There are 538 electors; a candidate must receive 270 of those votes when voting takes place (typically in December following the election). It’s possible to have results challenged in multiple states, which could lead to extended litigation in federal court or even state legislatures rewriting laws to take the vote away from people - yes, it’s extreme and a remote possibility. But this is partly why Trump and allies are trying to cast confusion and doubt on the elections now - prepare people for the chaos and to expect a controversy in advance of the election.
Yes, fine, but that’s not quite what I was asking. Supposing fewer than 538 electors vote, for any reasons whatsoever, and a candidate gets a majority, but less than 270.
You seem to think that it wouldn’t count in that case. But this post asserts that if fewer than 538 votes are cast, whoever gets the majority is president, regardless of whether the actual number is 270 or not, and nobody in the following discussion contradicts it (nor does anyone in the “other thread” the post talks about, IIRC).
So which is it?
Here’s what the Constitution says about the Electoral system:
Article 2, Section 1:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall choose from them by Ballot the Vice President.
The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
The Twelfth Amendment changed the procedure and eliminated the idea of the Vice President being the candidate who came in second place.
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;
The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
The Twentieth Amendment changed it further:
The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
What is clear is that getting elected only requires a majority of votes cast by the Electors who were appointed. If a state chooses not to hold an election or otherwise appoint any Electors then the total number of Electors needed to form a majority gets reduced.
Some things which could theoretically happen:
States with a Republican legislature could decide to bypass elections and appoint their Electors directly. No state has done this since 1876 but it is still theoretically constitutional. I doubt states could enact such a procedure in the next three months but even if they did it wouldn’t have a major effect. As I noted in the other thread, most legislatures reflect the direction their populations are going to vote. The exceptions of Arizona, Florida, and Texas where a Republican legislature could bypass a popular preference for the Democratic candidate would not be enough to change the otucome of the election.
The other theoretical possibility would be for Congress to postpone Election Day. But even if this was done, it wouldn’t keep Trump in office. The Constitution clearly says his terms ends after four years, which means if there isn’t an election and he isn’t re-elected, he stops being President on January 20, 2021. There is no way, other than by being re-elected, that Trump gets to be President past that date. Postponing the election would just hand the office to the next person in the line of succession (who would be a Democrats when you eliminate the people whose terms would have ended).
Yes, a contested election is the most likely alternative scenario. There are various different outcomes possible if that happens.
But here’s something to consider as well: if you create enough noise, enough doubt, enough chaos…getting people to accept the outcome could become very challenging. You can say “Yeah, but the Constitution says…” all you want. Democracy requires people accepting the result. Authoritarianism, on the other hand, does not.
There is little doubt this will happen.
It’s impossible to predict with precision how the disruption will unfold, but count on something.I doubt there’s a master plan or a playbook - they’re making it up as they go along, which is what authoritarian regimes tend to do. If plan A doesn’t work, then try plan B, and plan C, and keep trying until something works. It’s a relentless pursuit of power. It exhausts those who want to play by the rules to keep up with every infraction, which is one way that authoritarians succeed.
Trump will certainly complain about the outcome if he loses. But there’s the thing; if Trump doesn’t have enough popular support to win the election legally, he doesn’t have enough popular support to get away with stealing the election.
That’s not necessarily true. Elections count votes differently than nebulous popular opinion, and men with guns are very convincing after the fact. A dictator needs a base of popular support but doesn’t need 50-plus-one.
Trump will get a solid minority of the vote, at least 40%. 40% is more than enough when the other side is unwilling to do anything about it, and all evidence shows that the Democratic Party and the American left is unwilling to do anything about it if he cheats the election…
… Which he will. Trump’s odds of winning a fair election are, at best, one in ten, and likely more like one in fifteen. It will NOT be a fair election, and he’s at worst a coin flip from successfully rigging it. His state-level minions will be cheating like crazy. Polling places will be closed en masse. Voter registrations thrown away. Armed thugs will be sent out to intimidate voters.
Don’t forget about all the absentee ballots “lost” in the mail.
Personally, I think Trump will be lucky if he gets 40% of the vote. He only got 46% in 2016 and I feel his popular support has dropped quite a ways and opposition to him has grown. And I feel the odds of him winning a fair election are far lower than one in fifteen. One in fifty if he’s having a good day.
Of course, nobody’s arguing that we will have a fair election; we obviously won’t. The question is whether we will have a legal election.
