#certification of the 2024 election

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

deAdder

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 26, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 27, 2024

The point that is currently holding up plans for ABC’s September 10 presidential debate is whether the candidates’ microphones will be muted when it is the other’s turn to speak. Vice President Kamala Harris’s team wants the mics “hot”; Trump’s team wants them turned off. Officials on the Harris campaign say they are quite willing for viewers to hear Trump’s outbursts and, in a statement, appeared to bait Trump by saying: “Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own.”

Over the past few years, observers who have been paying attention to Trump have noted that he appeared to be sliding mentally and warned that when voters saw him again outside his Mar-a-Lago cocoon and his rallies they would be shocked. That prediction appears to have come true. Trump seems to have little interest in doing the actual work of campaigning, instead swinging between grievance-filled rants and flat recitations of his apocalyptic worldview, trying to stay in the center of public consciousness with outrageous lies and, as he did in his suggestion that he would not debate Harris, telling people to “stay tuned!”

But as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out today, “nobody cares.” Instead of making him look dominant, his old performance makes him look weak, especially as he appears unable to grapple with Harris’s rise and is still fixated on how “unfair” it was of the Democrats to choose Harris as their presidential candidate. In 2016 and 2020, Trump had the help of talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News Channel to push his narrative, but Limbaugh died in 2021 and the Fox News Channel is somewhat chastened after a $787 million settlement over its lies about the 2020 election. Harris and Walz are now setting the terms of debate surrounding the 2024 presidential election, and their dominance illustrates his weakness.

A key element of Trump’s political power was always his insistence that he is by far the nation’s popular choice. In 2016 he insisted that he won the popular vote against Democratic candidate former secretary of state Hillary Clinton—in fact, he lost by almost 3 million votes—and even now, he keeps saying he has all the votes he needs and that he is doing well in the polls, when demonstrably he is not. His constant focus on crowd sizes and enthusiasm is designed to establish the illusion that a majority of people prefer his election to that of his opponents.

By insisting he is the popular choice, Trump has tried to make his election seem inevitable, convincing his loyalists that a loss must be an assault on our democracy and that good Americans will fight to defend both it and him. The Big Lie that he won the 2020 presidential election was intended to cement the idea that the Democrats could win only by cheating. In fact, President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election by about 7 million votes and won the Electoral College by 306 to 232, the same split that in 2016, when it was in his favor, Trump called a landslide. Trump and his allies lost more than 60 lawsuits challenging the results of the election. 

And yet, pushing the idea that Trump cannot lose in a fair election seems to have been a key part of his strategy for 2024. The lie that there was widespread voter fraud in 2020 led to a wave of new state laws to suppress the vote. MAGA lawmakers defended these laws on the grounds that they must respond to voter fraud. The nonprofit law and public policy Brennan Center for Justice recorded that in 2021 alone, from January 1 through December 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws that restricted access to voting.

In May 2024 the Brennan Center reported that in at least 28 states, voters this year will face new restrictions that were not in place in the 2020 presidential election. Varying by state, these laws do things like shorten the time for requesting an absentee ballot, make it a crime to deliver another voter’s mail-in ballot, require proof of citizenship from voters who share the same name as noncitizens, and so on. 

As MAGA Republicans and their plans—especially their assault on reproductive healthcare and the policies outlined in Project 2025—become increasingly unpopular, Republican-dominated states are ramping up their effort to keep the people they assume will oppose them from voting. 

In Nebraska, Alex Burness reported in Bolts today, two Republican officials—Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Secretary of State Bob Evnen— last month stopped the implementation of a new state law, passed overwhelmingly by a Republican-dominated legislature earlier this year, that granted immediate voting rights to about 7,000 people with past felony convictions. In the process, Hilgers also declared unconstitutional a 2005 law that had allowed those convicted of a felony to vote two years after they completed their sentence. Evnen then told county-level elections offices that they could not register former felons.

The confusion has made people nervous about even trying to register. “People are scared they’re going to get charged with something if they try to vote and can’t vote, so a lot of people will just wash their hands of it,” Pamala Pettes told Burness. “They don’t want to go and vote unless they have a clear idea of what’s going on. They don’t have that.” More than 100,000 people are caught in this confusion. As Burness notes, the election could come down to the city of Omaha, where thousands of potential voters—overwhelmingly Black, Latino, and Native—have been blocked from registering.

