Other than a few variations it looks like Trump is losing in the polls…but polls aren’t votes. I am looking into Trump’s past and present, and something tells me (like reality slapping me in the face with a rotten mackerel) that Trump has no intention of changing in the near, or far, future. How far do you think Trump will go to obtain POTUS status and thus probably stay out of jail? No silliness, please, and stay away from speculation as to what weird things he might do while once again in office. Just look realistically at what he is actually capable of and what he will do to stay out of jail.
Thank you.
IF some Republican officials manage to gum up the works on Election Night or thereafter, Trump could plausibly get the vote-counting or vote-certifying stalled long enough for the House to get to be the arbiter. Enough such officials in the right place demanding a long, protracted investigation of irregularities - just long enough to miss the certifying deadlines - and then a Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin suddenly is no longer Kamala’s.
Trump himself doesn’t need to get to 270; all he needs to do is prevent Kamala from reaching 270 and then the election is thrown to the House.
And then, given that Republicans control more House delegations, this would favor him, but it’s no guarantee of victory, since if we’ve gotten to the point of shenanigans this far, there are some House delegations that might defect and not, in fact, vote for Trump if they aren’t comfortable with this sham process.
It depends on what you mean by “getting the most votes legally.” If the Republicans win both the House and Senate in the upcoming election, he can always try a repeat of 1876, if he can count on getting 51 of the Senators to agree to “alternative” slates of electors that vote for him instead of Harris; however, technically this is a “legal” method.
I was about to say that this was the only way short of revolution, but there is one other way:
(a) The Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives;
(b) The House elects Trump as its Speaker - there is no requirement that the Speaker of the House be a Representative;
(c) Something “happens” to both Harris and Walz;
(d) President Trump.
Not so sure about the current legality of this.
Rachel Maddow talks about some of the shenanigans that Georgia (and maybe other states) may try here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/19/opinion/trump-election-vote-certification.html
Is it legal? I guess if it follows the ridiculous rules they’ve set up, it is.
That’s not how it works. 270 isn’t a magic number - the threshold is the majority of electoral votes cast. If State X has 10 EVs and somehow Trump prevents them from certifying, all that means is that Harris now needs 265 EVs to win.
I think this is false, at least in some cases. For example, if Kennedy magically won a few electoral votes, the winning candidate would still need at least 270, even those 268, or whatever, might be a majority.
I can’t find a clear cite to what happens if some electoral votes just don’t show up because of shenanigans, but I found several cites that said you need 270 even if Kennedy won a few. For example, if Harris got 269, Trump got 268, and Kennedy got 3 (or however the math works out), Harris doesn’t win and it goes to the Senate or the House or something.
To be precise it is a majority of electors selected. If Georgia manages to avoid choosing electors then the no of EVs needed goes from 279 to 271.
He can exhort mobs of MAGAts to physically attack polling places in blue districts in swing states, or just otherwise make urban environments too dangerous for people to go out and vote.
Kennedy getting electoral votes is about as likely as me getting electoral votes.
There are only two scenarios where it goes to the House for a vote (called a “contingent election”). That is if Trump and Harris tied exactly, or if a third party candidate grabbed enough EVs that neither Trump nor Harris had the majority.
Such a thing has happened three times in American history. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied at 73 votes each, and John Adams came in third place with 65 votes. It then went to a vote between Jefferson and Burr, but the House still took a week to settle the voting, and of course Jefferson won.
Then in 1824, a total of four candidates received electoral votes; Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. Only the top 3 candidates were eligible at that time to be considered, which eliminated Clay. Jackson, who had won the majority of the electoral votes, expected to win the contingent vote, but (then-Speaker of the House) Clay threw his support behind Adams, and due to that, Adams won.
The most recent was 1837, but it was only the VP election that went to a contingent vote, as Martin Van Buren won the majority of EVs easily, but due to Virginia protesting his selection of Richard Mentor Johnson as VP, they were faithless electors, and they needed a contingent vote to decide who would be VP. (A reminder that back in those days, the presidential candidates did not have a running mate that automatically became VP, but rather the VP was the person who got the second-most votes.) Johnson did however win an overwhelming majority in the contingent election.
