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Mr. Kurtz - he dead stupid.
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a penny for the old guy.
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Just posted this over in the Pompeo thread, but I’ll post it here, too:
Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Michel Martin before!
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In case of emergency, break open file:
Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of Congress
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32717/12
Hm. This is interesting:
The United States Constitution provides that each state “shall appoint” electors for President and Vice President in the manner directed by its state legislature (Article II, Section 1, clause 2), on the day which may be determined by Congress (Article II,Section 1, clause 3). Congress has determined in federal law that the “electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State” on Election Day, that is, the “Tuesday next after the first Monday in November” every fourth year (on November 8, 2016) (3 U.S.C. §1).
As I read it, if a state legislature wants to appoint its electors, instead of by popular vote, regardless of any other objections (many), it won’t work because they’ve already missed that bus. They had to do it on Election Day.
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Except:
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It’s unlikely that the Supreme Court will let any state default like that when they already have clear voting results. Letting three states do it? Then you’re in the endgame.
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That was great, thanks!
I hadn’t seen either of them before, but I have Surviving Autocracy and now am inspired to finish reading it. I wasn’t able to focus much around the election, no idea why.
And I loved the cameos by Kitty Gessen.
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Me too! 
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I was more worried by the implication that the electors had to be appointed on election day. That seemed to give credence to the Trumpists arguments that votes not counted on election day shouldn’t count.
But then, despite all the focus of recent weeks, I still don’t understand the US Presidential election system. At all.
The electors don’t vote until December, so their actions are (or at least should be) functionally independent of their appointment or whatever else happens on election day. Especially if a state requires electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote winner, that’s based on the outcome of the entire election process and its certified count, not just what happened on the day of the election.
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The manner in which a state appoints electors is covered in state law - a state would need to change that as well.
In PA - not much time to do so - the Dem Governor wouldn’t sign it anyway.
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In Illinois, voting for the Electors is part of the official ballot (they are listed by political party affiliation), under the section for voting for the Pres/VP. When the ballot is counted, all that information is registered simultaneously.
In Indiana, the Electors are not on the ballot. I have no idea how they make that determination, but fewer than 40% voted for Biden so there’s no question which way their Electors will vote.
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I get that part. Where I get confused is that there is sometimes talk of “Democratic” electors or "Republican electors being appointed as if there is a slate of electors where Elector A will vote Democrat and Elector B will vote Republican (and so on down the alphabet) and the election decides which of those electors get appointed.
It also doesn’t help - at least from a foreigners point of view - that each state has different rules. And the plethora of frankly bizarre rules and regulations about who gets to vote, how and when - which of course also all differ from state to state.
The fact that those votes don’t actually determine the election but instead just determine who gets to do the actual voting (and in at least some cases doesn’t even bind those voters to follow the outcome of their state’s election) - which also doesn’t strictly speaking determine the election, that is instead determined by Congress who get to object to votes - although quite what happens if Congress objects to enough votes to change the outcome of the election doesn’t seem quite clear to anyone- is frankly a bit medieval.
I keep expecting someone to start talking about how the Archbishop of New York gets an electoral college seat or the Duke of Albany.
It all makes a lot more sense once you appreciate that most of those rules are intended to confuse the hell out of everyone but still.
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That’s exactly what I mean.
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But seriously, the original goal was to balance the power of the federal government with state governments. The founding fathers had no love of centralization, and not for no reason. From the English speaking world which they were coming from, the balance of power between the crown and parliament had been a long standing point of contention. Give that the English civil wars in the 17th century was relatively recent historical memory for them, getting a more balanced system which devolved power probably made a great deal of sense to them at the time.
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Yeah, I get that from a historical perspective it all made sense at the time.
US elections are just one of those jarring moments when we in the outside world get to see through the external projection of the “United” States to see the federalism at work.
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Originalism has also decimated the USA in a big way, and pretty much set up the current flirting with autocracy.
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Still gone as of this posting, though related accounts are still around.
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