Voter intimidation is underway in Texas, too. On August 18, Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo, who was a key figure in promoting the Big Lie, posted a rumor that migrants were illegally registering to vote at a government facility west of Fort Worth. The Republican chair and election administrator there said there was no evidence for her accusation and that it was false, but Texas attorney general Ken Paxton nonetheless launched an investigation.  

In addition to feeding the narrative that there is voter fraud at work in Texas, the investigation led Paxton’s team to raid the homes of at least seven Latino Democrats. No one has been charged in the aftermath of the raids. Latino rights advocates call them a “disgraceful and outrageous” attempt to intimidate Latino voters and have filed a formal complaint with the Department of Justice.

Today, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced that since 2021, Texas has removed more than one million people from the state’s voter rolls, and said the process will be ongoing. Abbott’s office said those removed are ineligible to vote because they have moved, are dead, or are not citizens. But more than 463,000 of those on the list have been removed because their county of residence is unaware of their current address. 

Even when voters do make their wishes known, in Republican-dominated states, those wishes are not always honored. David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo today pointed out an article in which Adam Unikowsky, who clerked for the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, eviscerated a recent decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court that will prevent an abortion rights initiative from appearing on the ballot in November.  

Why is the state supreme court keeping an initiative supported by far more than the 10% of voters required by law off the ballot? Because, Unikowsky writes in Adam’s Legal Newsletter, “when the ballot initiative sponsor submitted its petition on the due date, it failed to staple a photocopy of a document it had already submitted a week earlier. The court reached this conclusion even though (a) nothing in Arkansas law requires this photocopy to be stapled; and (b) even if this requirement existed, Arkansas law is clear that the failure to staple this photocopy is [fixable], and the sponsor immediately [fixed] the asserted defect.”

Unikowsky accuses the court of guaranteeing that a measure the people wanted could not win by making sure it was not on the ballot. Further, although Unikowsky doesn’t mention it, keeping abortion off the ballot will generally help Republicans in the Arkansas elections by keeping those eager to protect reproductive rights feel less urgency to make it to the polls. 

Another way to suppress the vote is showing up these days in Georgia, where MAGA Republicans in the state legislature have handed control of the state election board to a three-member MAGA majority whose members Trump has personally praised. 

The three have been passing a series of last-minute rule changes that will sow confusion over how to conduct an election and then will give Republican-dominated election boards the power to refuse to certify election results. Such a scenario would put into effect the plan Trump and his allies hatched in 2020 to nullify the will of the voters. Tonight the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia sued to stop Trump’s allies from blocking the certification of the 2024 election. 

The momentum of the Harris-Walz campaign undermines the Big Lie that Trump is the popular choice, but the voter suppression the Big Lie justified remains. That voter suppression recalls the years of Reconstruction in the American South, when southern Democrats determined to keep Black men from voting found all sorts of ways to do so on grounds other than race, which the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited. Modern media allows us to see today’s machinations in real time, making it easier for civil rights lawyers—who were few and far between in the late nineteenth century—to fight back, and for voters to recognize that they are not alone in their struggle to claim their right to a say in their government. 

In her acceptance speech at last week’s Democratic National Convention, Vice President Harris called for the passage of two measures killed by Republicans after 2020: the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. These measures would stop the flow of big money into politics, end partisan gerrymandering, and protect the right to vote.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[originalleftist]

One way this election is different than others is that we really can't have a split result- where, say, we win the Presidency but lose the House/Senate, or vice versa.

If we win the Presidency, but lose either the House OR Senate, then the new House/Senate (which is sworn in first) can refuse to certify the Presidential election results. That might have been unthinkable once, but nearly 150 Republicans voted not to certify in 2020 (stopping this certification of Biden's win was also the point of the January 6th insurrection).

Whereas if we win Congress but not the Presidency, a Trump Presidency and and will just ignore Congress. Per Project 2025, it will staff the whole executive branch with regime loyalists- and that includes control of the military.

Say Congress tries to block something a future President Trump (or Vance) does- how will Congress enforce that? Appeal to the Supreme Court stacked with far Right justices who gave Trump legal immunity? And even if SCOTUS sided with them, they would enforce it how? With what army? Trump will control the army.

The old system of "checks and balances" has broken down in a big way, and we really need to address that, but we can't if we don't win the election first.

We win it all, or we lose it all.

[deadpresidents]

"The Vice Presidency comes with plenty of indignities, but probably none greater than the one that Kamala Harris endured on Monday when she presided over the certification of her own defeat.

