What happens when evidence proves this election was illegit?

[SHRED]

That's what I want to know.
Does the SCOTUS appointment(s) stand?

[tonyt53]

1. As with the 2000 election - some media groups paid for a statewide recount in FL. Gore won.

Gore won by about 38K votes. Bush had already been sworn in, so he was prez. Our constitution has no mechanism to remove the prez under such circumstances. Nothing changes. People should have thought long and hard about a trump presidency before they voted 3rd party.

[SHRED]

2. I'm talking if Russia is involved to that degree

[delisen]

11. If Russia was the decider, Dems could demand that Republicans and Pence

set things right.

There is at least mechanism: Pence becomes President, names Clinton as vp and then Pence resigns. In other words a political deal is possible.

There has to be a will and a backbone on the part of Dems to de-legitimize the Trump/Pence power play and to oppose Republican Party benefiting from Russia's involvement.

Some will cry that the Republicans will never allow it. Depends on how deeply they have been involved.
what they will allow should not be a decided for what we demand.

One major problem is that many Democrats in Congress do not want to acknowledge that Russian interference changed the outcome. They want to see the issue as "we would have won if we had an economic message that appealed to white males. If they frame a problem narrowly, they think they can solve it - there's a fool's gold factor here.

This is a deep-seated problem in the Democratic Party. There is a strong wing in the party (composed of both centrists and "progressive-liberals&quot that is male-focused, and political-game focused. They see the gradual browning of Democratic Party as serving to drive out white males from the party and they see a need to focus on stemming that loss. The are not racist or sexist-just a tad tribal and comfortable with a small vision of America which has worked for them.

They also see the politics as a sport-sometimes you win, sometimes you lose-sometimes you are are defense, sometimes offense. They do not like to acknowledge the possibility of massive cheating. They see Republicans as having gotten to gerrymander districts in 2010 after the pushback from passing the Affordable Care Act. They hope to do be able to do the same in 2020 by taking back the house. (As far as they are concerned it is how you play the game).

They don't want to be seen as whiners. They want to take responsibility for losing because it gives them a sense of control over the problem. If they just change the coach, or their strategy, or bring in new players-heck they are going to win next time.

They know about voter suppression but have just figured they have to factor that in and aim to win by comfortable margins rather that fight voter suppression.

Actually they have been fighting against acknowledging massive election cheating since 2000.

They are not seeing the big picture. The rest of us are more concerned with justice, whether democracy will survive or morph into empire, whether our equality will be diminished, whether our rights will be eroded. One reason is that we are all closer to the edge than they are.

For many Democrats in office we are the people they would like to help--whenever possible, but not at the risk of losing a different, more traditional and more mythical constituency.

(I am reminded that in 1960 the Democratic message was "a rising tide lifts all boats"--it never became a solution because so many of us did not buy into that relativity argument that some people get a dollar, some a dime and some a penny and we surely will all be pleased-Not)

The fight for justice is going to be up to us. It is best to refuse to be silenced by those democrat who are quick to inform us that we cannot have justice because our constitution does not have a mechanism for achieving it.

Let's risk the fight for justice rather than settle for smallness. Let's be dreamers and demanders. Our lives and the lives of our children are at stake.

[First Speaker]

17. Hear, hear! Great post...

...we can have justice. If we want it badly enough.

[madamesilverspurs]

27. Yes, but . . .

At this juncture, any remedial mechanism requires honor and integrity from the majority party; sadly, it's been far too long since they have demonstrated either of those evidences of character.


.

[ailsagirl]

57. It'll never happen but everyone and anyone related to drumpf should be given the boot

...and the rightful winner take his place.

(if only...)

[customerserviceguy]

30. If you think Pence would nominate Hillary Clinton as his VP

and that a Republican House or Senate would confirm that (it takes both houses), then you're not merely dreaming, you're delusional.

Yes, we might take the House back in 2018, even with the gerrymandering that took place after the 2010 Census, but getting the Senate back in that election is a really heavy lift, given how many seats we have to defend. And I cannot think of any reason Pence would even possibly consider nominating anyone other than a Republicon to be his VP. And unless he is personally tied to some Russia scandal, he would not resign, nor would a two-thirds majority of a Senate that was about half GOP impeach him for anything, he's certainly not Trump in their eyes.

Bottom line is, as much as the Russian leadership may well have wanted Hillary to lose, it was the American people, through the institution of the Electoral College (while it may be archaic, it is still Constitutionally valid) that gave us the result we saw in November.

