A candidate needs 270 votes in the Electoral College out of 538 votes to win the presidency.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has not conceded defeat to his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the presidential election on November 3. Trump has alleged election fraud and filed legal challenges in several swing states. And you are not alone. Most GOP elected officials have yet to acknowledge that Biden won the election. On Wednesday, when asked about the transition, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters: “There will be a smooth transition to the second Trump administration.” Attorney General William Barr has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations of voter fraud.
What is Trump’s plan?
According to the results announced so far, Biden has won 279 electoral votes to 214. A candidate needs 270 votes in the Electoral College out of 538 votes to win the presidency. But these are not official results. There is a long electoral process before the official results are announced on January 6. Typically, the candidate who loses in the general election gives in, allowing for a smooth transition. But Trump’s refusal to admit defeat has created uncertainty about the transition.
What are undecided states in American polls?
It appears that the Trump campaign plan is to block the certification of key states’ results on the battlefield. The campaign has filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, asking the courts to block state officials from certifying the vote. These three states have 47 electoral votes between them, which Biden has won or is leading, according to the media. Each state has its own timeline for certifying votes. The Electoral College is mandated to meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, which falls on December 14 of this year. And all electoral disputes in the States must be resolved six days before the Electoral College date (the “safe harbor” deadline), which is December 8. Therefore, time is running fast for the States and the courts.
What if the states cannot certify votes?
The Trump campaign has alleged fraud, but so far has not presented any evidence, at least to the public. Therefore, many experts believe that courts are unlikely to prevent states from certifying results. In that case, the Electoral College will elect Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
But what if the disputes in the three states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona) remain unresolved before December 8? In such a scenario, state legislatures can intervene, keeping Trump’s constitutional path to reelection open. All three states have Republican-controlled legislatures. So if these states cannot certify the results in the event of unresolved disputes, the Trump campaign would want Republican-controlled state legislatures to send Republican voters to the Electoral College, who could vote for Trump on December 14.
Even if that happens, there is a problem. Two of these three states – Pennsylvania and Michigan – have Democratic governors and could reject the list prepared by the legislatures and submit their own. This means that conflicting lists of states would go to Congress, throwing the Electoral College process into limbo.
What happens if there are conflicting voter lists?
After the 1876 presidential elections, the Republican and Democratic parties disputed the results. Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won more popular votes and was on the cusp of the Electoral College victory over Republican Rutherford Hayes. The results were disputed in three states: Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. As the results remained unresolved, these states sent lists of bereaved voters to the Electoral College, causing a constitutional crisis. Congress appointed a Commission to resolve the disputes. Tilden finally admitted defeat after Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the south and end reconstruction (the Compromise of 1877), and Hayes became the 19th president of the United States.
After the 1876 dispute, Congress passed the Electoral Counting Act in 1887. The Act states that if conflicting lists are sent, each house of Congress can decide separately which list should be counted. Republicans now control the Senate and Democrats have a majority in the House. So the cameras may not agree on the lists. In that case, it is not clear what happens.
If Congress cannot agree on the voter rolls, the US Supreme Court could be asked to intervene. Or, some jurists say, Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, could take a call. In such uncertainty, there are three possibilities. If the Democrats’ list is chosen, it would lead to a Biden victory. If the Republican list is counted, Trump could retain power. Or, if the votes of the disputed states are excluded from the count, no candidate will have a majority (270 votes) to win the presidency.
What if no candidate has a majority in the Electoral College?
If no candidate obtains a majority in the Electoral College, Congress will hold a “contingent election”: the House will elect the President and the Senate the Vice President. The United States had held contingent elections three times in the past: in 1801, 1825, and 1837. In voting for vice president, each senator has one vote. In the election for president, not all representatives were able to vote. Each state delegation in the House will get only one vote (the District of Columbia has no vote), which means that the party that controls the most states will have a majority. Currently, Republicans control 26 of the 50 state delegations, while Democrats have 22. Even if the electoral process extends to this stage, the entire process must be completed before January 20, the day of the new president’s inauguration. by constitutional mandate. If a new president is not elected by noon on January 20, the Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, would become the interim president.
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