Vote - Editorial, The Week in Review

Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

07.18.2020

Vote

I am starting to hear a lot of talk about Donald Trump refusing to concede the presidency when he loses the election on November 3^rd.

Do not forget to vote. Do not forget to register. Do not forget to vote.

Double check your registration status and vote.

We have to do more than that, we need a massive public education campaign, civics for all. There is process that has to play out, it is different from state to state, but every citizen should take the time to become familiar with the rules, the laws that govern your voting rights in each and every local.

Let’s not be confused, Donald Trump will lose the popular vote, and he will lose in the electoral college, and between now and then there will be a massive disinformation campaign trying to scare you into not voting, trying to convince you that your vote doesn’t matter.

Wherever republicans have the authority they will purge voter roles, close polling stations, make it more difficult to vote, our duty is to be undeterred, to insist on our rights, to cast our votes, and to have our votes counted.

Familiarize yourself with the voting rights act of 1965 which was designed to enforce the rights guaranteed in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

The Voting Rights Act was amended four times: 1970, 1975, 1982 and 1992, then it was reauthorized in 2006.

In 2013, in the case Shelby County v. Holder, the United States Supreme Court gutted key provisions of section five of the voting rights act that protected the rights of citizens from the malign intentions of states with a history of voter disenfranchisement.

Learn this history, and learn this:

The procedure for a presidential election is established in the Twelfth Amendment.

The president and vice president are elected by the electoral college. Each state has different rules for how electors are appointed and different rules for how an electoral must handle their vote. The Supreme Court recently upheld the notion that a State can bind an elector to vote in a particular way.

The Twelfth Amendment stipulates that each elector must cast distinct votes for president and vice president. Electors may not vote for presidential and vice-presidential candidates who both reside in the elector's state—at least one of them must be an inhabitant of another state.

If no candidate for president has a majority of the total votes, the House of Representatives, voting by states, chooses the president. The Twelfth Amendment requires the House to choose from the three highest receivers of electoral votes.

The Twelfth Amendment requires a person to receive a majority of the electoral votes for vice president for that person to be elected vice president by the Electoral College. If no candidate for vice president has a majority of the total votes, the Senate, with each senator having one vote, chooses the vice president.

The procedure for counting the votes of the electors is as follows:

After the nationwide presidential election, which takes place the Tuesday after the first Monday of November, each state counts its popular votes according to that state's laws to designate presidential electors. Each state's electors meet in their respective state capital on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December to cast their votes. The results are counted by Congress, where they are tabulated in the first week of January before a joint meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives, presided over by the vice president, acting as president of the Senate. If a majority of votes are not cast for a candidate, the House turns itself into a presidential election session, where one vote is assigned to each of the fifty states. The elected president and vice president are inaugurated on January 20.

There is no way to deviate from this process.

Study the law and learn what rules apply to the vote and the counting of votes and the appointment of electors in your state.

If Donald Trump tries to steal the election or attempts to ignore the Constitution he will prove once and for all what he is, and enemy of the republic, we will demand that the law be upheld and drag him before the bar of justice.