The United States Congress should object to the
certification of the election of the Republican and Trump-Pence Electors on
January 6 when it convenes to count the votes of the Electoral College.
The Twelfth
Amendment grants power to Congress to count the votes, which effectively means
the certification of the election of the Electors. Congress has an implied power, which it has
used many times, to object to the election of the Electors.
There are ample grounds to object
to the election of the Republican Electors for Donald J. Trump and Michael
Pence for President and Vice President, respectively, such as deception,
intimidation and ballot access denial that rendered fraudulent the results of
the General Election for Electors on November 8, but the most significant was foreign
interference. In addition, there was
bribery and intimidation of the Electors by the Republican Party and the Trump
campaign. Each of these measures alone
may have altered the outcome of the election, but collectively have swayed it
undoubtedly.
As I have posted previously, the
deception came in many forms, such as Trump’s false portrayal of himself as a
successful businessman, to his myriad lies, half-truths and false
statements. His campaign and supporters
also widely spread fabrications and other false statements favorable to his
candidacy and unfavorable to opponents and critics. In addition to Russian disinformation, which
Trump and his supporters eagerly disseminated, there was a massive
dissemination of fake news and generated by Trump supporters to his benefit.
Like the deception, the
intimidation also took various forms and was aimed at many targets. Continuing to the present, those who
criticize Trump typically face the threat of lawsuits, public ridicule and
professional disadvantage Death threats have become normalized. The notorious con man is known to employ
private investigators, the fear of which the selective Russian hacking and
leaking on his behalf only reinforced. There was not only an unusual degree of
physical violence at his rallies, but some critics were even attacked with
seizure-inducing means via the Internet.
Many of Trump’s business and sexual assault victims were afraid to speak
out or to sue him for fear of legal retaliation and a public backlash. Reporters were afraid to lose access or, like
other commentators, to lose ratings for reporting or expressing the truth. Other candidates for the Republican
nomination were afraid to criticize him or to withhold their endorsements of
him after he was nominated. Many who
considered seeking election as independents were similarly intimidated. GOP Convention Delegates were threatened by
Republican officials with political retribution and worse for supporting the
Delegates’ freedom to vote their consciences.
Republican members of Congress were afraid to speak out against Trump,
let alone withhold their endorsements of him. The climate of fear created by Trump and his
supporters, typical for the rise of an authoritarian, was extraordinary in the
history of American presidential elections and carried over to the vote of the
Electoral College.
The ballot access denial to
independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin, who received nearly 706,000
votes across the Union, despite his name appearing on the ballot in only 11
States, was most noticeable in Florida, where he was nominated by the State’s
largest third party, the Florida Independent Party, but removed from the ballot
illegally by the office of Florida’s Trump-supporting Governor. The 29 Trump-Pence Electors won the State by
only around 2% of the vote. As I noted
in my last post, nearly 8 million Americans voted for other candidates, while
another 2 million skipped the top of the ballot. These unusually-high numbers suggest many
votes would have been cast for other preferred candidates besides the
Democratic and Republican nominees in Florida ,
as elsewhere. Although the denial of
ballot access tainted the election in many States and overall, the best grounds
for Congress to object to the election of Electors would be to those of Florida .
The foreign interference in the
election is still being investigated fully by the Administration, while
Congress is about to being its own investigations. Because the degree of foreign interference is
not fully understood, Congress should conduct its own investigation, as it has
in past presidential elections and routinely does for contests for
congressional seats, until it is fully informed and can determine either that
the interference did sway the outcome of the election, and pursue the
appropriate remedy of objecting to the election of Electors who were not duly
elected, or that the election results were not swayed, which would restore
confidence in the result. From what is
known from various sources, the Russian
Federation , led by a hostile, tyrannical
Communist KGB agent, not only hacked and leaked information, but engaged in a
massive propaganda and disinformation campaign to help elect Trump. Their hacking of Democratic e-mails and
leaking of such information, some of which could have been forged, which is a
typical Russian spycraft, was designed particularly to discourage supporters of
Bernie Sanders from voting for the Democratic nominee, as well as to embarrass
her and her party, but the “active measures,” as the Soviet/Russian KGB calls
their technique, of propaganda and disinformation was probably even more
significant. These ranged from overt
propaganda from Russian state media to the dissemination of propaganda and lies
through anonymous Russian social media account-holders posing as Americans
opposed to the Democratic nominee or supporting Trump. These accounts, the number of which also made
Trump seem much more popular than he was, helped spread quickly any information
favorable to Trump and unfavorable to his opponents and critics, whether true
or not. Although it is unlikely the
Russians, who did hack several state election offices, were successful in
hacking voting machines, an audit of the paper records of those machines that
produce paper records should prove or disprove this theory. Regardless, the Russians effectively will
have pulled off a coup d’etat against the U.S. by helping to elect their
preferred candidate, unless Congress exercises its constitutional authority.
Despite the deception, intimidation,
ballot access denial and foreign interference, Trump barely succeeded in
electing a majority of Electors. If the
Electoral College were to have fulfilled its constitutional duty to exercise
its best judgment in good conscience to avoid the election of someone unfit,
demagogic and under foreign interference, Trump would not have received a
majority of the votes of that body. The
Republican Party felt compelled to bribe some of the Electors with dinners while
the GOP and the Trump campaign intimidated the others with threats of political
retribution, while Trump supporters threatened violence against the one
Republican Elector who courageously announced beforehand his intention not to
vote for Trump. Two other GOP Electors who
could not vote for Trump in good conscience were pressured to resign.
If Congress objects to the election
of Trump’s electoral votes until it can conduct a full investigation, at least from
the closest States, where the outcome was surely swayed by deception,
intimidation, ballot access denial and foreign interference, no candidate would
have a majority of the electoral votes.
Then, the House of Representatives, voting by state delegation, may
choose from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. As a compromise, they may elect Colin Powell,
as he received the third most electoral votes.
If there is still no majority for any candidate by January 20,
(Inauguration Day), then the current Vice President shall act as President
until a majority is attained.
Congressional objection to Trump’s
electoral votes would be the last constitutional safeguard before Inauguration
Day against an authoritarian foreign agent taking office as the President of
the United States of America .
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