Standing in the rostrum of the House of Representatives, a gavel in her hand and a look of imperturbable stoicism on her face, Ms. Harris officiated as the two houses of Congress met in joint session to formally count the Electoral College votes for President.

"The votes for President of the United States are as follows," she declared after each state's totals were read. "Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes." At that point, Republican lawmakers rose to their feet to applaud. Ms Harris gave a small, polite smile as she let them have their moment.

Then she continued. "Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes," she intoned. Now it was the Democrats' turn to stand and applaud. Ms. Harris glanced over to that side of the chamber with a little smile of thanks, then gently gaveled the body to order. After reading the votes certifying JD Vance as Vice President, she formally ordered the results entered in the record.

And with that, Kamala Harris the Vice President officially put an end to Kamala Harris the candidate's quest for the Presidency -- at least for this election. At that point, members of both parties rose to applaud, seemingly out of respect for the no-doubt-painful task she had just taken on without complaint or objection.

There was also certainly a little bit of relief that everyone had gotten through the moment peacefully, unlike the maelstrom visited upon the Capitol on this day four years earlier when Mr. Trump refused to accept defeat and inspired a mob that stormed the building to try to stop the count certifying it.

Ms. Harris made no comments while wielding the gavel beyond her scripted duties...Unlike Mr. Trump, Ms. Harris has made no effort to cast doubt upon the election but has instead accepted defeat graciously. Neither she nor President Biden has sought to pressure the Justice Department, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, or election officials to reverse the vote she lost, as Mr. Trump did four years ago.

She has not filed dozens of lawsuits that would be tossed out by judges as frivolous or unfounded. She has not repeated false fraud allegations or wild conspiracy theories that her own advisers told her were untrue.

Nor did she use her role as presiding officer to reject votes for Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance the way Mr. Trump tried to get Vice President Mike Pence to do to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris in 2021. Mr. Pence refused, saying he did not have such power, and Congress subsequently passed a law reaffirming that interpretation.

The contrast between Jan. 6, 2021, and Jan. 6, 2025, could hardly be starker. "

-- Peter Baker, on Vice President Kamala Harris presiding over the certification of her own defeat in the 2024 Presidential election before a joint session of Congress, during the peaceful, traditional formal ceremony denied to her and President Joe Biden exactly four years earlier, New York Times, January 6, 2025.

[contemplatingoutlander]

If he loses the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump will likely lobby House Republicans to refuse to certify the results. This was not as much of a problem in 2020 when Democrats held the majority of seats, but with Republicans now holding a narrow majority, it could become a legitimate issue. However, Politico reports that a bipartisan group of House lawmakers have banded together to jointly pledge to certify the results of the 2024 presidential election, and the group so far includes six House Republicans. This means that, should these six Republicans keep their pledge to certify a win for Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump's allies would be unable to block the certification of the election given the current numbers in the House of Representatives. The bipartisan group, which was organized by centrist Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Don Bacon (R-NE), also includes Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Nick LaLota (R-NY) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY). Bacon said that the group's pledge was a reflection of traditional American values. “In America we respect election results especially once the courts and appeals work through the process,” he said. “We fight hard to win during campaigns and then respect the results when the votes are counted.”

Thank goodness for a handful of Republicans in the House who actually take their oath to support the Constitution seriously.

[reading-writing-revolution]

This is the most brilliant political idea ever...

#DarkBrandon

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

On January 6, 2021, as a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and halted Congress’ counting of electoral votes, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade dashed off a desperate text to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.  “Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished,” he wrote of Trump, who had summoned the enraged crowd to Washington, D.C., and incited it with lies that the 2020 election had been stolen as part of a plot to subvert that election.  Kilmeade expressed a drastically different view on Monday, as a new Congress prepared to count the electoral votes that would return Trump to the Oval Office.  In one of Fox & Friends’ few references to the January 6 insurrection that morning, he mocked Democrats who “want to point out how different” today’s events will be “from four years ago” when “democracy was in danger.”  Kilmeade added that the American people think that January 6, “as bad as that day was, it’s a small part of the Donald Trump story” and that it would be “put to bed even further after today happens.” The Fox & Friends host is one of an array of right-wing media figures who said at the time that the January 6 insurrection was a calamity, that the rioters were criminals, and that Trump himself bore responsibility for their actions. But over the past four years, they have participated in the right’s Great Forgetting, making their peace with Trump’s attempted coup and supporting his return to the presidency.

