My preference doesn't enter into it. The USSC has ruled in McPherson v Blacker that based on the 14th Amendment the state legislature cannot violate state constitutional voter rights in a presidential election.
Having the legislature unilaterally chose the electors would be in clear violation of the state constitution and SCOTUS has explicitly ruled that's unacceptable, Article II Section 1 notwithstanding.
Could SCOTUS ignore precedent and rule differently this time? Sure, but I'm betting against it. Not because that's what I want but because the law seems pretty clear cut.
From your quote:
"Whenever presidential electors are appointed by popular election, then the right to vote cannot be denied or abridged without invoking the penalty...The point you seem to wish to ignore is that we're talking about a situation where the state fails to appoint because the "popular election" results cannot be determined by the safe harbor date prior to the Electoral College meeting to vote.
This scenario is premised on the theory that the Democrat states went to mail-in ballots to purposely strain the system, and then force court challenges to delay the certification of these elections to some point in the future in order to deny President Trump a clear win on election day. Extending the deadline to receive the mail-in ballots was a significant part of delaying the certification while Democrat lawyers challenge the votes and demand the inclusion of late votes with unclear postmarks.
There was early talk in the media of the election stretching into January and Nancy Pelosi becoming acting President. I attempted to debunk this talk by saying:
So getting back to the original premise of this discussion, if the state is at risk of failing to appoint its Electors, does the legislature have the power to step in and directly appoint the electors before the safe harbor date passes? Florida certainly thought so. The alternative is the disenfranchisement of the entire state.
-PJ