[delisen]

36. Do you think Pence might be personally tied to some Russian scandal?

Last edited Mon Jun 26, 2017, 05:30 AM - Edit history (1)

[customerserviceguy]

49. Probably not

but they already inoculated him with the "Flynn lied to Pence" stuff.

[delisen]

38. If I don't demand Justice with a capital J, when injustice has prevailed

Last edited Mon Jun 26, 2017, 09:00 AM - Edit history (1)

I make it less likely that injustice will always prevail-why not, there is no cost. Each time we, as citizens, cave and claim there is no way forward-we give license to the unjust. we make their path easier and ours more fraught.

Some people were willing to oppose King George III, others said there is nothing we can do, King George is acting within his rights.

No I don't think Pence would willingly nominate Clinton as vp and then resign-unless he were facing an alternative he feared more.

[customerserviceguy]

50. Would the entire law enforcement establishment

including not only cops, but the Secret Service and the military let Trump get the "alternative he feared more," as you put it? Maybe, maybe not, but they would surely protect Pence.

We do need to take back this government, but with ballots, not bullets. Besides, "they" have more of the latter.

[delisen]

54. I was not referring to violence but to conviction and/or prison

If Pence were complicit and subject to any legal punishment he might prefer a negotiated settlement such as VP Agnew under Nixon had negotiated.

Agnew's plea deal included resigning his office.

[customerserviceguy]

59. If Trump is still president when that happened

You could well expect a pardon. If Pence is president, then you can expect that his designated successor will pardon him. That's the rest of the Nixon-Agnew story.

[delisen]

60. Nixon did not pardon Agnew, although iirc, the charges were federal.

and Nixon therefore had the power to pardon but chose not to exercise it

In the scenario I proposed, Pence's designated successor would be the 2016 candidate who lost to Trump. As soon as attaining office this new president would have have the power to pardon-but whether or not the new president does is a different issue.

[customerserviceguy]

61. Again

There is no way that Trump, Pence, or any Republican is going to sign off on making Hillary Clinton the next president. If she wants it, she'll have to try again in another election to get nominated by a party other than the GOP. They all agree on one thing, they despise her.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

42. Republicans have displayed anti-democratic tendencies for a long time.

What did they complain about regarding the Soviet Union? Not so much that it was anti-democratic, but that it was communist. Many of them don't care that it's still mostly anti-democratic. Many capitalists had no problem with Hitler, at least initially, because he opposed the liberals, socialists and communists in Germany.

Increased wealth and control of their "private tyrannies" is their main focus, not democracy.

Suppressing votes and voter fraud by the GOP doesn't surprise me at all. It's just another aspect of their fascist tendencies.

As for the Democrats, I suspect that many of them don't want to make a big fuss unless the evidence is very strong.

[triron]

3. This is qualitatively way different.

[PoliticAverse]

6. No, it isn't legally. n/t

[triron]

10. Since I'm not an expert in law I wouldn't know

but there are other aspects of events other than 'legal' ones.

[Hoyt]

4. Here's a factcheck on the media groups recounts. Doesn't come close to 38K or even 200 votes.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000/


Here's another report that states:

The study, conducted over the last 10 months by a consortium of eight news organizations assisted by professional statisticians, examined numerous hypothetical ways of recounting the Florida ballots. Under some methods, Mr. Gore would have emerged the winner; in others, Mr. Bush. But in each one, the margin of victory was smaller than the 537-vote lead that state election officials ultimately awarded Mr. Bush.

For example, if Florida's 67 counties had carried out the hand recount of disputed ballots ordered by the Florida court on Dec. 8, applying the standards that election officials said they would have used, Mr. Bush would have emerged the victor by 493 votes. Florida officials had begun such a recount the next day, but the effort was halted that afternoon when the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 vote that a statewide recount using varying standards threatened ''irreparable harm'' to Mr. Bush.

But the consortium's study shows that Mr. Bush would have won even if the justices had not stepped in (and had further legal challenges not again changed the trajectory of the battle), answering one of the abiding mysteries of the Florida vote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/us/examining-vote-overview-study-disputed-florida-ballots-finds-justices-did-not.html



I agree that people were stupid voting 3rd party in an election so important. We could see 3 or 4 Supreme Court appointments under Trump.

[mythology]

15. The fact that so few people seem to know this is kind of terrifying

It's a wonderful example of how people can let what they really really really want to be true be the thing that sticks in their head regardless of the actual evidence. Seems particularly relevant to those people screaming voting fraud.

[Hoyt]

16. The conspiracies and outright distortion of truth from our side concerns me.

We are not as bad as GOPers, but still. . . . .

