Posted on 12/25/2020 12:10:39 PM PST by aspasia
Congress shall be in session on the sixth day of January succeeding every meeting of the electors.The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the Hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of 1 o’clock in the afternoon on that day, and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer.
Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said tellers, having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted according to the rules in this subchapter provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the Journals of the two Houses.
Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any.
Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision;
and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified.
If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State;
but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section 5 of this title, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its law;
and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State.
But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted. No votes or papers from any other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.(June 25, 1948, ch. 644, 62 Stat. 675.)
It seems so ... and perhaps TOO ... easy.
I don't trust politicians anymore.
So I've considered a couple of blind sides.
The one that has been successful in the past has been ... the democrats just walk out.
Everything in the above speaks to Congress being present as in a quorum.
But there is no definition as to such.
Does anyone have an opinion or insight into this ?
There’s an act I believe from 1887 that requires the VP to go with whatever result was certified by the governor of a disputed state but unclear that’s a constitutional act or what if the VP ignored it.
Bigger worry are the spineless paid off RINOs.
The Libs have been thinking about this for some time wonder why. Here is a quote from Daily Poster.
“Let’s imagine that these five (Biden states with Republican) state legislatures do appoint another slate of electors. And let’s imagine that the slates of electors cast their ballots on December 14th and they send their certified results to Mike Pence and Pence opens them on January 6th and begins to process them…
The Arizona slate gets opened up, and there’s one slate that purports to be for Joe Biden, and another slate that purports to be for Donald Trump. Now, this turns out to be really important. Arizona has a Republican governor. So imagine the Republican governor signs the slate for Donald Trump...
Under the rules for counting electoral votes, the vice president could say, I’ve got two slates here, I’m going to recognize the slate signed by the Republican governor. There would be an objection. And if there’s an objection that’s signed by both a senator and a member of the House of Representatives, then the two bodies would separate, the senators would walk back over into the Senate, and they would decide whether they’re going to uphold the objection or reject it.
Now we can imagine that the Democratic House will vote to uphold the objection. They’ll say that Biden’s slate should be counted. Then the question is whether the Republican Senate votes to reject the objection. So let’s start with the most partisan assumption — let’s assume all the Republicans hang together. That means that the houses have disagreed about which slate should be counted. And if the houses disagree about which slate should be counted, under the rules for counting the slate of electors, it’s the slate of electors signed by the governor that gets counted. So that means it would be the Republican slate that gets counted.
But here’s why that would be a very stupid move for the Republicans to make. Because of the five states that this game could be played in, three states have Democratic governors and only two states have Republican governors, Arizona, and Georgia. So that means if they counted the slates that the governors of count have assigned, Joe Biden would still have enough votes in the electoral college, because he would have Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and that would put him over 270. So that’s not what they would do if they’re going to play this game.
Instead, what they would do if they’re going to play this game, is that the houses would separate, the Republican Senate would vote to affirm the Republican slate of electors, the Democratic house would vote to affirm the Democratic slate of electors. That means that both houses have not voted to reject the move by the vice president to count the Republican slates. And if they don’t reject the move by the vice president to count the Republican slate, the Republican slate gets counted. And so what that means is, if the houses disagree, Mike Pence’s ruling stands and Mike Pence’s ruling would be, on the assumption we’re making, would be for the Republican slate in all five of those cases. And he would therefore count Donald Trump and himself into the presidency.
If voters want to call their elected officials to ensure that the popular vote in their state is respected, which politicians should they be pressuring?
We are launching a petition on our website at XXXXXX.us. that calls on Republican senators to affirm that they are not going to vote against the vote of the people in any of these states.
What is the actual vote you are asking those senators to commit to casting?
So again, the scenario we’re imagining is Arizona comes up, and there’s a Republican slate signed by the governor and the Democratic slate that is in accord with the certification of the secretary of state in Arizona. And Mike Pence says, I believe the Constitution gives the Republican legislature the power to appoint their electors however they want, because I’ve read the words of the great constitutional scholar, Mark Levin, and that’s what he has said. Immediately there’s an objection filed to the ruling of the chair and each body that has to decide how it’s going to vote on the objection.
And what the objection is saying is no, you can’t recognize the Republican slate. You have to recognize the Democratic slate, the Democratic House will vote to say, we agree with the objection and the Republican Senate will have to vote to decide whether it’s going to agree with the objection.
So five Republican senators would have to vote with the Democrats in the Senate to say that they believe that the objection should be sustained…”
Important call your senator to support President Trump.
Sent e mails to both my senators asking them to demand an audit of votes, machines and software,so the truth can come out.
E Mail you senators and congress people and demand the truth !!
Why would they do that? If they walk out then any challenge wins. They aren't going to do that.
All Congress is doing is counting the votes submitted from the Electoral College. Pence has no role and no powers other than moderating the activities. He doesn't approve. He doesn't dispute. He doesn't vote. He counts.
Bkmk count
We're already past that point. None of the governors have signed a certification for an alternative slate of electors.
It's in the above statute.
But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted.
Unless both the House and the Senate vote to reject a state's certified block of Electors, they will be counted. If there are conflicting sets of Electors from a state, if the House and the Senate cannot agree on which set to accept, the set of Electors certified by the state's governor is automatically accepted.
The Constitution states that the Legislature will determine how the Electoral votes are counted, and this statute is the Legislature's decision on how to count Electoral votes.
No, in all of the contested states where competing slates of Electors were submitted, the Governor of the state, be s/he Republican or Democrat, have in every single case certified the Biden slate of Electors. If the two houses do not agree which slate to count, the Biden Electors will be chosen by default.
Very questionable whether the Electoral Count Act is constitutional. The Constitution specifies that the state legislature has plenary power to award electors, yet the Act specifies that the governor is deemed superior to the state legislature if there is a dispute. Seems unconstitutional to me.
Yes, the Constitution specifies that the state legislatures have plenary power to award electors, and each state legislature has through statute created schemes whereby Electors are chosen by popular vote. Each state, again by statute, has designated the Governor as the person to certify the slate of Electors and to transmit the results to Congress.
So the Constitution designates the state legislatures with appointing Electors, and the state legislatures have enacted statutes directing how those Electors are to be chosen.
The Electoral Count Act is the U.S. legislature designating how Electoral vote results are to be tallied, and how to resolve disagreements.
But, wasn’t it argued by Pres lawyers that the legislatures can take that power back any time they want to? The state statutes cannot have precedence over the constitution. Also I believe Prof John Eastman said the same thing.
The Constitution says that each state will appoint electors "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct". If the states choose to allow the voters to award electors then there's nothing unconstitutional in that. And nothing unconstitutional about states having local officials certifying elections, either. Constitutionally states determine how the elections are managed.
Whether or not they can do that after the election and after the electors have been awarded under current law would likely be something the courts would have to determine.
why is it we can jump thru hoops, early voting, drop boxes, extended counting, mail in’s, etc. in the name of ‘pandemic’.
But we can’t delay the electoral college process until after investigations are complete?
“why is it we can jump thru hoops, early voting, drop boxes, extended counting, mail in’s, etc. in the name of ‘pandemic’.
But we can’t delay the electoral college process until after investigations are complete?”
It would take an act of Congress and that’s not going to happen.
Until they do, the statute stands. So far, none have.
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