This “news” was “breaking” today on Twitter ⬇️ Maybe it came across your social media as well:
I understand that similar charades were acted out in other states as well.
If you found yourself trying to explain to confused people on Facebook why that was nonsense, here’s a primer: Election Law 101.
Because of the electoral college, a ridiculously complicated system, when you vote for president, you don’t actually vote for president, you vote for a slate of electors.
Nevada certified its election for Biden on November 24, 2020.
This actually means that the slate of electors chosen by Biden (and the Nevada Democratic Party) won the election. To add a safeguard, Nevada law (like the law in many —if not most— other states) requires electors to vote for whoever wins the presidential election in Nevada.
In other words, the GOP electors lost when Trump lost the election. So the Nevada GOP electors weren’t able to cast a ballot for anyone today because they lost the election. Announcing that the “Nevada GOP electors cast ballots for Donald J. Trump, declaring him the winner of the 6 Electoral votes in NV” would be like me saying “I’m the governor of California and I will sign some official orders.”
I can say I’m governor, but I’m not, and my “official orders” are meaningless.
Sort of, but a little more complicated. Back in the days before the Internet and phones, one part of the state might not know what the other part was doing (or the different branches might not agree). So it was possible for the legislature to certify one set of electors and the governor (the executive branch certifies elections) to certify another, which means it was possible that two different slates of electors to show up in Washington D.C. for the official counting of the votes.
The Electoral Count Act says if dueling slates of electors arrive, the governor of the state settles the dispute.
But in this case there are not “dueling slates of electors,” because the Nevada GOP electors have not been certified by the legislature or the governor. They, like Trump, declared themselves the winners of the election.
The fact that this charade is even happening and people believe it’s real is equal parts horrifying and absurd.
Someone told me once: “I’m not a citizen of the United States. I’m a citizen of the Republic of California.” Then he added, “There are a lot of us.” I backed away. Then I ran. After that, if I saw him I walked the other way.
It’s like that. These cuckoos are living in an alternate reality.
This brings us back to what to expect on January 6. (If you missed my post on what happens January 6 when the electoral votes are counted in Congress, click here.)
Theoretically this could happen, but consider that you’d need a majority in both houses. Right now, Republican Senators are starting to say, move on. If it did happen, you’d have a major constitutional crisis because, if Congress rejected electors that had been certified by the states, Congress would be overturning the will of the majority (or at least as speaking through the electoral college.)
This would throw the country into utter chaos. Think of the George Floyd protests and imagine what would happen.
Rule of law / democracy is in many ways a choice. I’ve been saying that democracy will survive if enough people want it to, and are willing to do the work. A weakness is that at any time, a majority of people can decide they don’t want democracy anymore, and it will cease to exist. If, for example, a clear majority had voted for Trump, a majority would say, ‘we don’t want democracy.’ Elections matter. Our voices matter.
I think also people are really paying attention to how government works. When I took high school civics (a loooong time ago) I found it boring. “There are three branches of government.” Yawn. Government was taught to me as something static instead of evolving (or not completely stable).
