by KrisAnne Hall, JD
• No President has ever been elected in November.
• The Popular Vote does not elect a President, the vote of the Electoral College elects a President.
• The date to count the Electoral College vote is set by law as January 6 and cannot be delayed without passing a new law.
• It is legally and constitutionally impermissible to have a delay in announcing the winner in the Presidential race.
• Nancy Pelosi cannot legally or constitutionally be “acting” President due to a delay caused by counting votes.
Fake News Alert! It is a deliberate false narrative that the Speaker of the House would be appointed as acting president if the popular votes are not all counted by January 20, 2021. This narrative is derived from a false conflating of the Twentieth and Twenty Fifth Amendments. The fact checkers ought to be telling Americans that by law, there is no way a delay in counting the popular vote can create a delay in electing the president and no way Nancy Pelosi can legally be appointed as “acting” president until a popular vote count dispute is resolved.
The false narrative that invokes the Twenty Fifth Amendment’s “line of succession” ignores the language that indicates that the line of succession applies to vacancies in the presidency from the president’s death, disability, resignation or removal from office; it does not apply to a delay in counting popular votes nor from a normal expiration of a term of office.
The first thing that an honest fact checker would point out is that no president has ever been elected in November as a result of a popular vote count. As a matter of law, U.S. Presidents are elected on January 6 of every year (unless this date is changed prior to January 6 by passing of law), when the Senate President counts the electoral votes not the popular vote (3 U.S.C. §15). Popular vote is not used to directly elect a President, therefore having an accurate and complete popular vote count is not a factor in delaying the January election.
The next thing your fact checker would have to tell you is that the deadline for counting elector votes is set by law, therefore a delay is not legally permissible. On the contrary, federal laws were established to avoid a repetition of the extraordinary delay incident to the electoral vote controversy surrounding the 1876 presidential election.
Here is how it works according to the Constitution and according to the law:
After the electors have voted in each state, they make and sign six certificates, seal those certificates, and certify that these are all of the votes for President and Vice President. Those certificates are then sent to the President of the Senate, and the Secretary of State of their State.
Should there be delays or failures of state electors to submit electoral votes to Congress, there is no need to wonder, create, or invent a procedure, there is established precedent that guides us. Federal law establishes that if no certificates of votes or lists have been received by the President of the Senate or the Archivist from electors by the fourth Wednesday in December, then the President of the Senate is directed by law to request the State’s Secretary of State to immediately forward the certificates (3 U.S.C. §§12,13).[2] The States whose electoral votes are missing are sent a collection notice from the Senate President warning that their electoral votes are due immediately. The process, along with specific deadlines for counting electoral votes submitted and disregarding electoral votes not submitted, is well established by historical precedent, federal law, and the Constitution. Cont’d…..
>>> read the rest Here on KrisAnne’s website
(KrisAnne’s documents her assessment with statute references.)
Reprinted with permissions.
See: https://krisannehall.com/index.php/resources/articles/699-who-will-be-president-january-2021
