Attention doomers: No, Trump cannot use state legislators/faithless electors to steal election

[Ferguson97]

Please actually look into state laws before you go spreading baseless conspiracies.

In order for Trump to actually do this, there would have to be a state with the following things:

• Won by Biden.
• Has a Republican legislature.
• Has no faithless elector laws.

The only states with all three are... Wisconsin and Georgia. And Wisconsin has the state party's choose who the electors are. Obviously the Wisconsin Democrats would only pic someone they know they can trust. And even if by some massive malpractice they chose 10 people who all flipped to Trump... it wouldn't be enough to give Trump the election. Similarly, Georgia has a state law that has the state party committee select the electors.

Other states with no faithless elector laws: Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, Wyoming, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

Of those states that Biden won, all of them have Democratic legislatures.

Of the states Biden won that do have republican legislatures: Arizona and Michigan - have laws on the books that cancel the vote and replace the elector. Michigan has a Democratic Governor and would veto any nonsensical law that the Michigan legislature passes. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin also have Democratic Governors, who would veto any nonsense.

And in Pennsylvania, Biden himself chooses who the electors are.

Arizona has a Republican legislature and Governor, but has a faithless elector law.

So in the absolute worse case scenario where the Georgia and Wisconsin Democrats incompetently select electors who ALL flip to Trump... those 26 electoral votes would not be enough to flip the election. Biden wins with 280 electoral votes.

So sorry Trump supporters and doomers, it's not happening.

Sources:
https://www.fairvote.org/faithless_elector_state_laws
https://electoralvotemap.com/how-are-electors-chosen/

[Ferguson97]

Are there actually people claiming Trump will get DEMOCRATIC electors to vote for him?

There are not enough Republicans to do it on their own.

[Ferguson97]

Not sure how "correct this is", but the argument I've read seems to think that the R state legislatures (and only the state legislatures) would be the only thing that matters.

The modus operandi went something like this according to a video I saw:

1) Base yourelf on this part of the US constitution

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress

2) Interpret that as literally only the state legislature

3) The R controlled state legislatures pass resolutions claiming that the election was rigged by Democrats and that no electors may be appointed (or alternatively, that Republican electors are appointed)

4) When this inevitably ends up in court, the conservative SC rules in favour of the state legislatures

5) Trump wins with a map comparable to the current statem legislature control map (without governors; which basically means WI/MI/PA/GA/AZ flipping to Trump); or the election goes to the House which then elects Trump

Do I think that is likely to happen? No, I am 99.9% sure it won't happen. But this is the method I think would be used if the election was to be stolen (which like I said I saw on some internet video so it is probably an inaccurate interpretation of the constitution and what not)

Even if 1-4 happen, they would almost certainly say it cannot retroactively apply to 2020. It would only work for 2024 and beyond.