When the right said January 6 was “deplorable” and its participants “criminals”

“Remember what yesterday’s attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol was like. Very soon, someone might try to convince you that it was different,” The Atlantic’s David Graham wrote the next day. “The health of the republic depends both on what swift consequences come—for Trump and for others—and also on how people remember the participants’ actions later on.” Graham’s warning proved prescient. As the attack unfolded and in its immediate aftermath, many media figures on the right joined those on center and left in condemning the attack — and Trump’s work to incite it — in the strongest possible terms. But they did not sustain their initial response. 

[...]

The Great Forgetting and what comes next

These comments reflected the widespread initial consensus that January 6 had been horrific — and that Trump had been responsible for it. In the first days following the attack, politicians of both parties, corporate leaders, and the public at large responded with revulsion and demands for consequences.   But that unity ultimately proved fragile. A coterie of Trumpists, led by former Fox host Tucker Carlson, worked diligently to unwind it, reframing the sacking of the U.S. Capitol as either unimportant — or a conspiracy driven by Democrats and the media in which the assailants were the real victims of a crackdown on “political dissidents,” as Fox’s Rachel Campos-Duffy put it last week.  As this fraudulent counternarrative became increasingly widespread, most other conservative media figures eventually chose to join the right’s Great Forgetting. They pretended that a president who they knew had tried to overturn the republic was fit to return to that office. And in so doing, they helped power Trump from his post-January 6 position of disgrace back to the GOP nomination and the presidency.  Trump’s return to office sets the stage for more authoritarian acts. He never repudiated his election lies or the attack they incited, instead valorizing the January 6 “hostages” and promising they will receive pardons as one of his first acts in office. And he is assembling a team to carry out the “retribution” he has promised to inflict on his political foes, including an FBI director who proposed legal action against the conspirators, “not just in government but in the media,” who he claimed “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”  Trump’s authoritarian impulses may ultimately come to nothing. But with their actions after January 6, the leading lights of the right have already signaled their willingness to accept whatever he does.

Matt Gertz wrote a good piece in MMFA on how most of the right-wing media commentariat (and even Donald Trump himself briefly) once rightly called out the Trump-incited January 6th Insurrection for what it is: a violent terrorist attack.

However, over the intervening four years since, large sectors of the right-- including lead perpetrator Trump-- have either dismissed or outright excused the actions of the violent domestic terrorist mob who stormed the Capitol.

See Also:

Can We Still Govern?: Jan. 6 and the path not taken

America, America: The Power of Propaganda

[davidaugust]

How 45 regains Presidency in 2 steps (without winning):

1 - Speaker refuses to swear in enough Democrats, keeping GOP control of House, bypassing voters.

2 - State certifications denied / Congress refuses electoral votes, preventing any candidate from reaching 270. House then decides presidency, bypassing voters.

Prevention:

- Undeniable landslide popular vote against GOP candidate.

- Widespread awareness of this plan, making it clear people won't tolerate it.

https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-new-over-the-top-secret-plan-518

[tomorrowusa]

Republican House members met Monday night to try to agree on a Speaker. The only progress they made was that one of the nine candidates decided to drop out.

Of the eight remaining candidates, only two voted to certify the 2020 presidential election. And one of those two, Tom Emmer, made comments in November of 2020 casting doubt on the validity of the election. So that leaves just Austin Scott (R-GA-08) as the only pro-democracy candidate.

One candidate, Pete Sessions (R-TX-17), is known as "Streakin' Pete" for his streaking escapades in the 1970s. That takes Gym Jordan's lack of a jacket several steps further.

Republicans will meet again on Tuesday morning to resume their dysfunctional bickering.

Tuesday marks exactly three weeks since Kevin McCarthy was ousted.

BONUS TRACK! A few days ago Rex Huppke at USA Today wrote a parody of how a job post for House Speaker might appear at LinkedIn.

[michigantopnews]

Michigan Dems Remember January 6, 2021 Insurrection as House Certifies 2024 Election 

Michigan Democrats reaffirmed their commitment to democracy by certifying the 2024 election results, contrasting the violent Capitol insurrection four years ago.

Four years after the Capitol insurrection, Michigan House Democrats reaffirm their commitment to democracy by certifying the 2024 election results. LANSING, Mich. – On the anniversary of one of the darkest days in recent American history, Michigan House Democrats voted to certify the 2024 presidential election results, reinforcing their commitment to upholding democracy and ensuring a peaceful…

[originalleftist]

Congratulations to Congress on obediently certifying the "election" of a Constitutionally disqualified insurrectionist, and the end of the American republic.

