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I didn't know Moore v. Harper was about legitimizing Trump-like "fake electors" in the future [1]

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Date: 2022-12-06

Will an individual vote count anymore if the Supreme Court finds for Moore?

I have been down in the weeds, trying to understand Moore v. Harper for weeks. I didn't realize what the case was about until a couple of days ago. I was reading the October 3, 2022, article written by retired federal conservative Judge Michael J. Luttig in The Atlantic, “There is Absolutely Nothing to Support the ‘Independent State Legislature’ Theory,” when I read the second paragraph:

“The independent-state-legislature theory gained traction as the centerpiece of President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In the Supreme Court, allies of the former president argued that the theory, as applied to the elector's clause, enabled the state legislatures to appoint electors who would cast their votes for the former president, even though the lawfully certified electors were bound by state law to cast their vote for Joe Biden because he won the popular vote in those states. The Supreme Court declined to decide the question in December 2020. The former president and his allies continued thereafter to urge the state legislatures, and even self-appointed Trump supporters, to transmit to Congress alternative, uncertified electoral slates to be counted by Congress on January 6.”

It seems that if the Supreme Court gives a win to the state legislature of North Carolina, as represented by Moore, then in the future, each state could, if they chose, ignore the popular vote of their state and send electors to the Electoral Vote Count on January 6. For example, say Biden and Trump were to run again in 2024. If the Supreme Court sides with Moore, then even if Biden ran and won by the popular vote in Pennsylvania in 2024, a Maga Pennsylvania state legislatures could ignore Biden’s popular vote win and send electors saying Trump won. And their doing so would be legal.

This would upend voting in the United States. No longer will a popular vote determine who is president. The state legislatures would choose who the president was. Red states send red electors, and blue states send blue electors. Why would there be any presidential election anymore? The crucial elections would be those of state legislators, for they choose the president and not the individual voters.

Does democracy still exist because the people in each state vote for the state legislators who would choose the president? No. In many states, the voting maps are so gerrymandered by the state legislators that only red voters can vote. For example, in some red states, black voters are gerrymandered out of voting. If red state legislatures can gerrymander the map so that Democratic voters can't vote, then the states would always be red. If there were enough red state legislatures every four years because of gerrymandered voting maps, then every four years, there would be a red president, no matter the will of the ordinary people.

As it stands now, red state legislatures have the upper hand and in the near future because while Democrats have concentrated on passing policy that helps ordinary citizens, Republicans have been busy capturing state legislatures. This capture is explained in David Pepper's 2021 book, Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-up Call from Behind the Lines. If Moore wins, state legislatures will be sovereign and unreviewable in regard to federal elections. No one will be able to check or review their state gerrymandering or state electors, not the Supreme Court, not a federal judge, not a state supreme court judge, not a state constitution, nadie and nada, no one and nothing, can overrule anything they do about federal elections.

A Moore win, then, is the icing on the cake for Republicans and autocracy.

Moore v. Harper, Oral Arguments, December 7, 10 am, Listen here.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/6/2075777/-I-didn-t-know-Moore-v-Harper-was-about-legitimizing-Trump-like-fake-electors-in-the-future

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