How would we resolve the election of 2016 if the FBI knew there were hacks in multiple states or other irregularities and Trump decided to contest the results of the election?
As I understand it, the states have to certify the results? My civics knowledge is kinda rusty on this part but what happens after that? Let’s say the election in FL and PA go to Hillary Clinton. Let’s say that the Secs of State or whoever certifies election results wants to submit these as final, but what if Trump and his supporters simply refuse to accept defeat? For that matter let’s say they go even further and refuse to accept defeat in states lost by a wider margin. What would happen? How would it be resolved?
As I understand it, it would ultimately be a matter for the electoral college to decide but each state has its own laws in determining how those individual electors are to be decided upon to represent the results. What if Donald Trump and his supporters filed multiple lawsuits, injunctions, whatever to arrest the process of nominating electors in key states? It could go through the courts, but we have an ideologically deadlocked Supreme Court.
Could there be a do-over election in key states? Is it possible that some states results wouldn’t be deemed legitimate and thus not represented in the electoral college? Is it possible that on this basis there could be an electoral college impasse and that it would go to the House of Representatives, where Republicans would then decide the outcome of a national election with dubious legitimacy?
Are we not in serious danger of a constitutional crisis?
You raise a lot of questions here that whole essays could easily be written about. But just to tackle this one: the deadlocked Supreme Court doesn’t make this inherently less stable. If they tie 4-4, then the holding of the court below is controlling. If that had happened in Bush v. Gore, then the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling would have remained in place.
There are lot of ways for election issues to arise and reach the courts.
In most cases you have county’s, districts and cities/townships who tally and certify their own results (and each does it differently), then the state complies and certifies each of those (and each state does it differently).
Well, it depends. They could certainly protest, but in order to trigger a recount, they have to have a reason and some evidence that one is warranted. This gets back to the old arguments about how Bush ‘stole’ various elections and the widespread belief that there was massive vote fraud because of rigged equipment. I don’t know how FL or PA work (like I said, every state is different, just like counties and cities and townships are all different), but in NM you’d need some sort of justification and evidence to trigger a recount…or, if the election was very close one might be triggered automatically if certain conditions were met.
No, for much the same reasons we weren’t when Bush was elected and then re-elected…the base might be all fired up and convinced that their guy (or gal) was robbed, but you need actual evidence of fraud that is credible to trigger the sort of thing you are worried about. And, honestly, I don’t think it’s going to be that close or any real question that Clinton wins this time around…Trump isn’t even close in most of the battle ground states, and just in the states that are already in the bag or mostly in the bag she nearly has enough electoral college votes to win (or, maybe already has enough depending on how you calculate some of the lighter blue states).
The GOP will retain control of most state houses, the House of Reps and may even have enough power in the Senate to influence or block SCOTUS nominees. For these reasons, I think GOP leaders will be happy to let Hillary serve almost as lame-duck for four years, especially since the alternative is a buffoon they do not like and are “supporting” just to minimize the party fracture.
Thus whatever lawsuits Trump files won’t get far — they’ll be blocked by the GOP judges and GOP governors themselves.
I’d be far more concerned if the GOP candidate were someone the GOP establishment wanted in the Presidency. But any lawsuits would have to have some basis in facts.
I hope Hillary continues to add to her margin and wins despite GOP mischief. If the mischief succeeds and the Democrats file lawsuits, we could be in for a season much worse and more disheartening than Florida 2000.
The GOP state’s lawyers told a judge something that was false and that they should have known was false. They did this to help their masters disobey federal law.
Now, IANAL. I thought that Officers of the Court were expected to tell the truth even when not specifically sworn. Perhaps I’m wrong, and lying is simply part of their stock-in-trade.
Or whatever your little Gotcha is. Maybe they committed misdemeanor prevarication instead of felony perjury? Whatever. I find it repulsive that government attorneys would deliberately lie to a judge; perhaps you find it cutesy if they can somehow circumvent the strict definition of perjury.
Or maybe you’re even competent enough to realize their actions were repulsive but just delighted to show off some technical nit about “perjury.” Whatever.
But I’m certainly glad you were “Happy to help.” At least you’re happy; those of us who want to see fair governments conduct fair elections are displeased, and even more displeased to see a GOP-aligned lawyer step forth to obfuscate GOP crimes.
