Maskell & Rybicki: Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session
Note to Self: I very much hope that Pelosi and Schumer are already talking to Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse, and company: the potential for an absolute dog’s breakfast on January 6, 2021 is already remarkably high, and may well increase in probability as things get crazier and crazier over the next two months.
It is also not too early for the House of Representatives to be thinking hard about how to maintain their own security—both on the U.S. Capitol grounds, and for members in transit to the Capitol itself.
The argument that Trump is not trying to gain support among the Republicans for a coup, and that Republicans are not egging one another one to see if they dare to do it, but rather doing something else seems to me to be overhasty and overconfident. Yes, Trump might be trying to establish an extradition-free bolthole for himself in Abu Dhabi. Yes, Trump might be trying to destroy as much evidence linking him to criminality as he can. Yes, Trump might be trying to show that he can disrupt the system so that he can then strike a deal that will leave him confident he will remain out of jail next year. Yes, Trump might simply be confused.
But he might not. And while Giuliani is clearly neither his Göring, his Himmler, or his Heydrich, that does not mean that nobody else is:
Jack Maskell & Elizabeth Rybicki: Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of Congress https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32717.pdf: ‘Basis for Objections: The general grounds for an objection to the counting of an electoral vote or votes would appear from the federal statute and from historical sources to be that such vote was not “regularly given” by an elector, and/or that the elector was not “lawfully certified”...
https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0r5Pt_jJe95PxqqyIbfHlMvPg
https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/11/maskell-rybicki-counting-electoral-votes-an-overview-of-procedures-at-the-joint-session.html
2020-11-10
…In the case of the so-called “faithless elector” in 1969, described above, the elector was apparently “lawfully certified” by the state, but the objection raised was that the vote was not “regularly given” by such elector. In the above-described 2005 case, the objection was also based on the grounds that the electoral votes “were not, under all of the known circumstances, regularly given.”...
Congress was particularly concerned in the statute of 1887 with the case of two lists of electors and votes being presented to Congress from the same state.... In the first instance, two lists... [with] only one list... from electors who were determined to be appointed pursuant to the state election contest statute... only those electors should be counted. In the second case... two lists... from two different state authorities who arguably made determinations... the question of which state authority is “the lawful tribunal of such State” to make the decision (and thus the acceptance of those electors’ votes) shall be decided only upon the concurrent agreement of both houses....
The two chambers must agree concurrently to accept the votes of one set of electors; but the two chambers may also concurrently agree not to accept the votes of electors from that state. When the two houses disagree, then the statute states that the votes of the electors whose appointment was certified by the governor of the state shall be counted. It is not precisely clear....
Precedent subsequent to... 1887 has been sparse.... In 1961... the governor of the state of Hawaii first certified the electors of Vice President Richard M. Nixon... and then, due to a subsequent recount... certified Senator Kennedy as the winner. Both slates... cast their votes for President and Vice President, and transmitted them.... The President of the Senate, Vice President Nixon, suggested “without the intent of establishing a precedent” that the latter and more recent certification of Senator Kennedy be accepted so as “not to delay the further count of electoral votes.” This was agreed to by unanimous consent...
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32717.pdf
2020-11-10
.#noted #notetoself #2020-11-10
