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State legislators have the constitutional authority to overrule
a certified vote count in presidential election if they believe it
was fraudulent or in error and did not fulfill the will of the
people, contend constitutional attorneys William J. Olson and
Patrick M. McSweeney.
They were responding to a National Review column in which former
federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy insised that
Republican-controlled state legislatures cannot appoint slates of
Republican electors to the Electoral College if the voters chose
the Democratic candidate.
But Olson, a former special counsel to the U.S. Postal Service
board of governors, and McSweeney, a former U.S. deputy assistant
attorney general and acting assistant attorney general, explained
in their analysis how the outcome could change even after states
certify their results.
“During the 2020 presidential election, many of the so-called
swing states, including Arizona, saw unprecedented – and unlawful
– erosions of procedural safeguards as well as administration
irregularities on Election Day,” they wrote. “People deserve an
honest accounting of who won. … With respect to identifying and
remediating fraudulent or mistaken results, it is now or never,
whatever can be done must be done.”
Olson was member of a committee for the President’s Export
Council, a member of Ronald Reagan’s transition team in 1980 and an
official in the U.S. Department of Transportation. McSweeney was
executive director of the Virginia Commission on State Government
Management and a law clerk at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals.
In their analysis — titled “The constitutional duty of state
legislatures in a contested presidential election” — they pose the
question of what should happen if there is a “case-in-chief which
demonstrates the presence of rampant fraud – with votes being
tabulated at overseas computers, with software designed to elect
favored candidates, with stacks of ballots marked only for Biden
and no down-ballot races, etc.?”
In the instance of a “prima facie case” of “substantial
computerized election fraud,” they wrote, McCarthy “would have even
those state legislators who become fully persuaded that the count
was fraudulent to sit back and see the person that their
constituents actually elected be de-throned by CNN and National
Review.”
“Legislators who want to carefully examine the election process,
and take action if significant election fraud is found, would be
simply giving effect to the vote of the people, not denying it.
They should not, as Mr. McCarthy would want them to do, avert their
eyes to the Big Steal.”
They noted the U.S. Constitution “vests the total authority to
select electors in state legislators, not governors, secretaries of
state, or pundits.”
In Arizona, as of Nov. 21, Biden had 1,672,143 votes to
President Trump’s 1,661,686, a difference of only about 10,000.
“This 10,000 vote spread is so small that it easily could be the
result of the type of retail election irregularities that occur,
such as persons voting twice, voting by dead persons, voting by
illegal aliens, voting by persons not living in the state, etc,”
they wrote. “But the reported margin could also be the result of a
relatively new type of computer-based election fraud.”
Trump lawyers say they have “significant evidence” of fraud from
“three particularly disturbing sources”: the Deep State, foreign
governments and Republican office holders who benefited from the
existing system.
Statistical anomalies, such as numerical patterns in “vote
dumps” for Biden right after the election amount to “a prima facie
case of fraud.”
Further, 70% of the Trump base believes there was widespread
fraud.
And those voters also believe that unless the fraud is exposed,
it’s “the end of free and fair elections in the nation.”
They expect state legislators to expose thefraud.
“No state constitution, state law, or state court can alter or
constrain that grant of power,” the lawyers wrote, citing Supreme
Court precedent.
Pointing to the Arizona evidence, they said the legislature “has
a duty to thoroughly investigate the claims of fraud and ensure
that a lawful election has taken place.”
If there was fraud, the state lawmakers are “free to determine
how to proceed.”
“The power to choose electors lies ‘absolutely and wholly with
the legislatures of the several states.'”
They explain:
The question for each Arizona state legislator should be whether
the vote counting system that is in place has generated an accurate
reelection of the lawful voters of Arizona, or whether the system
either is flawed, or was hijacked, to reach a pre-determined
result. If it is believed that there was systemic election fraud in
Arizona, then allowing the State Certification process to go
forward unchecked would make the legislature complicit in the
perpetration of a fraud upon the United States and its people.However, there is no reason why a State Legislature could not
send its own Certificate of Ascertainment, which, in this scenario,
(i) could give all of the state’s electors to Trump, (ii) could
split them between Trump and Biden, or (iii) could refuse to send
any electors at all.
“The Founders recognized that elections could be corrupted or
stolen. They established the Electoral College as a safeguard and
empowered state legislatures to ensure the integrity of the
election. Lawful voters expect state legislators to do their
constitutional duty to ensure that the lawful votes of the people
as cast are honored — not diluted or debased by systemic
fraud.”
Constitutional scholar Alan Dershowitz suggested a path for
victory for Trump by challenging state certifications and causing
enough to remain in question that Biden would not get the required
270 votes with the Electoral College meets.
Dershowitz, an emeritus professor of law at Harvard, noted
in a column for the Gatestone Institute that Biden is not
officially the president-elect.
“Let us remember that as a matter of law and constitutionality,
Joe Biden is not yet the president-elect. He has been coronated by
the media, by politicians and by most Americans. But to officially
become president-elect requires, at the very least, certification
by enough states to give him the 270 required electors. That has
not yet occurred,” he explained.
The president’s road to reelection would require a “perfect
storm” that now seems unlikely but not impossible, he said.
“The goal of the Trump legal team is not to get 270 electoral
votes for their client. That seems beyond the realm of all
possibility,” wrote Dershowitz. “The goal is to question Vice
President Biden the 270 he needs for the Electoral College to
select him as president. Since this is a zero-sum game, how is it
possible for Biden to be denied the 270 without Trump reaching that
number?”
He said that if “enough electoral votes are still being
contested by mid-December, and if fewer than 270 electors are
certified by their respective states by that date, then Biden could
– in theory – be denied the necessary 270.”
“If that were to happen, then the election would be thrown into
the House of Representatives, as it was on several occasions in the
19th century,” Dershowitz said.
“Under the Constitution, the House votes for president not by
individual members, but by state delegations,” he noted. “Each
state gets one vote, and so 26 states are required to elect a
president. Although there are more Democrats than Republicans in
the House of Representatives, there are more states with a majority
of Republican representatives. Accordingly, if the election were to
go to the House, the Republicans would determine the next
president.”
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Constitutional experts: Fraud could put election outcome in state
legislators’ hands appeared first on WND.
