Quote:
Originally Posted by T3rminator
Whats this I hear about, if the court cases have merit and Biden can't be inaugurated in Jan because its still ongoing, then the speaker of the house acts as the President?!?!? Talk about a double whammy for Donald if that is accurate...  |
I'm reasonably sure that it isn't accurate.
As i read the electoral law for the president of the USA, it follows the following procedure in the case of a contested election.
Firstly: The election is conducted by each of the states - and there are fifty of them. The law in each state is different from all of the others, at least in some regard. For example the margin to allow a recount is a differing percentage of the total votes cast in different states. In fact some states do not allow a contender to claim a recount - one might be done if the margin falls below a stated figure.
Secondly: If a contender wishes to take an issue into a courtroom then then it needs to be lodged in an appropriate lower court in the state where a the claimant feels a case exists. Where it fails the claimant can appeal to a higher court in the state where the original claim was made. Eventually it will ascend the the states' highest court. If it fails there then the claimant can appeal to SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States).Note that the argument has to be about a particular infringement, ranging from a single vote being contested as being invalid up to wide ranging electoral fraud in such numbers as to make a difference to the total of the votes tallied to alter the outcome in that state.
Now, whilst all of this is going on the states are finalising their counts and directing the members of their Electoral College as to how their votes should be directed, which must be done by a date in early December. If this can not be done, for example because the governor of a state and the legislature of a state send different electors to the voting event (and a number of states have different coloured governors and legislatures) then the newly assembled House of Representatives are called upon to resolve the matter and they will vote about it in early January after they are sworn in. But even here it is not straightforward. Each of the states gets a vote and this is not based on the number of congressmen that a state has, so if there are more red states than blue states then a republican contender will be elected and vice versa.
If it should happen that the states are evenly split, then, I suspect, this is where SCOTUS gets to step in. And the fact that there are six right of centre justices to 3 left of centre might be the deciding factor. But I would hope their decision might be based upon the will of the electors rather than bias. Since, so far as I know, it has not happened previously there is no precedent to guide them. My research hasn't indicated a legal reason for them to go one way or the other.
So far as I can tell, the majority leader of the House of Representatives does not get into the act in these circumstances. That appears to only happen if both the President and the Vice President are unable to properly carry out the duties of the Office of President. Until January 20 President Trump is the man unless incapable, then it would be Vice President Pence.
All this being said, there is one thing that is quite clear and is stated expicitly in the Constitution. That is that the current term of President Trump ends at midday on January 20, 2021. You can workout for yourselves who it might be that gets sworn in as the President of the USA after that time.
And you thought that our preferential voting system was complicated
HA!
Cheers