Last Updated on October 23, 2024
The United States Constitution gives every state legislature the power to award its electors in each of the fifty federal election contests for President of the United States.
The U.S. Constitution vests in the State legislatures – and only the legislatures – the power and the duty to select the members of the Electoral College, according to Article II, Section 1, clause 2.
Article II, Sec. 1, Clause 2 reads as follows:
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: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
During the contested 2000 Bush vs. Gore election dispute in Florida, George W. Bush’s attorneys highlighted the constitutional legal precedent that provides the rationale North Carolina’s Republican legislature needs to deliver that state’s electors to Donald Trump this November.
The legal precedent for the legislature to appoint a state’s electors was reported on by Ronald Brownstein during Florida’s contested ‘Hanging Chad’ election in the year 2000, and it establishes the legal argument needed to salvage North Carolina’s Electors for Donald Trump in the wake of the devastating fallout from Hurricane Helene.
According to Bush’s attorneys, the legislature in a state such as North Carolina could convene immediately in order to respond to the fallout caused by Hurricane Helene’s devastation, which affected 25 counties in western North Carolina, and arguably irreparably harmed the administration of a free, fair election.
The precedent is not just a theory.
Crucially, the legal precedent for legislatures to appoint presidential electors in the administration of a federal presidential election has been legally applied in practice at various times throughout United States history.
With the devastation caused by Helene, the chances for the administration of a fair election to be carried out in the Tar Heel state are more tenuous than they’ve ever been.
Republicans, staring down the barrel of another four years of a Biden-Harris-Obama-led executive branch, cannot afford to lose the sixteen electoral votes the Tar Heel state carries.
Adding insult to an already tragic situation, many observers have pointed to the slow response by the Biden-Harris administration, led by Mayorkas’s DHS, which has proven incompetent in rendering humanitarian aid in western North Carolina.
Trump won North Carolina in 2020 by a slim margin, winning less than half the vote — just 49.93% to Biden’s 48.59. That’s a margin of only 1.34%, which represented only 74,483 votes.
Four years later, unfettered illegal invasion into Mecklenburg, Guilford, Durham, Forsyth, and Wake Counties assisted by Democrat Governor Roy Cooper and Democrat Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, makes Republicans’ position look even weaker.
A natural disaster on the scale of Helene wreaking havoc in Republican heavy western North Carolina just a month before the election makes North Carolina an even bigger question mark for Republicans.
While the Republican legislature in Raleigh is facing dozens of hurricane-related challenges — many of them quite urgent — the proper administration of the election is absolutely among them.
Early voting in North Carolina began during September. Questions about the security of those ballots already cast — and the accuracy of their count — are sure to be raised.
Tens of thousands of ballots — both cast and empty — are floating around in the wake of the flood, a fact that is sure to cast North Carolina’s vote tally into dispute.
In 2000, Florida’s legislature was warming up to cancel the results of Florida’s deeply flawed and disputed popular election and directly appoint all of Florida’s Electoral College votes to George Bush.
Just as Florida’s legislative leaders relied on Constitutional precedent and Case Law to make the case that the hanging chad situation was untenable, and that Tallahassee’s legislators needed to intervene, so too can North Carolina’s legislators intervene in an election whose results may never be able to be accurately tallied.
THE CONSTITUTION GIVES POWER TO LEGISLATURES TO CHOOSE ELECTORS
The U.S. Constitution invests in the State legislatures – and only the legislatures – the power and the duty to select the members of the Electoral College, according to Article II, Section 1, clause 2.
The selection of the next President of the United States is a function of the State Legislatures and the Federal Congress.
The State legislatures participate only because the U.S. Constitution delegates that Federal power to them – not to the Governor, not to election officials, not to courts.
Therefore, North Carolina’s legislature has the power to convene itself because it is performing a Federal function for the selection of the next U.S. President.
No involvement by the Governor is required or welcome.
National File reported the basics on electoral votes and Constitutional law on Twitter/X.com.
THREAD:
Save North Carolina, Save the World.
North Carolina is in danger of going to Kamala Harris.
Here’s how NC’s GOP Legislature can SAVE NORTH CAROLINA!https://t.co/Rt73bm6K35 pic.twitter.com/tQK3Avx3Cx
— National File (@NationalFile) October 8, 2024
COURT IS ADJOURNED: LEGISLATURES HAVE POWER TO DIRECT STATE’S ELECTORS
North Carolina’s Republican legislature, just as Florida’s did in the contested 2020 election, has the power to prepare to disregard an impossibly flawed popular election and directly appoint the state’s electors to the Electoral College.
