2024 election: Throwing in a monkey wrench
The statewide results are set to be certified on Dec. 5. The question becomes what happens if on that date Cochise County has not certified its results. It's been suggested that those votes will simply not be counted in the state's certified results which would actually alter the results of two elections - one of which is for the US House.
I think the only procedure in place is to take it to the courts and hope for the best.
As for Cochise County, apparently if their votes in fact don't get counted, it would throw the House race to a Dem, (or so I heard).
I haven't heard the county's rationale for not certifying. What are they claiming?
Apparently Cochise County has no rationale for their decision.
Good overview of the whole mess.
State and local election squabbles aside, my point is that our federal election outcome may be compromised.
The courts: Say that there are no elected officials willing to step in and sign off on the results because election deniers hold so many offices. The aggrieved candidate would sue, and the courts have the authority to force that public official to sign off on results. This is a fairly safe backstop, experts say. Trump’s 2020 campaign lost more than 60 lawsuits across the country, and sometimes judges he had appointed ruled against him. As he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to simply reject the electoral college results, Trump lawyer John Eastman privately acknowledged that doing so would “lose 9-0” in the Supreme Court, according to a Pence aide who testified to the Jan. 6 congressional committee.
“What we saw in 2020 and in the meantime, for the most part, has been that the courts have taken their oath and their constitutional responsibilities seriously, and have looked at the evidence,” said Tammy Patrick, a former federal compliance officer for Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/05/election-officials-refuse-certify-what-happens/
I was more concerned with the “independent state legislature theory”, which many were saying would give the state authority to simply overthrow the vote for electors, and protect them from judicial review.
However, this guy says that is not a correct reading of the issue, and it's less of a threat than many are saying.
Excerpt from above wapo link:
Those protections are in place now. But …
Election experts to whom we talked say that there is a real possibility that the election deniers who win in November will then push policies eroding some of these protections. Here’s what keeps these experts up at night:
1. Elected officials changing state laws to make it easier to subvert elections: The Brennan Center has been tracking proposed state laws to make it harder to vote and easier to change election results. Last year, lawmakers introduced hundreds of bills to restrict voting access or empower partisan officials. Dozens were enacted. States such as Georgia and Texas have significantly expanded the rights of partisan poll watchers to question election results, for example. Other states have passed laws that experts say would have a chilling effect on election workers, by criminalizing them for making mistakes.
Well and good, but I feel that we need a written plan to handle the problem, rather than just relying on courts or chance luck. It is apparant to me that there are people who want to, and will actually try to disrupt our federal election, ending our long tradition of democracy. And these people are using their experience to improve their election meddling results in the future.
Since we’re talking of things to overly complicate election results:
A brain-spurt to change the Constitution etc to correct the last Presidential election, as well as 2024?? And how come I’m only reading this in the Southern Hemisphere?? (Well, the ABC? Guardian and BBC don’t report it yet)
Aha! Now the Beeb has it!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63851751
It’s well after midnight here now. Sorry, I’ve got to sleep.
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As of today Cochise County, Arizona has thrown a monkey wrench into the statewide election process by refusing to certify their county results. There are no official statewide results. What would happen to our national election if there were one or more states that resused to certify the national results? Do we have a proceedure in place to hanndle this? The resulting confusion for not preparing for this alternative could be disasterous.
Granted this may be farfetched, but given the polarization of our current politics, what formerly was unthinkable could indeed happen.