Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD; photo, left), who chairs the rightwing House Freedom Caucus, suggested 12 days before the election “that legislators in the battleground state of North Carolina could allocate their state’s electoral votes to Trump before votes are counted” (read story here).
The backstory: The conservative Cato Institute argued in 2022, after Republicans tried to steal the 2020 election, that while states have broad authority over choosing electors, a state legislature can only change the method of selecting electors before an election (read article here).
At present, every state chooses electors by popular vote. Overturning a popular vote after an election also is prohibited by the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 (details here).
That’s why Rep. Harris said it “makes sense” for North Carolina’s GOP-dominated legislature to preempt that state’s voters. His stated reason was that some people in areas devastated by Hurricane Helene, but that’s a thin excuse to disenfranchise voters able to vote. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t apply that reasoning to black voters prevented from voting by GOP voter suppression efforts.
In pushing this idea, Harris is channeling a notorious 2020 election denier named Ivan Raiklin (see his profile here), a protege of coup plotter Michael Flynn (profile here), who claimed the Covid-19 pandemic was “fabricated” and has advocated a military overthrow of the U.S. government.
State election officials Raiklin’s scheme is illegal, and it won’t happen. The point is that Rep. Harris, a member of Congress, has no respect for voters. He’s not alone; no Republican today can be trusted when it comes to voting rights. With that in mind, when you vote, remember it’s easier to keep a camel out of the tent than get the camel out of the tent.