#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.

[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.

[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.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims at Popular Information:

During Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, Senator JD Vance (R-OH) refused to acknowledge that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. “Did [Trump] lose the 2020 election?” Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) asked Vance. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance responded.  Vance then echoed Trump’s false claims about election fraud occurring during the 2020 election, despite there being no evidence of any significant fraud. “Obviously, Donald Trump and I think that there were problems in 2020,” Vance said.  When asked by CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell, Vance refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election if it was certified by all 50 states. Vance deflected, stating, “[W]e’re focused on the future.” 

A more likely scenario for the 2024 election, however, is that the results of closely contested states are not officially certified by Republican election officials in an effort to validate spurious claims of fraud. A new report published this week by the Brookings Institution revealed that election officials across the country have histories of election denialism and have refused to certify elections. A report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found “[a]t least 35 current county election officials” that have voted against certifying an election in the past. Public Wise, Informing Democracy, and the Center for Media and Democracy identified dozens of additional election officials that have “promot[ed] election denialism or amplif[ied] unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud or irregularities.” The amount of election deniers acting as election officials “presents a challenge for monitoring certification,” specifically in swing states and remote areas. 

This has been a growing problem since Trump began spreading lies about election fraud during the 2020 election. The Brookings Institution found that in 2020, “at least 17 county election officials across six swing states attempted to prevent certification of county vote totals.” In 2022, it grew to “at least 22 county election officials” who voted to delay certification in swing states. This year, there have been “at least eight county officials” that have already voted against certifying election results for primary or special elections. This is part of a larger landscape of election deniers in positions of power across the country. According to a data tracker created by States United Action, there are 26 election deniers that hold statewide office and 172 election deniers in Congress. It is not clear what will happen if state officials refuse to certify the 2024 presidential election. But the point of blocking certification is to inject chaos and uncertainty into the election process.

The basics of certification

Until the last few years, election certification was a process that received very little attention from activists or media. It is a formality that occurs days or weeks after election day, depending on state or local procedures — by which point the winners of nearly every election have already been declared, defeated candidates have conceded, and everyone has moved on. According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, election certification follows four general steps, although there are some differences in how each state handles the process. First, when polls close on election day, and all the ballots are counted, election officials release a preliminary count. While these results are technically unofficial, they are the numbers that the media uses to call races on election night. Then, election officials will canvass the results. According to the EAC, “[t]he canvass process aggregates and confirms every valid ballot cast and counted, including mail, uniformed and overseas citizen, early voting, Election Day, and provisional ballots.”  Most states also require an audit of the technology that was used to record and count ballots. 

Once these steps are complete, election officials certify the results. Deadlines for certification vary for state and local races, but usually fall between mid-November and mid-December. The deadline for certifying presidential election results is six days before the meeting of the Electoral College. In 2024, states will need to certify their presidential election results by December 11. At the county level, it is typically a board of three to five officials who certify results, although in some places just one person is responsible for certification. Once counties have certified their results, they send their results for state and federal elections to state authorities who aggregate and certify statewide results. The certification process is separate from the process by which a state might investigate any irregularities in an election, like voter fraud. Instead, other state officials such as a secretary of state or governor are vested with the authority and resources to investigate any issues and address them through a recount or audit. The certification process simply affirms that election officials have double checked that they counted correctly and the technology they used was working properly.

Most importantly, election certification is not a discretionary duty. Instead, it is a ministerial responsibility, meaning it is a task that must be completed by the officials elected or appointed to do so. All states have some kind of mechanism at their disposal to ensure that the certification duty is fulfilled. Some states have statutes specifically mandating that election officials complete certification. Others have more general laws to ensure that elected officials fulfill the non-discretionary requirements of their office. In 2022, these mechanisms ensured that election results were certified even in counties where election officials resisted certification.

Popular Information takes a look at how the Republicans could commit perfidious acts to subvert the 2024 elections, such as refusal to certify election results that show Donald Trump losing.

[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.

