The realistic nightmare scenario

Which brings us to Brownstein’s vision board of constitutional torment:

“A worst-case scenario: A state with a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature could submit competing slates of electors for the final vote. That’s hypothetically possible in the three key Rust Belt battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as North Carolina…If this were to happen, Congress—specifically the new Congress chosen in the November election—would decide on January 6 which electors to accept, using the procedures laid out in the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The problem now? The counting act is a mess—“just a morass of convoluted verbiage from the 19th century,” says Edward B. Foley, an election-law expert at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.”

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The Count Act! Oh goody.

When I asked Brownstein about this he said, “the most common reading gives Democrats the high ground because if the house/senate disagree on which electors to seat the tie goes to the slate chosen by the governor which would be the Democrat in PA/NC (though not FL/AZ). That theoretically could be disputed and taken to a Trumpified SCOTUS. But if there’s a standoff on which electors to accept, most believe Pelosi eventually becomes president.”

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