12.19.2016; Hillary Wins !!!..”So You’re Telling Me There’s Still a Chance….”
| Washington Post | – |
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The Final Lap to the White HouseNew York Times
At 1 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 6, members of the House and Senate will meet in the House chamber to count the electors’ votes. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as the departing president of the Senate, is expected to preside over the count, during which every state’s vote is opened and announced in alphabetical order. Mr. Biden will then declare the winner based on who has a majority of votes: at least 270.
Lawmakers can then challenge either individual electoral votes or state results as a whole. If an elector has chosen to vote against state results, this is the moment when lawmakers can petition to throw that vote out. Objections must be in writing and signed by at least one member of the House and one member of the Senate.
If there are any objections, the House and Senate will immediately split up to consider them and will have two hours to decide whether they support the objection or not. Both chambers will then reconvene and share their decisions; if both the House and Senate agree with the objection, they will throw out the votes in question. But Congress has never sustained an objection to an electoral vote.
After any objections have been resolved, the results are considered final. The next step is to swear in the winner on Jan. 20.
Live Updating:Electoral College vote: Live updates on state-by-state voting—
| New York Times | – |
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Let’s be clear, this article is top front page left, on the NYtimes Sunday edition, the most read newspaper in the world…..and not by accident..one day before they’ve primed the pump for mass confusion and chaos less than one week before xmas..
Who counts the electoral votes?
On Friday, Jan. 6, at 1 p.m., members of the House and Senate will meet in the House chamber to count those votes. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as the departing president of the Senate, is expected to preside over the count, during which every state’s vote is opened and announced in alphabetical order.
Mr. Biden will then declare the winner based on who has the majority of votes — at least 270. (That has led, three times, to an awkward moment when the sitting vice president has announced his own defeat, according to the House historian’s office. That happened most recently in 2001, to Al Gore.)
Electors will meet in their respective states, typically at the Capitol, where they will cast two votes: one for president and one for vice president.
They will then prepare what is called a “certificate of vote” with the results, which is then mailed or delivered via courier to the National Archives, where it becomes part of the nation’s official records, and to Congress.
Do electors have to vote according to popular vote results in their states?
Not necessarily. At least one elector has said he will buck his party and not vote for Mr. Trump. Nothing in the Constitution, nor in federal law, binds electors to vote a particular way. There are some state laws that bind them to vote according to the popular vote outcome in that state; others are bound by more informal pledges to their party.
Under some state laws, so-called “faithless electors” who vote against their party may be fined or even disqualified and replaced. No elector has been prosecuted for doing so, but then again, almost every elector has voted with their party’s results in the past. The Supreme Court has not weighed in on whether pledges and the related penalties are constitutional.
TABU; Towards A Better Understanding 