[ExI] trump

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Mar 9, 2024, 7:56 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> Adrian, my point is that the constitution predates printed ballots and
> predates political parties for the most part.  It doesn’t tell us what
> happens if states or counties leave off one qualifying party’s candidate or
> the other, or both, or some of them or all of them.  If a state or some
> counties do that, we don’t really know who won that state’s election.  If
> several states and counties do that, we could have an election in which we
> really don’t know who won.
>
No, it's pretty clear.  A given state doesn't have to have a presidential
election at all: it would be legal, if the state passed laws to this
effect, for the governor or legislature to just say who that state's
electors go to with no input from the rest of the state.  Certain states
such as Arizona have threatened to do just that.

It is the case that, currently, no state's laws allow that, and all states'
laws require that all qualifying candidates appear on the ballot.  If
Arizona's legislature pulled that after the election with Arizona's laws as
they are now, they could be prosecuted under Arizona's laws, quite probably
resulting in the elected result winning out.  This just requires some
foresight by the relevant legislature and governor, though to a degree that
the parties threatening to do this have generally not demonstrated yet.
(There are published plans for this sort of thing, but notice that despite
those plans existing, no state presently actually has those laws at this
time.  If they had the necessary foresight, they'd be passing those laws
now.)
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