors" - because of the emergency powers in our state Constitution that allowed the Governor and Secretary of Health to declare a "Health Emergency", the GOP-controlled state Assembly was so incensed that they actually went through the drawn out process of amending the state Constitution (their newest tactic to get around a Democratic governor because the process doesn't require the governor to sign the legislation that initiates the changes) to restrict the "emergency powers" of the governor, and insert the legislature into the mix.

So by doing that spiteful move, they pretty much ham-stringed themselves if a GOP governor actually got back in should either of the chambers switch parties back to Democrat (and we did control one of the chambers at one point in the past).

[Calista241]

5. So, does anyone else wonder how they screwed this up?

I mean, technically they had the rules on their side. They had the right people in place. They even took the right steps to make it all happen. They had a list of people and states that had to be in on the plan to make it work.

Then they just assumed that the people would just know what to do without being read in on the plan. The entire plan hinged upon 10ish people, none of which seemed to know anything about it. Pence certainly didn't, and if there's anyone that absolutely, positively needed to be in on the plan, it was him.

Brian Kemp, my state's governor, could have made it happen, but Trump burned that bridge 3 weeks earlier with the stupidest phone call of all time.

Also, if Trump had just shut up about John McCain, who was dead at the time, his widow Cindy may not have gone on the warpath and flipped a lot of Trump voters and he'd have carried Arizona.

Frankly, I'm grateful for the incompetence, but we came so close to losing it all, I'm nervous of the future.

[JCMach1]

7. We learned nothing from 2000. How many opportunities have we had to push through

Direct elections and get rid of the electoral college?

And yet, here we are...

[we can do it]

10. Please specify exactly when and how this would have been done.

[ck4829]

8. K&R

[modrepub]

9. Here's A Novel Idea

Get rid of the Electoral College. The candidate with the most votes from all citizens wins the presidential election. Just like every other elected office in the US.

Why do we continue to try and tweak something that's obviously broken? Oh, yea. That's right, it's too hard.

[we can do it]

11. Please specify exactly how this could be done.

[Novara]

13. HURRY UP!

[peppertree]

14. They won't have the votes, it won't be overhauled - and in '25 the Repug nominee will be installed

Count on it.

The only thing that remains to be seen, really, is as to whether or not Cheeto will physically be able to run in '24 (which I doubt).

But be it him, de Satan, or whatever fascist poop-thrower they nominate, that individual will most likely be the one they install.

I hope I'm wrong.