A few minutes ago, top Trump advisor (and former chief strategist) Stephen Bannon on his podcast The War Room, announced today that Republicans would take over the election: “We control the courts.” He added, “we control the state legislatures.” Bannon said about state legislators, “They actually can pick the electors.” This is, of course, blatantly illegal. State laws require voters, not legislators, to decide the winner of the election.
Back in 2000, as I noted in The Nation, Republicans planned to steal the election in exactly that manner in the Florida legislature before the Republicans on the US Supreme Court stopped the vote counting to hand the presidency to George W. Bush.
It is true that state legislatures have enormous authority to control how electors are chosen (which is why Nebraska and Maine are not winner-take-all states). But they have to exercise that authority before the election takes place, as they have by passing laws that declare that the winner is the candidate who receives the most votes.
Bannon also argued for firing Fauci and many other federal civil service employees: “I’d put the heads on pikes as a warning to federal bureaucrats.” Bannon’s sidekick Jack Maxey then celebrated the anniversary of two Tories being murdered during the American Revolution: “These people were hung. That’s what we used to do to traitors.”
Bannon falsely claimed that the votes being counted now are “votes generated in the post office.” He added about Democrats “They got the printing press going” and “They can print all day long.”
Even if the votes are certified by election officials to show the victory of Joe Biden, as it appears to be overwhelmingly likely, Bannon said that the confusion created by state legislatures overruling the election would be enough to prevent a certification of the electors: “That’s okay, take it to the House of Representatives.” In that case, because the vote would be according to each state delegation, Bannon said, “We win.” This is the Republican plan to steal the election.
Bannon declared, “Embrace the fact that we’ve already won. Just act like it.”
Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani on the Glenn Beck Show a few moments ago was talking about votes in Pennsylvania, “The ones we’re not able to observe we want thrown out.” Giuliani called it “a nationwide plan of the Democratic Party to make sure that Democrats only inspected them.”
The lunatic fringe of the Republican Party may not be the majority, but it has the ear of the lunatic-in-chief in the White House. We need to make sure that Republican leaders are asked about these crazy theories to have state legislatures overrule the results of the election, and ensure that they are committed to only accepting all the votes of the people to choose the next President of the United States, who is almost certain to be Joe Biden.