A potential plan by Republican leaders to steal the 2024 presidential election. The plan involves delaying the certification of election results in key battleground states, potentially decreasing the overall number of electors appointed and allowing Donald Trump to win the presidency through a contingent election, whereby the House of Representatives, not the Electoral College, determines the president.
The Constitution only grants the President the power to pardon federal crimes. I found a nice article with the history and status of the cases against the bad actors in the last attempt here: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/where-the-fake-electors-cases-stand-in-state-court
Meeting the federal deadline for state-level certification in almost every state is considered a ministerial duty. That means that it would only involve civil or administrative penalties, i.e., a light slap on the wrist at best. For criminal conduct, it would need to be elevated to obstruction of federal elections. This would be a federal crime and therefore pardonable.
Thanks for the link, but the plan The Nation outlined doesn’t require fake electors or fraudulent documents. The only potential misdeed here is simply a failure to meet a federal deadline. It’s related to the previous attempt insofar as it’s an attempt to undermine American democracy, but this current plan is much more sound, involves much less legal culpability on the part of anyone involved, and generally appears to be constitutionally valid. Which is to say, the Republicans learned. The Democrats did not.
The bottom line is, overthrowing democracy is either a meaningless administrative infraction or a federal crime that will be pardoned. See the problem?
Yes, good points. I posted the comment originally because it is alarming.