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More than 50 Electoral College members who voted for Donald Trump were ineligible to serve as presidential electors because they did not live in the congressional districts they represented or held elective office in states legally barring dual officeholders.
That stunning finding is among the conclusions of an extensive 1,000-plus page legal briefing prepared by a bipartisan nationwide legal team for members of Congress who are being urged to object to certifying the 2016 Electoral College results on Friday.
“Trump’s ascension to the presidency is completely illegitimate,” said Ryan Clayton of Americans Take Action, who is promoting the effort. “It’s not just Russians hacking our democracy. It’s not just voter suppression at unprecedented levels. It is also [that] there are Republicans illegally casting ballots in the Electoral College, and in a sufficient number that the results of the Electoral College proceedings are illegitimate as well.”
[…]
It may be that the efforts to convince Congress to challenge the ratification of the 2016 Electoral College amounts to little more than a Hail Mary aimed at derailing a Trump presidency. As of late Wednesday, Clayton thought there would be House members willing to object to certifying the Electoral College vote, but he was less certain about finding a senator willing to go along.
But even if a challenge is mounted and fails, it underscores the illegitimate basis of Trump’s presidency and the deep opposition to it, and refutes the GOP’s outrageous claim that it has a mandate for dismantling government programs across the board.
“We have a list of 50 illegal electors,” Clayton said. “That puts Donald Trump below the threshold that he needs to be elected president. Let’s debate it in an open session. According to the Constitution, the Congress, if nobody wins on the first round of balloting, picks from the top three candidates. That will be Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Colin Powell.”
I won’t be holding my breath here, everyone knew that the Bush jr presidency was illegitimate, but it didn’t matter. I don’t think it will matter this time, either. This is, however, yet another reason to dismantle the electoral college.
Full story at Alternet.
OOOOOOOOOH! Republican cheating! Feature, not a bug. (See attempt at dismantling Ethics Oversight.)
Not a chance in hell that The Orange One will not be installed as POTUS, what with republicans in charge of the House and Senate.
Johnson catman:
Oh, they haven’t given up on that one, just waiting for the backlash to quiet down, then they’ll try it again.
Oh, that’s what they meant by voter fraud.
Giliell @3:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Were any of these electors black while voting? If not, of course there was no voter fraud! (/s if necessary)
Wow, I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that North Carolina is in the thick of the illegitimacy, with seven electors not living within their districts and one holding dual office.
The problem is: What do we do?
I don’t see any of this changing or getting better, only worse. There is no citizen oversight, voting even has little impact anymore, since those in charge find ways to not count the votes they don’t like.
The only way I see major change happening is through a military coup, or popular, and violent, uprising. Neither option is good, but I really don’t see things changing otherwise.
Outside of a full scale revolution, I don’t think anything can be done, and things will have to get considerably worse for people to even talk revolt.
Am wondering if any of the non-Trump-voting electors were also ineligible. Not that that matters, of course, because the Angry Cheeto’s electors are the ones whose ineligibility make a difference here.
Yeah, voter fraud came to my mind first, too -- but hey this is white people doing it for the right reasons, so it’s not real fraud. I mean, it’s not like they would have voted differently if they actually lived where they should, in order to be electoral college voters…