All of the American media was atwitter on Thursday afternoon from rumors that CNN was going to release a bombshell report about North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for Governor. It turned out to be a gross and salacious story about his porn habits and comments calling himself a "Black Nazi." It was reported during the day that the Trump campaign wanted him to drop out, presumably because they suspected Robinson was already dragging down the ticket, but he refused. There was a midnight deadline to (possibly) remove him from the ballot, so that seems to be that.
North Carolina is very close, according to the polls, as are all the swing states. And while this possible help for Trump landed in the Trump campaign's lap at the last moment, in other states they are working overtime to subvert the vote and contest the election results if they don't go Trump's way. Ground zero for those plans is Georgia, one of the states, along with North Carolina and Pennsylvania, considered a must-win for Donald Trump assuming he manages to hold on to all the other states he won in 2020. Georgia election deniers have been working behind the scenes for the past year laying their plans.
The Trumpy Georgia’s State Election Board voted to give local boards the authority to challenge election officials before certifying county election results. Trump was so happy about it that he even praised by name those on the board who made it possible at one of his rallies. At the very least those local boards can create chaos by refusing to certify the election canvas due to what they will say is suspected fraud and foment more right-wing conspiracy theories. They could also end up in court and win the day.
They don't have unlimited power to delay but if they do this it will require intervention by the state courts, by the state official charged with certifying the electors, or the federal court. Suppose a presidential candidate wants to bring an action. In that case, the new Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA) provides for such cases to be heard on an expedited basis in federal court by a three-judge judicial panel consisting of two circuit court of appeals judges and one district court judge. Any appeal would go to the Supreme Court which is required to rule before the electors meet. Does any of that sound like a recipe for an outcome that is accepted as legitimate by the whole country?
The ECRA resolved some other issues stemming from the 2020 Big Lie and subsequent insurrection. It makes clear that the role of the vice president is ministerial only and requires that 1/5 of the House and Senate must vote to object to the certification in a particular state. That's not impossible but it is a much heavier lift than before. The certifications are now required to be done by December 11, when before it was governed by the vague "safe harbor" provision.
The election deniers had hoped to have some secretaries of state and other top election officials in their pocket for this election but they have failed to win at the ballot box so being reduced to the county level is something of a failure. Still, there is little doubt that this could cause delays and dissension — which is part of the plan. We know what Trump is capable of after a loss when it comes to riling up his voters. He's already planting seeds everywhere about the election being rigged against him. He did the same in 2016 and 2020.
There are other plans afoot besides post election challenges in various states. For instance, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who was deeply involved in trying to get Georgia to overturn their election results in 2020, is up to his old tricks. He's leading a delegation for Donald Trump to Nebraska to try to convince the Republican legislature to change their electoral college system to winner-take-all all. (Currently, two electoral votes go to the winner of the popular vote in the state and the other three are split among the three congressional districts and are awarded to whoever wins the popular vote in each one.) With the swing states so close, the one district in the state that reliably votes Democratic could be the winning margin for Kamala Harris.
This first came up a few months back but it didn't go anywhere because Maine, which has a similar system, said they would do the same which would make it a wash. Unfortunately, the deadline for Maine to do that appears to have passed which explains why the Republicans are moving on it now.
Graham thinks it's perfectly legitimate to have them change the law 6 weeks before the election for the clear purpose of benefiting Donald Trump but they screamed bloody murder over some rules changes in 2020 to deal with the deadly pandemic. They like to call this "election integrity."
There are also concerns about the role of the House Speaker should the Republicans maintain their majority. The current Speaker Mike Johnson, wrote an amicus brief back in 2020 on behalf of Trump asking the Supreme Court to essentially overturn swing-state results. There are concerns that if he is the speaker next January 6 he will use the power of his office for Trump's benefit once again. Politico reports there are several possibilities ranging from changing the rules, which merely exist by tradition, for the counting of the votes on January 6 to asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the ECRA. That would inevitably end up in the Supreme Court as well.
In fact, it appears that if they really push this, all roads lead to the high court which is terrifying. The last time that happened with Bush v. Gore we had a strict partisan decision with fatuous reasoning that even they realized should not ever be used in any other case. And that court was a model of unbiased integrity compared to what we have now. After the stunning revelations in the epic New York Times report over the weekend, based on some unprecedented leakage from inside the normally secretive institution, it's clear that Chief Justice John Roberts is leading the charge to protect Donald Trump from accountability and we already knew that he has been the driving force behind the court's overturning of voting rights cases for the past few years. This is not a court I would trust to be judicious when it comes to this presidential election.
It's not exactly going to be easy for the Republicans this time. People know what they're up to and the Democrats are prepared with legal responses every step of the way. Luckily the voters have managed to keep the most powerful would-be usurpers out of office and Congress set up some serious roadblocks. And Trump isn't president so he won't have the government available to do his bidding. But if the election is very close and it ends up in the Supreme Court as Bush v. Gore did, there is a very good chance they will hand the presidency to him. They clearly have no care for whatever legitimacy they once had.