“Obstructing justice” might fit, according to Wisconsin 946.65 (1):
The “consideration” might not be immediately obvious but in any event, it ain’t good. Class I felonies in Wisconsin are punishable up to a $10,000 fine and/or up to 3.5 years in jail.
I’m not seeing what the lawyers supposedly lied about. Are you suggesting that an 8-week registration limit was one of the subjects of the lawsuit and the lawyers represented that there would be no such limit? I doubt that, since such a limit would not be unconstitutional AFAICT.
According to the article, the officials were being questioned about the effects of a policy. They testified that the policy had been changed. But the policy had not been changed.
I read the article, and I don’t see where it substantiates that claim. Can you specify what policy you believe they testified had been changed that had not been?
I think the authors and/or septimus are conflating changes to state law with ensuring compliance by each DMV, aren’t they?
The unbridled joy with which you greet learning of an error you’ve made is truly frightening to read.
OK, maybe it wasn’t perjury! Doesn’t matter! Sure, I said perjury and it wasn’t any crime at all, misdemeanor or otherwise, but the important thing is, I’m not falling for any of your Gotchas!
Not perjury. Not misdemeanor prevarication. In fact, unclear whether there was any material misrepresentation at all. The article doesn’t make it clear where the lie is when they quote the specific representation: “Specifically, Wisconsin has enacted a rule that requires the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to mail automatically a free photo ID to anyone who comes to DMV one time and initiates the free ID process.”
None of the examples given show that statement to be untrue. Or repulsive, which is a fighting retreat on your part, hoping to bring the debate from the indefensible “perjury” and “reprimand” claims to something more murky and inchoate. Of course they were repulsive! They were representing Republicans! Amirite?
Those of us that care about accuracy will let you know after our meeting.
So accurate description of evil is more significant than evil - or at least a lack of an accurate description of evil proves there was no evil.
Anyhoo, if the worst case is that after numerous legal challenges Trump prevails and is sworn in… it’ll come down to whether or not Congress (depending on its post-election composition) can summon the will to impeach him the first time he does something wrong, which I gather will be inevitable and soon. I don’t know enough about Pence to predict how his presidency will go.
As with any proposition, the person making the claim bears the burden of showing that it’s true. It’s possible that Wisconsin’s lawyers killed and ate raw a puppy on their way to court – a Democratic puppy, natch. But since no evidence exists that this happened, we’d say the claim is unsubstantiated.
Similarly, there is no evidence here of the lawyers making any false claims to the court. The claim is unsubstantiated.
Well, the implausibility of this has been hashed out at length in the Pit thread, and it’s not even a requirement that the statements be specifically false, just misleading, i.e. that citizens wouldn’t be disenfranchised in theory (because of the safeguards we’ll put on paper) when clearly they will be in practice (because the safeguards won’t be used).
The Pit is not conducive to hashing things out. Argument in the Pit is replaced with pile-ons and insults.
And of course, for “perjury” to be true, the statement has to be actually false, not misleading. But here, the statements are not even misleading. No reasonable judge in the country would confuse a representation that a particular policy exists with a guarantee that every single official carrying out that policy would do so correctly.
Do you feel that whether a ID, which is necessary for voting, is issued in October or December of 2016 is a concern relating to the November 2016 election? And if the officials knew that the IDs would not be issued until after the election, then that concern was not accommodated.
So saying a rule has been enacted is true. But saying that a rule has been enacted which accommodates concerns relating to the election is not true. It is false.
“Every single official”? Seventy percent of the DMV offices said they would not issue an ID in time for the election. No official could truthfully testify that the issue had been addressed in the manner the court asked about. An informed official would truthfully testify the issue was not addressed. An uniformed official would truthfully testify he didn’t know if the issue was addressed.
And which part of the lawyers’ claim was falsified by the failure to issue an ID in time for the election?
But the “specifically,” followed the bit about addressing the concerns. It clarified that they WAY the concern is addressed was a general rule, not a rule that promised a specific deadline.
And, of course, it was not perjury nor were the lawyers reprimanded.
Your posted to that thread almost 2500 times. If that isn’t sufficient effort to reduce an issue to hash (heck, it should be enough to reduce most topics to scattered ions), then it was never going to happen.
It also has to be given while under oath, and on that basis alone clearly “perjury” is not the correct label. “Fallacious”, “mendacious”, “misleading” and “unethical” could apply, though.
Whatever. I find it repulsive that government attorneys would deliberately lie to a judge; perhaps you find it cutesy if they can somehow circumvent the strict definition of perjury.