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To: Nero Germanicus

No, troll. You mentioned Congress in the process of certifying the electoral vote to come up with a “President elect”.

The one who enforces the 20th Amendment in the event that the “President elect” (the one ALREADY certified as the electoral winner by Congress) fails to qualify by Jan 20th has to do so AFTER Congress is done. (If Congress had found that the candidate failed to qualify because of the objection process you describe, they would never have certified him as the electoral winner, and there thus would never BE a “President elect” who still failed to qualify by Jan 20th.)

And nobody on here or anywhere else has said who that would have to be. This question should be easy, guys. What’s your problem, that you can’t answer it?


344 posted on 02/04/2013 5:45:50 PM PST by butterdezillion
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To: butterdezillion

From the Wikipedia entry on “President-elect of the United States.”
“Two congressional reports found that the President-elect is the eventual winner of the majority of electoral ballots cast in December. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress, in its 2004 report “Presidential and Vice Presidential Succession: Overview and Current Legislation,” discussed the question of when candidates who have received a majority of electoral votes become President-elect. The report notes that the constitutional status of the President-elect is disputed:
Some commentators doubt whether an official President- and Vice President-elect exist prior to the electoral votes being counted and announced by Congress on January 6, maintaining that this is a problematic contingency lacking clear constitutional or statutory direction. Others assert that once a majority of electoral votes has been cast for one ticket, then the recipients of these votes become the President- and Vice President-elect, notwithstanding the fact that the electoral votes are not counted and certified until the following January 6.
The CRS report quotes the 1933 U.S. House committee report accompanying the Twentieth Amendment as endorsing the latter view:
It will be noted that the committee uses the term “President elect” in its generally accepted sense, as meaning the person who has received the majority of electoral votes, or the person who has been chosen by the House of Representatives in the event that the election is thrown into the House. It is immaterial whether or not the votes have been counted, for the person becomes the President elect as soon as the votes are cast.”

So, it is possible that the conferring of the President-elect title precedes the Joint Session of Congress and written objections raised there as to whether the President-elect has qualified could be the way to address those objections.

So, let’s say, just for discussion sake, that the eligibility challenges to Obama in California (Grinolds v California Electors) and in Ohio (Daniels v Husted) were still in process on January 4, 2013. Congresswoman Marcia Blackburn and Senator Rand Paul submit written objections to the certification of Obama’s electoral votes to the President of the Senate, Joe Biden. The objections state that California’s and Ohio’s electoral votes should not be certified until those legal challenges are resolved. Both Houses adjourn from the Joint Session and both Houses vote to uphold the objections to the certification of California’s 55 Electoral votes and Ohio’s 18 Electoral votes until the legal challenges are resolved. Obama then goes from 332 Electoral votes to 259 electoral votes, not enough to be president ( he needed 270). Joe Biden also doesn’t have 270, he can’t be Acting President unless the House of Representatives appoints him as such.
Most likely, John Boehner becomes Acting President until the California and Ohio lawsuits into whether Obama has qualified are resolved.


357 posted on 02/04/2013 7:46:15 PM PST by Nero Germanicus
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