We are accustomed to choosing electors by popular vote, but nothing in the Constitution says it has to be that way. Article II provides that each state shall appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Since the late 19th century, every state has ceded the decision to its voters. Even so, the Supreme Court affirmed in Bush v. Gore that a state “can take back the power to appoint electors.” How and when a state might do so has not been tested for well over a century. Trump may test this. According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires.... The Trump-campaign legal adviser I spoke with told me the push to appoint electors would be framed in terms of protecting the people’s will. Once committed to the position that the overtime count has been rigged, the adviser said, state lawmakers will want to judge for themselves what the voters intended. “The state legislatures will say, ‘All right, we’ve been given this constitutional power. We don’t think the results of our own state are accurate, so here’s our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state,’ ” the adviser said. Democrats, he added, have exposed themselves to this stratagem by creating the conditions for a lengthy overtime [where ballots that come in after Election Day are counted if they are postmarked on or before Election Day). “If you have this notion,” the adviser said, “that ballots can come in for I don’t know how many days—in some states a week, 10 days—then that onslaught of ballots just gets pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. So pick your poison. Is it worse to have electors named by legislators or to have votes received by Election Day?”I get the argument, but I don't see that happening, especially in Wisconsin. That's not because I don't believe the GOP would try such scumminess (I put nothing past them and TrumpWorld), but because Wisconsin's laws don't give them the chance. That was reiterated in a news report from this week where Wisconsin elections officials say that WisGOPs couldn’t pull off such a scheme if they even wanted to.
The Atlantic reported this week that, in addition to potentially claiming fraudulent election results if he loses to former Vice President Joe Biden on Nov. 3, Trump has allegedly asked GOP leaders in battleground states to circumvent the state’s popular vote and select their own electors to cast votes in the Electoral College, which ultimately determines the winner. However, Wisconsin statute does not grant state lawmakers the authority to choose electors, Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesman Reid Magney said Thursday. “To the best of our knowledge, there’s no role for the Legislature to decide which electors go and which ones don’t,” Magney said…. “I think that’s laid out pretty directly and in black and white in the Wisconsin state statute in terms of how that process works and there’s not room for other things to happen in that process,” WEC administrator Meagan Wolfe said on a media call with reporters Thursday. Any change to that process would necessitate legislative action, but that would require the Legislature, which hasn’t formally convened since April, to meet and actively change state law. What’s more, under split government, Evers, a Democrat, could veto such an effort.
You can try, but it ain't gonna work.
That matches up with what I found. In 2016, there were no formal meetings in December of either house of the State Legislature after the November election (and that would be required if the Legislature had to approve the results). The Elections Commission simply gave the results of the votes to then-Gov Walker, who signed off on the result.
The fact that he is EX-Gov Walker is key here, because I have little doubt that scumbucket would be up for some kind of pro-GOP election-rigging if he was still in office, and that Robbin’ Vos and Scott Fitzgerald would have shrugged and let Walker block our electoral votes. But that ain’t the case today (THANK GOD), and I can’t see Evers failing to sign off on the results no matter what they, unless there’s some kind of serious disenfranchisement (highly unlikely).
Vos and Fitz have no say in what Evers will do regarding election results after the election. Now, that doesn’t mean those lowlifes might not talk about some kind of lame-duck shenanigans, or try to cook up some kind of dispute that they think could go to court, and we need to be ready to forcefully shove back against that BS. But much like Vos/Fitz's empty threats against Madison's multiple ballot drop-off points in the city's parks yesterday, they're bluffing on the legal action side, and instead are trying to intimidate Dem voters, trying to trick low-info rubes into thinking "smething is up" any Dem wins in November.
I also can’t see where an already-despised WisGOP thinks the potential damage is worth whatever they might gain from such a squawking, and I definitely don’t think these guys believe Donald F’ing Trump is worth a trip to the stocks or the guillotine. Especially when such an effort is likely to lose and/or be mocked as absurd. They'd ultimately hold their fire and try to screw everything up for the first 2 years of Biden's tenure in office, and hamstring all of the Dem governors that are up for re-elecftion in 2022. We need to be ready for that gabrage as well.
This tweet sums up the bottom line well - if Biden wins by 5-10%, there's nothing the GOP can do. MAKE IT SO.
Been reading a lot of despairing tweets about how Trump's going to win by cheating no matter what. Cheating helps when the election is close but not if he's losing by 10. Get amped up to make Trump and his enablers to reap the whirlwind instead. https://t.co/mpYZqUuVW3
— Aaron (@BobbyBigWheel) September 27, 2020
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