[originalleftist]

And be ready to take to the streets should state governments/Congress/the Supreme Court try to overturn the results.

We need to be making general strike plans NOW.

[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…

[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.

[originalleftist]

I think in the US we've reached a point where we basically have to win all branches of government, a clean sweep, or lose it all.

The old checks and balances don't work any more. A Democratic Congress but Republican President doesn't mean checks and compromise, or even gridlock- it means the President overruling Congress by executive fiat with Presidential immunity, rubber-stamped by a partisan Supreme Court.

A Republican Congress with a Democratic President just means Congress refuses to certify the election results, and we get a Republican President anyway.

We win it all, or lose it all.

[lawtoppers]

IAS Officer Dr. Puja Khedkar Transferred Amid Allegations of Power Misuse and Misrepresentation

Breaking News: IAS officer Dr. Puja Khedkar transferred amid serious allegations of power misuse and fake certificates. Maharashtra government initiates investigation into her conduct and qualifications. Stay updated with the latest developments.

IAS Officer Dr. Puja Khedkar Transferred Amid Allegations of Power Misuse and Misrepresentation Pune, July 2024: Dr. Puja Khedkar, an IAS probationary officer, has been transferred from Pune to Washim amidst serious allegations of misuse of power and misrepresentation. The Maharashtra government took swift action following revelations of her misconduct and demands, which have sparked widespread…

[latestgujaratinews]

લોકસભા ચૂંટણી 2024 latets News ગુજરાતી | વિદેશ મંત્રી એસ જયશંકરે પ્રથમ પુરુષ મતદાર પ્રમાણપત્ર મેળવ્યું | External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar received the first male voter certificate

[originalleftist]

Let me add to this:

Without a Democratic Congress, Harris DOESN'T win. Trump does.

Why?

Because Congress certifies the Presidential election results. This was traditionally pretty much a formality, but in 2020 nearly 150 Republican members of the House and Senate voted not to certify Biden's victory. This certification is what the January 6th insurrection was meant to prevent.

And the new Congress is sworn in before the Presidential certification.

Which means that yes, if Republicans win EITHER the House or the Senate, then they can refuse to certify a Harris/Walz victory. And this would be legal (maybe, technically- but who would decide whether it's legal? Yeah, the same Supreme Court that just gave Presidents legal immunity to protect Trump).

We must win a trifecta to win the Presidency, in practice.

Hey

not only is the president up for election this year,

so is every member of the US House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate.

If you don't know who your congresspeople are, find out on the US congress website:

the congress we vote in is vitally important. If Harris wins the presidency, having a democratic congress will allow her to make the moves we want to see. If trump wins the presidency, a democratic congress will be all that can protect citizens against him. vote. vote blue. protect yourself and protect your community.

edit: 1/3 of the senate not 1/2

[is-today-the-uk-general-election]

NO.

Today is not the day of the UK general election.

There are 30 days remaining until the UK general election.

Parliament has now been dissolved.

You have:

Under 15 days in which to register to vote.

Under 16 days in which to apply for a postal vote.

There are:

14 days 16hs 59min left to register to vote (deadline 23:59 18 June 2024).

15 days 10hs left to apply for a postal vote (deadline 17:00 19 June 2024).

22 days 10hs left to apply for a proxy vote (deadline 17:00 26 June 2024).

22 days 10hs left to apply for a Voter Authority Certificate*.

*Only required if you do not have suitable ID, or you no longer resemble your ID photo, or your name as per your ID does not match the name on the voter register.

[cheerfulomelette]

[Image ID]

Key dates for the 2024 UK general election

Deadline for registering to vote: 23:59 on Tuesday 18th June

Deadline for applying for a postal vote: 17:00 Wednesday 19th June

Deadline for applying for a proxy vote: 17:00 Wednesday 26th June

Deadline for applying for a Voter Authority Certificate: 17:00 Wednesday 26th June

Polling day: 07:00-22:00 Thursday 4th July

[End image ID]