Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled legislature moved today to disregard the popular vote and choose their state’s presidential electors themselves.
“Pennsylvania Republican legislators took the first step on Wednesday toward enacting a nightmare scenario in which they could challenge the outcome of the state’s presidential election if President Donald Trump loses” by passing a resolution to create a special committee that “could possibly certify its own slate of electors for Trump based on phony charges of voter fraud,” Huffington Post reported on Wednesday, September 30, 2020.
The state’s Democratic governor called it “an unprecedented attack on non-partisan election administrators at a time when we should all be doing everything we can to instill confidence in our elections.” The move came “out of nowhere” and caught Democratic legislators by surprise.
“Republicans, led by Trump, have been laying the groundwork for this type of move for weeks,” Huffington Post said. “The Atlantic reported that Pennsylvania Republicans discussed a plan with Trump’s campaign” for the GOP-controlled legislature to discard the popular vote and certify Trump’s slate of electors.
Because the state has a Democratic governor who would certify the Biden slate of electors if he won the state’s popular vote, both slates of electors would go to the U.S. House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats, who would choose the electors chosen by the voters, not the legislature. The GOP is counting on a Supreme Court packed with conservatives to overrule the House, which under the Constitution has sole authority to certify electors.
It’s a complicated strategy, but could work because of how the president is elected under the Constitution. And Pennsylvania isn’t an isolated case; it’s a tactic Republicans are likely to employ in other states where they control legislatures, such as Wisconsin, in order to override the popular vote — using phony claims of voting fraud as a subterfuge.
I’ve been aware of this threat all summer, and I’ve touched on it in my previous writings, but this is the first overt act by Republicans to carry it out. I can’t say it’s unexpected. But the fact Republicans want the 2020 election decided by an 18th-century system that was replaced by popular voting generations ago demonstrates just how determined they are to preserve the white male-dominated society that existed when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution 239 years ago.
Then, most Americans couldn’t vote, and legislatures chose the electors who chose the president. That system is still in place, but has been dramatically modified in practice by universal suffrage and popular election of presidential electors in all states until now.
It’s unlikely this is an isolated effort to keep Trump in office for one more term. More likely it’s part of a coordinated long-term plan, of which Trump’s evasion of constitutional restraints is part, to dismantle the democracy that has evolved since the Civil War and revert to a system under which most Americans would live under something resembling a colonial occupation government. Not exactly a path to dictatorship, but awfully close. Democrats would never govern again, no matter who voters chose, and progress toward full racial equality would halt.
It’s more evidence the Republican Party is abandoning the principle of democracy and embarking on a process of dismantling our democratic institutions in order to preserve a conservative racist society that is slipping away from them. If they deny it, ask them how else can actions like this be interpreted? What other explanation is there?
In Wisconsin, where gerrymandering gave Republicans two-thirds of the state Assembly seats with 47% of the statewide popular vote, a Democratic governor also stands in the way of the state submitting a single slate of electors for Trump. Suddenly, the fact both those key swing states have Democratic governors looms very large, because democracy still has a fighting chance.
Photo: The Pennsylvania legislative building is becoming a hall of shame where democracy is being dismantled
Votes used to count. America’s foundation was based on the premise of one person, one vote. Now the votes may be counted, but ignored and over ruled by the Pennsylvania’s republican controlled legislature. Power hungry, fearful white men are deciding the fate for all of us. This is what authoritarianism looks like. Remember the dream for people of all ethnicities and nations wanting to come to America? Since, November 2016 after the election of trump, America is not the dream anymore but a never ending nightmare. Now, our votes may or may not be counted in order for trump to be permanently installed. White (power) supremacy at the expense of all of us who cherished our freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to express our opinions, freedom to peacefully protest, freedom to vote. Now, peaceful protests are interrupted by militant right wing fascists clothed all in black sent to disrupt, destroy, and create chaos while contributing to the left wing blaming for the destruction the militias have created. The right wing militias may be sent to disrupt the voting process, (as trump said in his speech, last night stand by) particularly for minorities. Voter suppression and voter intimidation is illegal. This is a form of vote tampering. The militia should be arrested if this occurs. Law enforcement agencies all over America have seen an increase of their recruits with ties to and memberships with extreme right wing groups, (KKK) and extreme right wing militants This has been a documented study by the FBI. https://www.justsecurity.org/70507/white-supremacist-infiltration-of-us-police-forces-fa https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/08/27/fbi-white-supremacists-and-militias-have-inf Will the police try to stop illegal activity of voter suppression? Or will they be too biased/prejudiced and side with the right wing militants and allow voter suppression to occur while they look the other way?
This is what the US Constitution states:
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.”
All the states legislatures in the first 10 Presidential elections selected the states electors. It maybe unwise, ill advised, ect but perfectly constitutional if Pennsylvania should do this. It ensures the stats electoral votes are cast in time for those votes to be in the second wooden box the Vice President will open, unseal Pennsylvania’s certified votes and read them aloud to a joint session of Congress. No the Vice President cannot use cute grey parrots to shout out the numbers
Unfortunately, Mark, your homework must receive an “incomplete” grade, because you failed to look up how Pennsylvania law specifies the electors are to be appointed. 25 P.S. §3191, the controlling statute, says the voters, not the legislature, “appoints” the electors.