Post by the Scribe on Dec 29, 2020 10:33:11 GMT
Trump appears to back plan to overturn election result in Congress amid more false claims of fraud
www.yahoo.com/news/trump-appears-back-plan-overturn-134929024.htmlPhil Thomas
Sat, December 26, 2020, 6:49 AM MST
President Trump, pictured with 3rd Lady Melania, spent Christmas Day playing golf (EPA-EFE)
Donald Trump appeared to back the idea of trying to overturn the election result in Congress on 6 January in a series of tweets on Saturday morning in which he once again made unfounded claims of electoral fraud.
A joint session of House and Senate politicians will meet on 6 January to count the electoral votes, which gave a 306 to 232 victory to Joe Biden.
In what is usually a rubber-stamping exercise, sealed certificates submitted by each state are opened by the vice president, who oversees the process. However, if there are written objections from members of both the House and Senate, a vote by both chambers can be triggered.
Several Republican congressmen have said they will object. Incoming Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has suggested he might, despite GOP leader Mitch McConnell telling his party members not to.
On Saturday morning, Mr Trump tweeted: “The ‘Justice’ Department and the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation's history, despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.”
The tweet was immediately tagged with the phrase “This claim about election fraud is disputed” by Twitter.
More follows …
Pro-Trump Pollster Quotes Stalin To Persuade Mike Pence To Act Like Him
www.yahoo.com/huffpost/rasmussen-josef-stalin-pence-vote-steal-022451762.html
Mary Papenfuss·Trends Reporter, HuffPost
GOP-leaning pollster Rasmussen Reports cited Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to encourage Vice President Mike Pence to arbitrarily overturn the results of America’s democratic presidential election.
Rasmussen’s four-part Twitter thread on Sunday laid out steps for Pence to steal the election on Jan. 6, when Congress is supposed to certify the Electoral College vote naming Joe Biden the U.S. president-elect.
The thread quotes Stalin as saying, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything.” It then implies that U.S. states somehow manipulated the election results (there is absolutely no evidence to support this) and that there’s “nothing stopping” the vice president from “declining to open and count the certificates from the six disputed states,” referring to certain battleground states that voted for Biden.
It’s uncertain if Stalin actually said the words Rasmussen attributes to him, according to historians. But being a dictator is definitely something Stalin knew.
In that vein, Rasmussen asks why Pence should count electoral votes from “contested states” when that the “Presidency will be in his hands.”
By not counting those votes and arbitrarily disenfranchising millions of American voters, Pence could hand the majority of the remaining electoral votes to Trump, Rasmussen claims, making him the winner of the election.
Yet legal experts say Pence has no power to actually do this, and that Rasmussen’s strategy is based on a misunderstanding of the law. Pence has the right to call on states to submit their electoral votes if they haven’t done so by late December, according to The Washington Post, but he does not have the power to reject any of the votes.
“The vice president is not supposed to control the outcome of the process for counting the electoral votes from the states,” according to both the Constitution as well as the Electoral Count Act, Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley told The Hill. “The vice president chairs the joint session, but does not decide what electoral votes to count.”
Another Twitter user also pointed out the flaws in Rasmussen’s logic, citing the Constitution.
Mon, December 28, 2020, 7:24 PM MST
North Carolina attorney T. Greg Doucette, who fields questions about the vote on Twitter, tweeted that Pence “opens the envelopes” with the electoral votes, “gives them to the teller, the teller counts.” Electoral votes can only be struck by a majority of both the House and the Senate, he noted.
Pence could “theoretically” pause the process by refusing to open the envelopes, but counting would resume when he leaves office Jan. 20, according to Doucette.
As for Pence himself, the vice president’s aides told the Post last week that he’s not looking for any “unnecessary drama” on Jan. 6.
www.yahoo.com/news/trump-appears-back-plan-overturn-134929024.htmlPhil Thomas
Sat, December 26, 2020, 6:49 AM MST
President Trump, pictured with 3rd Lady Melania, spent Christmas Day playing golf (EPA-EFE)
Donald Trump appeared to back the idea of trying to overturn the election result in Congress on 6 January in a series of tweets on Saturday morning in which he once again made unfounded claims of electoral fraud.
A joint session of House and Senate politicians will meet on 6 January to count the electoral votes, which gave a 306 to 232 victory to Joe Biden.
In what is usually a rubber-stamping exercise, sealed certificates submitted by each state are opened by the vice president, who oversees the process. However, if there are written objections from members of both the House and Senate, a vote by both chambers can be triggered.
Several Republican congressmen have said they will object. Incoming Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has suggested he might, despite GOP leader Mitch McConnell telling his party members not to.
On Saturday morning, Mr Trump tweeted: “The ‘Justice’ Department and the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation's history, despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.”
The tweet was immediately tagged with the phrase “This claim about election fraud is disputed” by Twitter.
More follows …
Pro-Trump Pollster Quotes Stalin To Persuade Mike Pence To Act Like Him
www.yahoo.com/huffpost/rasmussen-josef-stalin-pence-vote-steal-022451762.html
Mary Papenfuss·Trends Reporter, HuffPost
GOP-leaning pollster Rasmussen Reports cited Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to encourage Vice President Mike Pence to arbitrarily overturn the results of America’s democratic presidential election.
Rasmussen’s four-part Twitter thread on Sunday laid out steps for Pence to steal the election on Jan. 6, when Congress is supposed to certify the Electoral College vote naming Joe Biden the U.S. president-elect.
The thread quotes Stalin as saying, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything.” It then implies that U.S. states somehow manipulated the election results (there is absolutely no evidence to support this) and that there’s “nothing stopping” the vice president from “declining to open and count the certificates from the six disputed states,” referring to certain battleground states that voted for Biden.
It’s uncertain if Stalin actually said the words Rasmussen attributes to him, according to historians. But being a dictator is definitely something Stalin knew.
In that vein, Rasmussen asks why Pence should count electoral votes from “contested states” when that the “Presidency will be in his hands.”
By not counting those votes and arbitrarily disenfranchising millions of American voters, Pence could hand the majority of the remaining electoral votes to Trump, Rasmussen claims, making him the winner of the election.
Yet legal experts say Pence has no power to actually do this, and that Rasmussen’s strategy is based on a misunderstanding of the law. Pence has the right to call on states to submit their electoral votes if they haven’t done so by late December, according to The Washington Post, but he does not have the power to reject any of the votes.
“The vice president is not supposed to control the outcome of the process for counting the electoral votes from the states,” according to both the Constitution as well as the Electoral Count Act, Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley told The Hill. “The vice president chairs the joint session, but does not decide what electoral votes to count.”
Another Twitter user also pointed out the flaws in Rasmussen’s logic, citing the Constitution.
Mon, December 28, 2020, 7:24 PM MST
North Carolina attorney T. Greg Doucette, who fields questions about the vote on Twitter, tweeted that Pence “opens the envelopes” with the electoral votes, “gives them to the teller, the teller counts.” Electoral votes can only be struck by a majority of both the House and the Senate, he noted.
Pence could “theoretically” pause the process by refusing to open the envelopes, but counting would resume when he leaves office Jan. 20, according to Doucette.
As for Pence himself, the vice president’s aides told the Post last week that he’s not looking for any “unnecessary drama” on Jan. 6.