You made a good show of upholding the appearance of law while utterly destroying it. The ultimate victory of optics over substance.

I should note here that members couldn't individually vote no, as I had believed-the law was changed after 2021 to clarify that the VP cannot refuse to certify, and objections won't be heard or voted on unless 1/5th of both chambers sign them (previously, it required only one member from each house for an objection to go to debate and vote).

But as far as I've found, no one even attempted a protest.

I know why Democrats did it. I know they couldn't have changed the outcome. I know the point they're trying to make, that we respect election results even if they don't.

But the difference between now and 2020 is that Biden was Constitutionally eligible to serve. 45, as an insurrectionist, is not.

In the end, whatever their reasons, the fact remains that they too swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. And whether they realize it or not, they all violated it today.

They chose the appearance of law over the fact of it.

Even if you didn't have support for an objection, you could have made some protest. You could have at least walked out.

Every member of Congress, regardless of House or party, who sat there today and did not object broke their oath of office.

Every. Single. One.

[deadpresidents]

trump and mike johnson keep talking about a little secret, do you think johnson is going to help trump steal the election when the electoral votes are counted since he is speaker of the house?

Fun fact: Hakeem Jeffries will probably be the Speaker of the House on that day, not Mike Johnson!

The certification of the Electoral College results is January 6, 2025. The new Congress begins on January 3rd. No matter what happens everywhere else, it looks as if the Democrats will most likely win control of the House of Representatives next week. Unlike the Republicans, the Democratic caucus in the House won't need several weeks to elect a Speaker. It's going to be Hakeem Jeffries, and when that happens, whatever the "little secret" that Trump and Johnson keep giggling about might be, Johnson is going to be, at best, House Minority Leader on January 6th. And don't forget that the Joint Session on January 6th will be presided over by the Vice President and I think we know where she stands on the issue.

[saxafimedianetwork]

Trump Certified as 47th President on Solemn January 6th Anniversary

#Congress certifies @realDonaldTrump's 2024 presidential election victory, exactly 4 years after the 2021 Capitol riot. @VP @KamalaHarris presided over the vote, upholding her "sacred obligation" amidst a peaceful ceremony. #2024Election #Certification

Continue reading Trump Certified as 47th President on Solemn January 6th Anniversary

[usavotey]

US Democrats Challenge Georgia Election Rules in Trial

Georgia Judge to Review New Election Rules Amid Controversy A legal battle is brewing in Georgia over newly implemented election rules, as a state judge prepares to review a challenge from the Democratic Party. The dispute centers on changes made by the Republican-controlled Georgia Election Board, which Democrats argue were designed to undermine public trust in the upcoming presidential election…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

The disgusting insurrection that took place at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, will not repeat itself this year because Democrats are vowing to swallow their pride and certify Donald Trump's 2024 victory on Monday. Unlike nearly 150 of their GOP colleagues—who in 2021 refused to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory, even after a mob of Trump supporters violently tried to keep Trump in power—Democratic lawmakers this year say they will not object. "Today, I will perform my constitutional duty as Vice President to certify the results of the 2024 election," Kamala Harris, who as vice president is overseeing the joint session of Congress that certifies the Electoral College results, said in a post on X. "This duty is a sacred obligation—one I will uphold guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution, and unwavering faith in the American people." Other Democratic lawmakers said they won’t object to the results. “I will stand with my colleagues today to uphold the democratic process and certify the election results,” Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan wrote on X. “Democrats firmly believe in the principles of our democracy and recognize the importance of a peaceful, lawful transfer of power.” But while Democrats vow to do their Constitutional duty, they do not want the public to forget what Trump and Republicans did four years ago.

[...] Republicans, meanwhile, are memory-holing their sickening behavior from four years ago and expressing jubilation about certifying Trump's win today. What's worse, other Republicans are trying to troll and rewrite history about what happened that day. “On #ThisDayInHistory in 2021, thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building,” Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia wrote in a post on X. “Earlier that day, President Trump held a rally, where supporters walked to the Capitol to peacefully protest the certification of the 2020 election. During this time, some individuals entered the Capitol, took photos, and explored the building before leaving.”

Today’s certification of the Electoral College vote counting will be more like the past elections in that the vote will go down without incident (unlike the fiasco of four years ago), as the Democrats are rightly fulfilling their constitutional duties to accept the election results they don’t like (similar to 2001).

[ezrasf]

What I was talking about the other day. Delay. Delay. Delay. FUD the certification to prevent Congress from certifying an anyone but Trump win.