Apparently the Gore legal quest may face a time issue. According to today’s NY Times,
. The Times also said that
which would seem to mean that it is likely that he will rule against Gore, setting up a final Florida Supreme Court decision. My question is this:
Suppose the Florida SC feels that legally Gore is entitled to have recounts in Dade (and a looser standard recount in Palm Beach), but there is not enough time to conduct one. Suppose they also feel that it is overwhelmingly likely that were a recount conducted under such conditions, it would produce a Gore victory. Can they just declare Gore to be the winner? Or does there have to be some actual vote count which shows him coming out ahead?
Since one of the judges lately was lately in a year-long vote struggle, that’s a possible outcome.
The Electoral College, of course, would refuse to seat Florida, and it would become moot, and never decided.
There is no such thing as the Electoral College. The presidential electors chosen in the manner specified by the legislature of each state (Art II, Sec 1 US Constitution) meet in each state capital on a date set by Congress (this year it is Dec. 18) to cast their votes, which are tabulated and sent sealed to Congress, which opens them up when it opens its new session (this year Jan. 6, unless they pass a law this month modifying that to Jan. 5). Congress, sitting in a joint session, is the sole arbiter of whether or not any particular elector is a valid elector. Any one congressman (senator or representative) can challenge an elector, but there is no debating the validity of the elector during joint session. If there is a challenge made to one or more electors, Congress ends the joint session, and each house then can spend no more than two hours debating the challege. Both houses must uphold the challenge by majority vote of members present for the challenge to succede. It is unclear from the rules of Congress and federal law what process exists for resolving competing claims; one suspects that the votes of the electors who have been certified by their state’s governor will be accepted unless successfully challenged, at which time competing votes would be allowed unless those, in turn, would be successfully challenged.
The ‘Electoral College’ has no say in who is a ‘member’; the name is merely a convenient way of describing the electors chosen by the various states.
In this case, if by Dec. 12 there is no judicial order forcing the certification of the electors pledged to vote for Al Gore, in the absence of any injunction preventing him from doing so the Governor of Florida will notify the federal government that the electors pledged to vote for his brother, George W. Bush, have been certified as Florida’s electors. Presumably they will meet in Talahassee on Dec. 18. Also, presumably, if the issues raised by Mr. Gore have not been resolved with finality by then, presumably the slate pledged to Mr. Gore will meet in Talahassee, too, and will also transmit votes to Congress. Assuming the Florida Supreme Court makes some eventual determination regarding the contested votes prior to Jan. 6, it would then be interesting to see whether the Congress would accede to the determination of the FSC, or whether Congress would ignore such determination and accept the certification of the Republican electors (there is no chance Congress will successfully challege and ‘remove’ the Republican electors, since the House is controlled by the Republicans). In any event, the FSC would have no authority to tell Congress what to do; to have a guaranteed effect on the votes of electors, it must act before Dec. 18.
and keep in mind that this will be the new Congress deciding this. Unless that close election out west is reversed, the Senate will be 50-50 with “you know who” as the tie breaker. I think that still has to be determined if he can do that since he is a participant.
They go in alphabetical order in the voting so until Florida gets resolved then none of the states after “F” get voted so there is limbo. Clinton’s term expires on Jan 20 and if there is no President Elect by then, it falls to the House Speaker, Dennis Hastert. He would have to resign his speakership and seat in Congress (not bloody likely) so he will pass. It will then go to Strom Thurmond (he would have to resign, a Dem governor in his state, so he won’t do it), then it goes to the Cabinet. Albright isn’t eligible, Cohen is a Republican (he may not take it). It could pass all the way to Janet Reno.
Sorry if somebody else covered this, I haven’t been reading any of the election posts.