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To: DiogenesLamp
If Congress is deciding the Presidential election, it doesn't matter how many congressmen there are. The Constitution grants them only 1 vote per state

Wrong.

It's true that IF the House of Representatives is called on to elect the President that each State gets one vote.

But before that can happen, the sealed Electoral votes have to be opened and counted by Mike Pence in the presence of the entire membership of the House and the Senate, present in Joint Session, and any objections (which could lead to the election going to the House) have to be dealt with.

This is not delineated in Article II and Amendment XII, and it led to a prolonged crisis in 1876, which caused the passage of the Electoral Vote Counting Act which has since been amended several times.

For the House to be given the responsibility of electing the President, FIRST the Vote Counting Session must rule that no one has a majority. With only two candidates, this can only happen with a 269-269 tie OR if the Congress disallows enough votes to create a no majority situation.

With the party makeup of the new Congress (270 Democrats and 265 Republicans) this is not going to happen.

257 posted on 11/27/2020 2:07:33 PM PST by Jim Noble (Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning)
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To: Jim Noble

You are a pessimist. I think between now and then, enough will be produced to convince most people that the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona are a fraud.


309 posted on 11/27/2020 4:45:41 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Jim Noble
This is not delineated in Article II and Amendment XII, and it led to a prolonged crisis in 1876, which caused the passage of the Electoral Vote Counting Act which has since been amended several times.

Uh-oh. All of that indicates we're potentially heading for a Constitutional crisis, if the contested swing-state Republican legislatures & Democrat governors/SoS's choose competing slates.

For the House to be given the responsibility of electing the President, FIRST the Vote Counting Session must rule that no one has a majority. With only two candidates, this can only happen with a 269-269 tie OR if the Congress disallows enough votes to create a no majority situation. With the party makeup of the new Congress (270 Democrats and 265 Republicans) this is not going to happen.

Of course it could happen. First, those specific total counts of Democrats and Republicans you stated are yet to be determined (e.g., two Georgia Senator run-offs). Second, those two totals are irrelevant. If the joint session can't resolve electoral count disputes, then the two chambers meet separately to determine which slate of electors to count for each state with multiple slates. If the two chambers don't agree, then neither slate is accepted and that state loses its electoral votes. And there are other conditional procedures specified as well. Then there's another clause in the EV counting act that says if the two chambers can't agree, whichever slate of electors was certified by the executive of that state must be counted. However, all of that conflicts with the Constitution which says that each state appoints electors in whatever manner the state's legislature directs. So if Republican state legislatures believe it's election fraud, they can pick a Trump slate. Also, there's not even consensus about what "majority" of electors means. If things head in that direction by January, it could be one hell of a mess.

410 posted on 11/30/2020 3:56:48 AM PST by gw-ington (The Office of the President-Elect gw-ington and Vice President-Elect Loch Ness Monster)
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