It's ain't quite over

I’ve written before about my belief that Trump wouldn’t go willingly and the opportunity the Electoral College offers for perverting the results of the election, so I won’t belabor those points, but I do want to call out the idea that the people’s response to Dejoy’s attempts to pervert the election seems to have been an important factor in keeping the ballots moving.

And as Prof Snyder notes, the election is only round one.

The courts were round 2. With Trump’s legal challenges falling apart there, the vote’s outcome seems solid, but we’re not out of the woods just yet. The legal failures are a positive development, but at the risk of sounding crankish, I see a few opportunities left for round 3 to pervert the election’s outcome.

The Electoral College process is largely intended as kabuki, but it depends on several actors being restrained by norms. Given that, it feels an enormous leap of faith to believe that no funny business will be tried there. Here are the key dates ahead for that effort.

• Dec. 14, 2020: Meeting of the Electors. The electors meet in each state and cast their ballots for president and vice president. Each elector votes on his or her own ballot and signs it. The ballots are immediately transmitted to various people: one copy goes to the president of the U.S. Senate (who is also the vice president of the United States); this is the copy that will be officially counted later. Other copies go to the state's secretary of state, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the presiding judge in the district where the electors meet (this serves as a backup copy that would replace the official copy sent to the president of the Senate if it is lost or destroyed).

• Dec. 23, 2020: Deadline for Receipt of Ballots. The electors' ballots from all states must be received by the president of the Senate by this date. There is no penalty for missing this deadline.

• Jan. 6, 2021: Counting of the Electoral Ballots. The U.S. Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes.

• Source

With electors not meeting until December 14, there’s a full month ahead in which untold shenanigans might occur. On the plus side, GOP legislators from Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have stepped forward, claiming they would not intervene in the Electoral College process. We’ll have to wait for the day to pass to confirm their remarks.

Additionally, Barry Burden, the Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center, claims that legislative changes to any state’s electoral process are not plausible as voting has already occurred, leaving us locked into the current process. If that thinking holds, we may already be out of the woods.

Next up is the receipt of ballots. Multiple copies of each elector’s ballot are sent out, but the copy that matters is sent to VP Pence, who is responsible for counting the ballots. That effort will occur at a joint session of Congress that doesn’t happen until January 6, 2021.

The person responsible for counting the ballots is the person who has been parroting Trump’s claims about ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ votes while also refusing to concede the election.

So while there’s no evidence that he’s planning to take part in any wrongdoing, and he may just be parroting Trump to soothe his ego, he’s definitely not saying the sort of things that would give us confidence that the peaceful transition of power will occur.

A curveball?

The threat of martial law being declared is an obvious (if seemingly fantastical) concern. Today’s Million MAGA March, while reportedly not all that large of a gathering, still breathed life into that possibility. Here’s a video from events following the march. (There are plenty of others available. None foster hope of healing America’s political divide.)

The president’s response was predictably worrisome and woefully inciteful.

If these sorts of events continue, they could offer the outgoing president an opening for the martial law option. (To be honest, an unkind word from a Fox News announcer might be enough.)

Where things might go if Trump declared martial law might largely depend on the public’s response. I’m not saying it’s likely to happen, but given the option of that or going quietly, well, decorum and honor aren’t his strongest traits.

I have no idea how the next 8 weeks will unfold. I remain hopeful that things will soon smooth out, and we’ll have a peaceful transition of power so that we can get back to the work of trying to nudge humanity in a better direction. But I think that the better we prepare ourselves for any undesirable events, the more likely we’ll respond appropriately should matters go awry.

That said, my fears of an actual coup have been diminishing while being replaced with an unhinged Trump continuing to engage with a captivated audience in evermore problematic ways. What that might look like is anyone’s guess, but his willingness to publicly demonize others while in office ought to give us pause. Now layer on the possibility of meaningful financial and legal challenges and a continued presence on social media becomes frightening. Twitter has been inching in better directions, so maybe they’ll pull the plug on him soon, but I fear it won't happen without the impetus of a truly horrific event. Let’s hope not.

Anyways, assuming all goes well with the transition, the challenge of our badly contorted democracy, in the shadow of climate change, is not going away.