The people will be willing to swallow a Trump victory is it’s covered by the appearance of the law. People who don’t respect Trump still respect the rule of law.
But Trump wouldn’t get away with an election where he’s sending out armed thugs and closing down polling places and burning ballots. If we get to that point, we’re no longer in the realm of law and order. It’s just a battle in the streets and control goes to whoever has more power.
And Trump doesn’t have that power. If it comes to fighting in the streets, more people are going to fight against Trump than would fight for him. If it comes down to fighting in the streets, Trump ends up getting hung from a lamppost.
So Trump can’t afford to let it go that far. He has to act within the bounds of the law. He can stretch the law but he can’t openly break it.
You don’t think so?? 
Of course he can if no one stops him. Who’s going to?
Not only can he break laws, he can break the systems that hold him accountable for doing so.
But he has Barr to interpret the law for him. According to Barr, he hasn’t broken a single law in any of his acts in office. Not one.
That’s all the legal cover that he needs, as there seem to be a large number of people who will accept any sort of action, as long as it has been declared to be legal by the government performing the action.
I disagree. Trump is able to do what he does because he cloaks himself in the authority of the law. Sure, he breaks laws but he portrays himself as the defender of the legal system.
If he throws that away - if he openly declares that he’s cancelling elections and seizing power - he no longer has that authority. The people that have been obeying his orders out of a respect for his legal authority - the military, the police, government employees, other politicians - will no longer be bound to him. The number of people who follow Trump out of personal loyalty to him is much smaller; his family, some of his immediate staff, and his deplorables.
Trump, his family, and his staff can be handled through normal channels; they’ll just be arrested. The deplorables might talk loud but most of them are pretty cowardly; I don’t see them showing up for a real fight. And if they do? Well, they tried forming their own country once before and we kicked their ass.
If you don’t think Trump needs a legal system to stay in power, just imagine him in a position where there was no legal system. Imagine that Trump somehow became the boss of a Mafia family or a biker gang; an organization where there is no legal system protecting his authority.
Can you imagine Trump being able to hold on to his power in such a situation? Of course not. He wouldn’t last a week. One of his subordinates would push him aside and take over. They probably wouldn’t even bother killing him because he wouldn’t be seen as a serious threat. They would just tell him that he’s no longer the boss and he has to go away.
Of course, he’s not going to openly declare it.
There will be something that looks like a legal system. It just won’t function like a real one.
Yeah, that could happen anyway. Don’t see how that follows from your premise that trump has to abide by the law (if that was your premise… not sure).
Trump has always been the guy that tells others what to do, not the doer himself.
So, when he tells Barr to make him dictator for life, it is not Trump’s cleverness that we are up against, it is Barr’s and the entirety of the DOJ.
The DOJ by definition determines when things are legal or illegal, it chooses who and when to prosecute.
Authoritarianism doesn’t ignore the law, it weaponizes it against the people.
Some people in this thread are talking about how Trump is going to send armed men to close down polling sites. He’s going to have a hard time doing that clandestinely.
Hell, that’s just Street Theater. The real dismantling of the law will happen and is already happening behind the scenes, handled by people like Barr who don’t have shit for brains. Delays, confusion, smoke screens-- all the while the organ grinder’s monkey cavorts and distracts out in front of the tent.
Exactly. It may or may not change the law at first, but it changes how the law is applied, and to whom. It doesn’t change the law in the long run, either; it changes institutions, which is something that will have a much longer and more deleterious impact.
Using a politically appointed attorney general to, say, go after a fall guy so that the president can claim plausible deniability in response to a scandal is one thing, but weaponizing the entire office is another. Let’s not forget: Bill Barr is also working with the Director of National Intelligence, who is also a political hack. The Postmaster General is a political hack. Inspectors general are getting removed right and left. The United States Postal Service is, as we speak, getting deliberately sabotaged - that’s not hyperbole, that is on-the-ground reality. The Census is going to stop a month earlier and it will very likely seriously under count entire regions of the country that currently have more political representation based on previous censuses.
As you and I have both warned, American authoritarianism won’t be waking up one morning and finding a convoy of tanks and armored vehicles outside our window. It’ll happen gradually, the result of relentless assaults on institutions.
And as you say, the law still exists in an authoritarian regime. Hell, elections still exists. There’s still even “democracy” in an anti-democracy; it’s just that in that kind of “democracy,” the vote is used to manufacture consent where it doesn’t truly exist.