[ Despite all of Trump’s machinations, it is extremely unlikely
he can find a way to stay in power or stage a coup. Here’s an
explanation of why.] [[link removed]]

CAN TRUMP ACTUALLY STAGE A COUP AND STAY IN OFFICE FOR A SECOND TERM?
 
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Sam Levine
November 11, 2020
The Guardian
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_ Despite all of Trump’s machinations, it is extremely unlikely he
can find a way to stay in power or stage a coup. Here’s an
explanation of why. _

Donald Trump participates in a Veterans Day observance at Arlington
national cemetery in Virginia on November 11., Photograph: Patrick
Semansky/AP

 

TRUMP REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE BIDEN’S WIN, BUT EXPERTS SAY THERE
ISN’T A CONSTITUTIONAL PATH FORWARD FOR HIM TO REMAIN PRESIDENT

Joe Biden won the presidential election, a fact that Donald Trump
[[link removed]] and other
Republicans refuse to acknowledge.

There are worries the president and other Republicans will make every
effort to stay in power. “There will be a smooth transition to a
second Trump administration,” Mike Pompeo, the secretary of
state, said on Tuesday
[[link removed]].
William Barr, the attorney general, has also authorized federal
prosecutors
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begin to investigate election irregularities, a move that prompted the
head of the justice department’s election crimes unit to step down
from his position and move to another role.

Despite all of Trump’s machinations, it is extremely unlikely he can
find a way to stay in power or stage a coup. Here’s an explanation
of why:

DONALD TRUMP REFUSES TO ACCEPT THAT JOE BIDEN WON THE PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION. IS THERE A CONSTITUTIONAL PATH FOR HIM TO STAGE A COUP AND
STAY IN OFFICE FOR ANOTHER TERM?

Not really. The electoral college
[[link removed]] meets
on 14 December 
[[link removed]]to
cast its vote for president and nearly every state uses the statewide
popular vote to allocate its electors. Biden is projected to win far
more than the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president. His
victory doesn’t hinge on one state and he has likely insurmountable
leads in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona.

There is a long-shot legal theory, floated by Republicans
[[link removed]] before
the election, that Republican-friendly legislatures in places such as
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania could ignore the popular vote in
their states and appoint their own electors. Federal law allows
legislatures to do this if states have “failed to make a choice
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by the day the electoral college meets. But there is no evidence of
systemic fraud of wrongdoing in any state and Biden’s commanding
margins in these places make it clear that the states have in fact
made a choice.

“If the country continues to follow the rule of law, I see no
plausible constitutional path forward for Trump to remain as president
barring new evidence of some massive failure of the election system in
multiple states,” Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University
of California, Irvine, who specializes in elections, wrote in an
email. “It would be a naked, antidemocratic power grab to try to use
state legislatures to get around the voters’ choice and I don’t
expect it to happen.”

For lawmakers in a single state to choose to override the clear will
of its voters this way would be extraordinary and probably cause a
huge outcry. For Trump to win the electoral college, several states
would have to take this extraordinary step, a move that would cause
extreme backlash and a real crisis of democracy throughout the
country.

“There’s a strange fascination with various imagined dark
scenarios, perhaps involving renegade state legislatures, but this is
more dystopian fiction than anything likely to happen,” said Richard
Pildes, a law professor at New York University. “The irony, or
tragedy, is that we managed to conduct an extremely smooth election,
with record turnout, under exceptionally difficult circumstances –
and yet, a significant portion of the president’s supporters are now
convinced that the process was flawed.”

[A live broadcast of President Donald Trump speaking from the White
House is shown on screens at an election-night party, Tuesday, Nov. 3,
2020, in Las Vegas.]
[[link removed]]

 A live broadcast of Donald Trump speaking from the White House is
shown on screens at an election night party in Las Vegas on 3
November. Photograph: John Locher/AP

IS THERE ANY INDICATION REPUBLICANS IN THESE IMPORTANT STATES ARE
GOING TO GO ALONG WITH THIS?

Shortly after election day, Jake Corman, the top Republican in the
Pennsylvania state senate, indicated his party would “follow the law
[[link removed]]”
in Pennsylvania, which requires awarding electors to the winner of the
popular vote. In an October op-ed
[[link removed]], Corman
said the state legislature “does not have and will not have a hand
in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the
outcome of the presidential election”.

But on Tuesday, Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature
[[link removed]] said
they wanted to investigate allegations of voter fraud. There’s no
evidence of widespread malfeasance in the state, but the move is
alarming because it could be the beginning of an effort to undermine
the popular vote results in the state. The Republican-led legislature
[[link removed]] in
Michigan is also investigating the election, as are Republicans in
Wisconsin
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There’s no evidence of widespread wrongdoing in either place.

IS THIS RELATED IN ANY WAY TO THE LAWSUITS TRUMP IS FILING?

Trump’s campaign has filed
[[link removed]] a
slew of legally dubious
[[link removed]] suits
since election day. The purpose of these suits appears not to be to
actually overturn the election results, but to try and create
uncertainty and draw out the counting process.

Each state has its own deadlines for certifying election results that
are then used to allocate its electoral college votes. In at least two
states, Pennsylvania
[[link removed]] and Michigan
[[link removed]],
Trump’s campaign is seeking to block officials from certifying
results.

That certification timeline is important because federal law says that
as long as election results are finalized by 8 December this year, the
result is “conclusive”. That provides a safeguard against
Congress, which is responsible for counting the electoral college
votes, from second-guessing election results. By dragging out the
process, the Trump campaign may be seeking to blow past that deadline
and create more wiggle room to second-guess the results.

Even if that is the Trump campaign’s hope, courts are unlikely to
step in, Pildes said.

“States are going to start certifying their vote totals beginning in
less than 10 days, and there is no basis in the claims made thus far
for the courts to stop that process,” he said.

SAY THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO COMES TO FRUITION AND REPUBLICAN-LED
LEGISLATURES OVERRIDE THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE IN SEVERAL STATES. IS
THERE ANY SAFEGUARD TO STOP TRUMP?

Yes. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada all have Democratic
governors who would refuse to approve a set of Trump electors with the
popular vote clearly showing Biden winning their state. Instead, they
would submit the electors Biden is entitled to as the winner of the
popular vote.

It would then fall to Congress, which is charged with counting the
votes from the electoral college, to decide what to do. The law that
outlines the process for how Congress should handle a dispute in
electors from a state is extremely confusing
[[link removed]],
but experts believe the slate backed by a state’s governor is
the legally sound one
[[link removed]].
There is a rival theory that the president of the Senate, Mike Pence,
could have control over the process. A dispute over electors between
the US House and Senate is a worst-case scenario and the US supreme
court would probably be asked to step in.

Regardless of however long a dispute is, the constitution does set one
final deadline. Even if counting is ongoing, the president and
vice-president’s terms both end at noon on January20. At that point
if there isn’t a final result in the race, the speaker of the House
– probably Nancy Pelosi – would become the acting president.

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