Trích một phần của bài viết tựa là:"The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night — And Could Hand Trump A Second Term"
Link:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elect...b6de79b674a9d5
Tác giả là một fan của Biden. Tuy nhiên tôi post lên v́ thấy bài viết đề cập hai vấn đề khá lư thú:
1/ Vào ngày 6 tháng Giêng 2021 tại quốc hội Mỹ, chuyên ǵ sẽ xảy ra nếu có ít nhất một Dân biểu và một Thượng nghị sĩ phản đối kết quả bầu cử nghiêng về Biden tại sáu bang chiến địa: WI, MI, PA, GA, AZ, và NV? Nếu Thượng viện bỏ phiếu bác bỏ Cử tri đoàn tại một bang nào đó nhưng Hạ viện lại muốn duy tŕ th́ sao?
2/ Lực lượng hội đoàn vơ trang ủng hộ TT Trump.
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The Process
Congress has a clearly defined role in accepting the results of a presidential election. Both congressional chambers will meet on Jan. 6 in a session presided over by the President of the Senate, who at that point will remain Vice President Mike Pence. His job is to open the certifications from each state in alphabetical order, which are then read aloud by “tellers.” He will then ask whether members of Congress have any objections to the submitted slate of electors ― objections that must be made by at least one House member and one Senate member.
In general, objections aren’t made ― lawmakers are supposed to do so only if they believe a state’s submission of electors was corrupted in some way. It’s not unprecedented, however: In 2005, then-Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) and then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) objected to Ohio’s certification of electors for Bush’s reelection win over Democrat John Kerry. The House and Senate then separated to their respective chambers for two hours of debate before both voted down the objection. In both 2001 and 2017, Democrats in the House attempted to object to the submission of certain state electors, but were not joined by a senator.
If Congress is faced with multiple competing slates of electors ― such as a set certified by a Democratic governor based on a popular vote for Biden and one certified by GOP state legislators for Trump ― matters become more complicated. Near-total agreement exists that if both chambers of Congress vote in favor of one of the two competing slates, that one will be the slate accepted.
The problem emerges if the House and the Senate split on which slate to accept.
The predominant view among legal experts is that the law requires Congress to accept the electors certified by the governor. This is the interpretation affirmed in a report by the National Task Force on Election Crises, a cross-partisan ad hoc group of experts across a range of disciplines related to elections.
But there are dissenting opinions. A handful of scholars, including one writing for the Congressional Research Service, interpret the law as nullifying the electors of a state that submits competing slates if Congress cannot agree to accept one of them. Even if legally dubious, that could be enough to nullify electors of a given state if a Republican-controlled Senate adopts this interpretation.
If a divided Congress were to go down this path, two potential scenarios could result ― each with potential for chaos.
In the case where Congress nullifies the electors of a given state or multiple states, neither Trump nor Biden may meet the necessary threshold of 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. This would throw the election to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation would vote for the president.
The candidate who wins the most state delegation votes would become president. As of now, Republicans have a majority in 26 state delegations, Democrats control 22 and two ― Michigan and Pennsylvania ― are evenly divided. That would, most likely, hand the election to Trump, though the outcome of this year’s House races could change the math.
Alternately, a Democratic-controlled House could pull out of the electoral vote count after rejecting any effort by a Republican-controlled Senate to nullify a state’s electors or appoint electors for Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could declare that the chamber will only accept the electors certified by governors, based on a full vote that includes late-arriving absentee ballots.
If the Senate refuses to agree, Pelosi could then say that since Congress has not approved a White House winner, that kickstarts the 20th Amendment that details what happens when there is no president-elect. Pelosi ranks as next in line after Trump and Pence, and she could say that she would serve as acting president starting on Jan. 20, when the first term for the GOP duo expires.
All of this could be adjudicated by the Supreme Court ― which could soon hold a 6-3 conservative majority if Republicans appoint a new Trump nominee before the inauguration of a president. If not, though, it would create an existential crisis.
“That’s a genuine constitutional crisis,” Foley said. “Because if that is protracted all the way to noon on Jan. 20 ― we know President Trump’s first term ends on Jan. 20 ― and then the military needs to know who gets the nuclear codes, starting at noon, who’s the new commander in chief?”
Whether the parties end up in such a situation will be heavily influenced by the actions of Trump, as well as the demands of protesters in the street.
During the 2000 recount in Florida, Republican operatives contrived protests, including the infamous Brooks Brothers Riot, to pressure state election officials to stop counting ballots. Democrats have already said they will not cede protest activity to the GOP, as they did in 2000.
But right-wing protests that have emerged in support of Trump during his term in office don’t look like the work of astroturfing staffers dressed in the attire of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite. He has the backing of a broad network of heavily-armed militia groups (Link:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/u...-militias.html), far-right street-fighting gangs (Link:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud...b00e035b928683), white supremacists (Link:https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...t-right-214388)and a pseudo-religious cult that believes Trump is a demigod operating in secret to prevent the apocalypse (Link:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...coming/610567/).
Trump has primed these supporters to potentially reject the election results with his false statements about voter fraud and absentee voting. He also routinely celebrates violence against his opponents, casting them as subversive, alien threats to the American way of life. The Republican National Convention featured a married couple as primetime speakers solely because they pointed guns at a peaceful protest that they imagined threatened their property. The calls for violence coming from some Trump supporters, such as Stone and disgraced Health and Human Services official Michael Caputo, likely will only increase as the election draws closer.
Public pressure, including violence in the streets, could push reluctant Republicans in power to yield to Trump’s most wild demands, even if he has no legitimate case to question the election.
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Note:
Group "Oat Keepers", too (Link:https://oathkeepers.org/)