Note that these all occurred before the country was solidly locked into a two party system, where virtually every vote goes to one of the two major party candidates. We haven’t had a contingent election for the office of POTUS for 200 years.
If an electoral vote is disqualified for whatever reason, then the majority needed to win is reduced, per the Electoral Count Act.
If the number of electors lawfully appointed by any State pursuant to a certificate of ascertainment of appointment of electors that is issued under section 5 is fewer than the number of electors to which the State is entitled under section 3, or if an objection the grounds for which are described in subsection (d)(2)(B)(ii)(I) has been sustained, the total number of electors appointed for the purpose of determining a majority of the whole number of electors appointed as required by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution shall be reduced by the number of electors whom the State has failed to appoint or as to whom the objection was sustained.
So let’s say 20 votes aren’t counted for whatever reason. Instead of 538 total votes, there are now 518 total votes. Half of that amount is 259, so the magic number would become 260.
Note that your math isn’t accurate; there are 538 total votes, but you might have a situation where Harris had 268, Trump had 267, and Kennedy had 3, and that would indeed force a contingent election. (I think you were assuming a total of 540, but if there were 540 total EVs, then 270 votes would not be a majority anymore, it would be exactly half, which is why 270 is cited as the number a person needs to win.)
Also note that even without Kennedy getting any votes, if somehow Harris and Trump both ended up with 269 (which is theoretically possible, though extremely unlikely) then that would also force a contingent election.
Or somehow toss it to the Supremes. Don’t forget, the Supreme’s already decided Bush Gore.
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The Supreme Court didn’t decide who won the election - it addressed a dispute between state and federal law in a manner consistent with previous rulings. Had they ruled the other way Bush would likely still have won the election.
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This Supreme Court is the same one that declined every single one of Trump’s election challenges in 2020.
As Smapti pointed out, even the Trump-appointed justices have shown a willingness to rule against him.
Got it. Thanks for laying it out so clearly.
I’m not inclined to give the man any ideas so I’ll just say that none of the various courses have any practical chance of succeeding and, if they don’t, then you’re likely to have just compounded your legal issues by quite a lot since they’re pretty much all variants of fraud and violence.
Perhaps more accurately the Supreme Court ruled in a way that justified stopping a recount, which effectively handed the win to Bush?
And do not forget that Chief Justice Roberts was part of the majority. I used to think that the Supremes love their power so much, that they would not want Trump back in office. However, the presidential immunity ruling, running out the clock so Trump would not go to trial are obvious pointers how the majority is likely to rule if it gets tossed to them.
Wikipedia and Britannica
Justice John Paul Stevens dissent is a good critique:
“the majority today departs from three venerable rules of judicial restraint that have guided the Court throughout its history. On questions of state law, we have consistently respected the opinions of the highest courts of the States. On questions whose resolution is committed at least in large measure to another branch of the Federal Government, we have construed our own jurisdiction narrowly and exercised it cautiously. On federal constitutional questions that were not fairly presented to the court whose judgment is being reviewed, we have prudently declined to express an opinion. The majority has acted unwisely. … [A] stay should not be granted unless an applicant makes a substantial showing of a likelihood of irreparable harm. In this case, petitioners have failed to carry that heavy burden. Counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm. On the other hand, there is a danger that a stay may cause irreparable harm to respondents–and, more importantly, the public at large”
Roberts wasn’t on the Supreme Court in 2000. Dubya appointed him in 2005.
That’s fair, but if they’d allowed the recount to continue there’s a good chance Bush would still have won anyway.
We don’t know that do we since a recount never happened? And it was just a couple of hundred votes difference. Another case of Republicans being for “states rights when convenient, and federal when otherwise.”
I stand correct on Roberts.
Considering the Chiafalo v Washington case and a state like Colorado where by law faithless electors cannot exist (if one tries they are replaced), I wonder if a state could just send the number of EVs to DC without the electors actually voting.