The legislature even has the power to directly appoint the Electoral College members, which States have done many times throughout U.S. history.
In the court case McPherson v. Blacker, the Court noted that in the second U.S. presidential election, nine of the fifteen state legislatures chose the electors to the Electoral College.
In the third presidential election, nine of the United States chose once again to appoint the electors.
The Wall Street Journal reported this clear fact during the 2000 contested election.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Alito explained in a footnote in a case in 2013:
“As late as 1824, six State Legislatures chose Electoral College delegates, and South Carolina continued to follow this model through the 1860 election. 1 Guide to U.S. Elections 821 (6th ed. 2010).
Legislatures in Florida in 1868 and Colorado in 1876 chose delegates, id., at 822, and in recent memory, the Florida Legislature in 2000 convened a special session to consider how to allocate its 25 electoral votes if the winner of the popular vote was not determined in time for delegates to participate in the Electoral College, see James, Election 2000: Florida Legislature Faces Own Disputes over Electors, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 11, 2000, p. A16, though it ultimately took no action. (See “Florida’s Senate Adjourns Without Naming Electors, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 15, 2000, p. A6.”)
Vote Alternative explains Lyman v. Baker.
The phrase “appointment power” refers directly to the legislature’s ability to appoint electors.
The case is clear, and it is closed. It is a factual statement that each of the United States has the ability to appoint their own electors.
FLORIDA’S 2000 PAST AS NOVEMBER 2024 PROLOGUE
In 2000, Florida’s legislature was warming up to cancel the results of Florida’s deeply flawed and disputed popular election and directly appoint all of Florida’s Electoral College votes to George Bush.
The LA Times covered the development in an article titled “Florida Lawmakers Cite Broad Power to Award Electors to Bush,” published on November 28 of that year.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Amid rising partisan tensions, the Republican majority in the Florida Legislature moved closer Monday toward an unprecedented effort to directly award the state’s 25 electoral votes to George W. Bush. In legal papers filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Legislature asserted broad authority to allocate Florida’s electoral votes even if the state courts order further recounts of presidential ballots that could give the lead to Democrat Al Gore.
“A state legislature has the authority under the Constitution to appoint the state’s electors, regardless of the status of the popular vote, and particularly when a state hasn’t made a decision by the safe harbor deadline. A state legislature could decide that election results, still in dispute, are unlawful and select their own electors. In 2000, Florida’s Republican- majority Legislature voted to select a slate of electors backing George W. Bush, even as the courts were still handling the recounts.”
The author, Ronald Brownstein, is a senior editor at The Atlantic and a senior political analyst for CNN.
Back in 2000, Florida’s Speaker of the House Tom Feeney, together with the Sunshine State’s Senate President John McKay, both of whom were close associates with Jeb Bush, indicated that a special legislative committee meeting would examine Tallahassee’s authority to appoint Florida’s own slate of electors.
“If this controversy is . . . unresolved by Dec. 12, the Legislature has the authority and may have the responsibility to step in,” said Sen. McKay, of Tampa.
Feeney, the House Speaker in Tallahassee, used even stronger language.
Feeney, who had previously served as Jeb Bush’s running mate in his unsuccessful 1994 gubernatorial bid– asserted firmly that the state’s Supreme Court had usurped the authority of the Legislature by allowing counties to conduct manual recounts of the infamous hanging chads.
Feeney made it clear in no uncertain terms that Florida’s Legislature had the ability to name its own electors if the state courts didn’t manage to shut down Gore’s challenge to Secretary of State Katherine Harris’ certification of George W. Bush as the official winner in the state in a timely manner.
While no state legislature has ever voted to authorize a slate of electors to compete with those chosen in a popular vote, it is widely held that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Gore for the express purpose of avoiding just such a challenge.
Nonetheless, both the Florida Senate and House aggressively claimed the constitutional power to do just that in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
A FLOOD OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS
If the legislature cannot find the fortitude to intervene and direct the electors, North Carolina’s legislature could extend deadlines for figuring out what happened in the election until December 6, 2024.
The deadline for the State to report who are the Electoral College members is December 11.
There are no real consequences should the legislature miss that deadline.
However, North Carolina’s actual votes are due December 17, 2024, according to law, which is a “hard” deadline.
