U.S. ELECTIONS
But there’s a Mack truck-sized loophole in this that allows state legislatures to short- circuit the system. Slate explains... “It is perfectly constitutional for a state legislature to scrap statewide elections for president and appoint electors itself. It would also be constitutional for a state legislature to disregard the winner of the statewide vote and assign electors to the loser. And because the Constitution grants legislatures the authority to pick electors this way, Congress cannot stop them.” Right now, the Republican party controls 28 of the 50 state legislatures and the Democratic party controls 22. So could a few dozen state legislatures – in either party – decide to ignore the election results in their states and simply assign their electors to either President Trump or the Democratic nominee? It would defy democracy in a brand-new and breathtaking way – but again, these aren't normal times. In addition, coronavirus lockdowns, stay-at- home measures, and quarantines could be colored a shade of purple by politics. State officials could issue a "shelter in place" order in certain counties – the Republicans might do so in urban areas of closely contested battleground states... or the Democrats might do so in rural areas, under the guise of public safety. Sound unlikely? Well, it happened in Ohio last month. CNN explains: "Gov. Mike DeWine asked the state's Supreme Court on Monday [March 16] to postpone Tuesday's primary election in
Paper would be a logistical nightmare, and the disaster of leveraging technology in the Iowa Democratic primary doesn't bode well for voting online. Ohio until June. The court said no. So DeWine – and the state's top election official – ordered that polling places be closed. And so, the primary didn't happen." Going old-school by shifting to mail-in paper ballots or high-tech with e-voting would reduce the health risk of voters cycling through polling stations. But paper would be a logistical nightmare, and the disaster of leveraging technology in the Iowa Democratic primary doesn't bode well for voting online. Both would create new risks, as detailed by political risk consultancy Eurasia Group... "If states turn to the mail, can it be done securely, will it structurally favor one side, and will that tempt one or both candidates to undermine its credibility? If the US goes to e-voting, nefarious actors will see greater opportunity to disrupt the process. Even without malign interference, all it would take is a technical glitch to call the results into question." There are plenty of ways that self-interested politicians might derail the U.S. presidential elections later this year... if they happen at all. That's why the 2020 presidential elections will be entirely not normal... and in line with our times of chaos.
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April 2020
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