We have one more chance to defend our democracy through our institutions before Donald J. Trump assumes office. On January 6, 2017, one brave senator and one brave representative can file objections to the electoral votes from any number of states. If both the House and Senate agree, the electoral votes may be rejected. If enough of Trump’s electoral votes are rejected so that he falls below 270, a contingent election will be triggered. In a contingent election, the top 3 Presidential electoral vote-getters will be considered by the House of Representatives, while the top 2 Vice Presidential electoral vote-getters will be considered by the Senate.
Thanks to the efforts of 3 Hamilton Electors from the state of Washington, the 3rd place electoral vote getter is… Colin Powell.
That’s right: The House would choose between Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, and Donald Trump.
How many Republicans right now do you think would long for a President Powell, and not a President Trump? This could be the get-out-of-jail card they need. And Powell is legitimately someone who could lead a moderate, intelligent, unifying administration.
To get to this point, we need to have objections lodged, and those objections would have to succeed. This is not a small task, nor does it seem likely to succeed.
But try we must.
Basis for objections
I believe the following states must be objected to: North Carolina (15 EV, 3.7% margin), Wisconsin (10 EV, 0.8% margin), Michigan (16 EV, 0.2% margin), Pennsylvania (20 EV, 0.7% margin), and Florida (29 EV, 1.2% margin).
There are four global bases for these objections: 1) Unprecedented interference by the FBI to attack Clinton and defend Trump in the last days of the election, and evidence that those who decided in the last weeks broke strongly for Trump. 2) Unprecedented Russian hacking and disinformation campaign aimed at wearing down Clinton and supporting Trump. These factors together could easily have made the difference in many of these states. 3) Voting Rights Act gutted without replacement to protect voting rights in critical states. 4) All states in question scored exceptionally poorly in the Electoral Integrity Project’s evaluation—Wisconsin is the 2nd worst overall in the nation!
On a state-by-state basis, voter suppression operations, especially where they were bragged about (North Carolina, Wisconsin) or were shot down in court as targeted with “almost surgical precision” against African-American voters (North Carolina). This action would also be an excellent opportunity to make the gross gerrymandering and undemocratic power grab in North Carolina a national issue, as I discussed previously.
If you’re still unconvinced, I dare you to watch the moving statements from the 2001 Congressional Black Caucus and maintain that these issues are not worth our time and energy. We need to summon that spirit again to defend our democracy from Donald Trump!
Who will step up?
Please, call your senators and representatives and let them know that you want this to happen. But we just need one courageous soul in both chambers to meet the basic requirements.
How about it, Senator Bernie Sanders, the current leader of the progressive movement?
How about it, Senator Elizabeth Warren, our favorite progressive counter-Trump firebrand?
How about it, Senator Kamala Harris, successor to the seat of the wonderful Barbara Boxer, who led the objection to the Ohio electoral votes in 2005?
Who else will be brave in the Senate?
With one senator in hand, we just need one member of the house. Will the Congressional Black Caucus take another stand? Can we have the energy and experience that Representative John Lewis brought to us with the gun control sit-in this summer? How about the few Democratic house members from the states being objected to?
Call to action
Fellow Democrats and Americans, this is our last chance to prevent a catastrophe! Will you help our elected representatives know that we have their backs? Will you be able to say that in 10 years, you did everything you could to prevent Trump from taking power?
