Personally, I'm pleased to see sentiment here turning toward support for a formal objection to some of the electoral votes being counted tomorrow.
I know as well as any of you that it's not a process that can overturn the results of the election, but I think it presents a rare opportunity to guarantee some serious coverage for a serious issues.
But for the few holdouts who worry that Democrats will be seen as obstructionists and/or sore losers, I offer you this: Electoral votes have been challenged in the past when, arguably, much, much less was at stake.
The story can be found, if you're crazy enough to read these sorts of things, in
Deschler's Precedents, v.3, ch.10, sec. 3.6:
On Jan. 6, 1969, the President pro tempore of the Senate called to order a joint session of the House and Senate for the purpose of counting the electoral votes for President and Vice President. When the tellers appointed on the part of the two Houses had taken their places at the Clerk's desk, the President pro tempore handed them the certificates of the electors and the tellers then read, counted, and announced the electoral votes of the states in alphabetical order. The vote of North Carolina was stated to be 12 for Richard M. Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew for President and Vice President respectively and one for George C. Wallace and Curtis E. LeMay for President and Vice President respectively.
Mr. James G. O'Hara, of Michigan, thereupon rose and sent to the Clerk's desk a written objection signed by himself and
Edmund S. Muskie, the Senator from Maine, protesting the counting of the vote of North Carolina as read. The President pro tempore directed the Clerk of the House to read the objection, which stated:
We object to the votes from the State of North Carolina for George C. Wallace for President and for Curtis E. LeMay for Vice President on the ground that they were not regularly given in that the plurality of votes of the people of North Carolina were cast for Richard M. Nixon for President and for Spiro T. Agnew for Vice President and the State thereby appointed thirteen electors to vote for Richard M. Nixon for President and for Spiro T. Agnew for Vice President and appointed no electors to vote for any other persons.
Therefore, no electoral vote of North Carolina should be counted for George C. Wallace for President or for Curtis E. LeMay for Vice President.
James G. O'Hara, M.C.
Edmund S. Muskie, U.S.S.
Following the President pro tempore's finding that the objection complied with the law and his subsequent inquiry as to whether there were any further objections to the certificates from the
State of North Carolina, the two Houses separated to consider the objection, the Senate withdrawing to the Senate Chamber.
So what are we looking at, here? We're looking at a Democratic Senator and a Democratic Representative objecting to the counting of a single electoral vote that they believed should have gone to Richard Nixon, who had 301 electoral votes already. It wouldn't have made a difference to any candidate, in any way. It wouldn't and couldn't have changed the outcome of the election. And it arguably shouldn't have been of any concern to either of the Members who objected.
But they did it anyway, to make a point.
The background of the objection was explained by Senator Muskie during his opening remarks in the Senate debate on the objection:
In this case, a North Carolina elector was nominated as an elector by a district convention of the Republican Party in North Carolina. He did not reject that nomination. His name was not placed on the ballot because under North Carolina law, as in the case of 34 other States, only the names of the party's presidential and vice-presidential candidates appear, and electors are elected for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates receiving the plurality of the vote in North Carolina.
Dr. Bailey and 12 other North Carolina Republican electors were so elected on November 5. The election was certified. Dr. Bailey did not reject that election or that certification. So up to that moment, so far as the people from North Carolina understood, he was committed as an elector on the Republican slate, riding under the names of Richard M. Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew, to vote for that presidential and vice-presidential ticket.
On December 16, the electors of North Carolina met in Raleigh to cast their votes. . . . It was at that point that Dr. Bailey decided to cast his vote for the Wallace-LeMay ticket instead.
In the House, Mr. Roman C. Pucinski, of Illinois, made a similar presentation.
So what really was at stake that day? As I've noted, there was nothing about the objection that would have changed the outcome of the election, or even have given the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey, more electoral votes. The objection, it may be argued, was made by Democrats who, on principle chose to exercise their prerogatives to object to a vote which deprived Richard Nixon of an additional elector -- because they sought to protect the votes of the citizens of North Carolina, whom they viewed as having been deprived of their voice.
We do not find ourselves in precisely the same circumstances today -- or rather, tomorrow. True, an objection, if sustained, will not alter the outcome of the election. In that sense it is much like 1969. But in tomorrow's case, Democratic Senators approach the vote with some trepidation. They worry that they may be accused of excessive partisanship for contesting electoral votes cast for the candidate of the opposing party, indeed, for the apparent winner of the election -- a complication not clouding the 1969 decision.
One proposal for shedding the partisan baggage has been made, by DaveOinSF, though it hasn't exactly been positively received. The idea, in a nutshell: contest the electoral votes of a state other than Ohio, specifically, one where Kerry won, but which itself offers a ripe target for the investigation of voting irregularities. Many of the allegations made in Ohio have been made elsewhere as well, and a challenge to the electoral votes going to one's own party might just be bulletproof in terms of cries of excessive partisanship.
I'm not entirely sold yet on whether or not such a plan would give Democrats as solid a platform from which to make their case for reform in the elections process, but if it removes some of the fear from the hearts of Senators, perhaps it's a good thing. At least temporarily. It's a fear we might have hoped they'd get over on a more permanent basis, but if we want the floor tomorrow, we may need to take what we can get.
The vote, as most of us seem ready to admit, is a lost cause. But if we approach it with no intention of winning it, we also needn't worry much about the fact that the evidence that exists has been developed with respect to Ohio, and not whatever other state we might choose to contest. In other words, if you're going to lose the vote anyway, why not "throw" the debate, too? Challenge, for example, Pennsylvania... but debate Ohio.
[Special Note]: It's also worth mentioning that the Senator who co-signed the objection, Edmund Muskie, was in fact the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Vice President in the very election he challenged, and entered the race for the Democratic nomination for president in the very next election -- 1972 -- as the frontrunner, eventually losing to George McGovern under the weight of the accusation that he was "too moderate."