By Deacon Mike Manno
(The Wanderer) – It’s the New Year.
Christmas decorations are down, winter has hit us hard, and our beloved
president has unveiled his campaign strategy: insurrection and fake electors.
So
while the rank-and-file Iowa Republicans are digging through snow to attend the
presidential caucus they are being bombarded by warnings that if they nominate
their leading candidate it will mean the end of our democracy as we know it.
It
looks like we are in for a steady beat of insurrection and fake electors.
Perhaps the modifier might be moved to reflect reality: fake insurrection and
electors.
Let
me take up their “fake” part first.
I
think most of us know who the electors are. They are the individuals chosen in
each state to cast the official ballots for president and vice-president of the
United States. Collectively they are referred to as the Electoral College. Each
state is allocated the number of electors that total its representation in
congress. Thus, if your state has four congressmen and two senators your
electoral vote total is six.
The
original idea for the Electoral College was to allow the states to choose the
nation’s executive officers. One of the reasons for the use of electors was
that having the president chosen by Congress would make him (or Nikki) a tool
of Congress which did not comport with the founders’ idea of separation of
powers. And, in reality, they couldn’t think of any other practical method
considering the travel and communication logistics available in 1787.
Now
there were really only three restrictions on the electors. The first was that
no employee of the federal government could serve, thus no elected member of
Congress could serve, neither could a postmaster as we found in a subsequent
election. Second, they must meet in their respective states on the same day to
cast their ballots. Ballots would then be sent to Congress to be counted.
Finally, they could not vote for both president and a vice president from their
own state. Thus making it impractical to have a Trump-DeSantis ticket since
they are both from Florida.
Gradually
the idea of letting the people – rather than the state legislature – pick the
electors took hold and political parties each designated their own electors to
serve if their presidential candidate carried the state. The losing slate of
electors just went home while the winners cast the state’s ballots.
This
winner-take-all system of election is used in 48 states, two, Nebraska and
Maine, award electors by congressional district with the two “senatorial”
elected at large.
Now
there have been some rough spots. Once in a while the election is contested and
two slates of electors vie for the right to cast the ballot. The most famous
was in 1876 when four states each sent conflicting counts to Congress, and one
state’s elector was the aforementioned postmaster from Oregon.
At
the time 185 electoral votes were needed for victory. On Election Day the
Democrat candidate Samuel J. Tilden was one vote short with 184 votes;
Republican Rutherford B. Hayes had 165 with 20 votes in dispute. Since the
Constitution was silent on what to do, Congress established an electoral
commission to examine the facts and award the votes.
The
15-man commission awarded each disputed vote to Hayes who was declared the
winner 185-184.
Over
the years Congress has had other cases of disputed votes, none quite as
monumental as in the Hayes-Tilden election. As Congress adopted procedures to
determine which votes were legitimate and which not, it became clear that
Congress had given itself the final say in the matter.
Now
we come to the insurrection part of the story. January 6, 2021 was the day
Congress received and counted the electoral votes for the 2020 election.
Republicans were suspicious of the election results because of what they saw as
vote stealing, stuffing of ballot boxes, and a form of proxy voting.
We’ve
had on our radio program an election expert who explained the difference
between illegal activities and irregular procedures. We may never get to the
bottom of the illegal activities but it is clear there were some unauthorized
and irregular activities set around the 2020 election.
Thus,
on that January 6, the electoral ballots were to be counted by a joint session
of Congress and the rules provided for challenges to the returns from any
state. That same day Mr. Trump held a rally to urge support for the challenges
which then might change the election result in his favor.
Probably
in retrospect, not a good idea.
In
the city for the rally were plenty of die-hard Trump fans, as well as many
others who were intent on disrupting things. We’ve gone over this before, but
the result was the previously misnamed insurrection. An unarmed “insurrection”
where the only person killed was an unarmed woman shot by a police officer.
Ironically,
what I call a riot was disruptive enough to prevent Congress from taking up all
of the complaints against certain electoral results.
The
“insurrection” is now used as a warning cry against the tyranny of the MAGA
Republicans. So determined is the Biden Administration to root out all those who
took part in the insurrection that it has announced that it is now trying to
round up those who were at the rally that day but did not enter the capitol
building. And we know that several have been arrested who were not even in the
city that day.
But,
I guess an insurrection is an insurrection and you need to punish anyone
thinking about it. You know, to preserve our democracy.
And,
while many arrested that day on the capitol grounds were give lengthy jail
sentences, the man who had been accused of being a government plant to stir up
the crowd, Ray Epps, was just given a sentence of one year of probation. Thank
God for our impartial judicial system.
[CatholicVote
is now reporting that one congressman is claiming he has evidence that over 200
undercover federal agents were in the capitol January 6 encouraging the
rioters.]
And
what about those elector candidates who were not selected? At least seven
states have filed criminal charges against them. Their crime? They stood for
election and lost but were cited as the challengers in state litigation over the
2020 election irregularities, thus “fake” electors. And in at least one state,
Michigan, they are also being civilly sued by the winners.
That
Oregon postmaster was lucky. He only lost his vote.
-30-
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every weekend on Faith On Trial or podcast at https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial/)
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