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The "little secret", explained well [1]

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Date: 2024-11-01  

This is the best explanation I’ve read overall on the scheme.

It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here are a couple of choice paragraphs. I am assuming you already know what a contingent election is, since it’s an essential element, but if not, they do explain it as well near the top.

Setting the stage:

I don’t think the Republican plan even requires them to get to a contingent election where the House chooses the president. I think the plan is to steal the Electoral College outright by getting states Trump loses to refuse to certify the results of their election. That’s because the 12th Amendment provides that the president is the person who wins the majority of the “whole number of Electors appointed.” That “whole number” is supposed to be 538. But one potential reading of the amendment is that Trump doesn’t have to win 270 Electoral College votes but just a majority of however many electors show up. Trump’s goal, I believe, is to decrease the number of electors appointed until he wins.

Now to the plan:

The first step in such a process is to get Republicans in states Trump loses to contest the certification of their own elections [...] All slates of electors are supposed to be certified by December 11. Those electors are then supposed to vote and submit their results by December 25. What this means is that Republicans just have to delay long enough to pass those deadlines. They don’t have to win; they just have to stall.

The outcome:

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.

And how Mike Johnson makes it happen:

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.

The whole thing is worth a read.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/1/2281635/-The-little-secret-explained-well?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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