[stevenleser]

34. The most important paragraph in that article, as far as I am concerned, is this one:

But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to ''count all the votes.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------

In other words, in Florida in 2000, more people voted for Gore than voted for Bush.

[pirateshipdude]

5. I would like to know, also. Eom

[USALiberal]

7. No process allows a re-do on the election that I know of. And the GOP would not allow it. n/t

[PoliticAverse]

8. What happens? It becomes a historical footnote. Does the SCOTUS appointment stand...

and all the other actions by President Trump? Yes.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. There is no way to undo an election in this country.

And no way to call a special election for a new President. If one leaves or is removed from office, there's an order of succession.

Perhaps rioting in the streets could remove however many Republicans are in the line of succession until we get to a decent Democrat, but that's rather unlikely to happen.

[defacto7]

12. We are a nation of laws based on a constitution.

The only way to change SCOTUS appointment is by congressional impeachment. That isn't going to happen. Even if we had all 3 branches of government on our side they would have to prove that the Justice was guilty of a crime worthy of impeachment. Outside of that, it would have to be a super-constitutional act. In other words we would have to trash the constitution to put the blocks back in order. The RW wants to walk over the constitution for their own purposes. In this case we would be doing the same.
I guess we would have to decide how important our constitution is. Once we break the constitution it's all over; we would no longer have one and our nation basically ceases to exist.
The RW used loopholes in the law combined with no moral respect for the people, no respect for precident, and blatantly took advantage of leaders of good will without return. We were hoodwinked.
Now we're in a strangle hold and that's all there is.

[First Speaker]

18. If one side "walks over the constitution" forever without consequences...

...and the other side does not, respecting our system...then the nation ceases to exist anyway.

[defacto7]

19. Unfortunately you're probably right.

So it's a matter of keeping them from getting away with trashing it, keeping them from trashing it, or toss it out and suffer the consequences of a lawless, racist, discriminatory society broken into a mass of warring factions ready for takeover. Let's face it, this country is no longer made of the stuff that forged it into existence and the playing field has changed far beyond the scope of that era.
We'd better hope for the unlikely.

[L. Coyote]

13. What happened in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004?

You'll remember that Bush resigned saying both times, "No way can I stay in the White House after reviewing the facts."

[delisen]

37. what happened first in 2001 was no Senator would support the

Congressional Black Caucus in objection to the electoral college vote for Bush.

Symbolic political stands may not change results at the time they are made- but they change the political landscape for the future.

What the Confessional Black Caucus tried to achieve in 2000 was an official objection. Other Democratic Party members would not stand with them.

I think there is a point to making a stand for justice, even when at that point in time it will not change the outcome.

In 2001 the Democratic senators did not want to act in a way that would serve to de-legitimize the presidency of George W. Bush.

I think a step to de-legitimize should have been taken. False perceptions of legitimacy do not defend the Constitution but they do provide an historical antecedent for further future erosion of a democracy.

[NobodyHere]

14. Legally nothing happens

[aikoaiko]

20. As I understand it, the status quo continues.

Trump is the president regardless of how. The only thing that could change that is impeachment for personal involvement of wrong doing or 2020.

In Roberts Rules of Order once the deliberative body moves on, the issue is closed and standa even if the rules weren't followed.

[L. Coyote]

55. Yep, unless the Supreme Court steps in in some way.

Meanwhile, his arse stays in to WH.

[DavidDvorkin]

21. The real election is the one done by the Electoral College

That stands, no matter what evidence turns up regarding the vote of the people.

[defacto7]

22. And the reasoning for and structure of the electoral college

has been carefully and patiently stripped of its authority and usefulness by most states and their controlling political institutions... for the purpose we are now experiencing as a brick wall that our rights are being smashed on. It's been in the works for almost 70 years... inch by inch by inch....

[DavidDvorkin]

25. The EC is working as designed

It's keeping power in the hands of an elite and giving disproportionate influence to the (former) slave states.

[defacto7]

35. Sounds like you have no use for the EC.

I know I don’t and I wasn't trying to support it. But to be honest, I think both our views as stated are simplistic. Whatever usefulness was originally intentioned it's useless now because the process, which was faulty to begin with, has been manipulated to take advantage of those faults. Yes, I know about the 3/5 dilemma but also the compromise; it was in part a stab at creating a system which could not be taken advantage of by a demagogue who could deceive. It failed. It was bound to sooner or later. That's as far as I'm going with it because arguing the hisory of the EC wasn't my intention or interest.

[OliverQ]

23. Yes, it stands

And nothing happens. We have nothing in place to deal with an illegitimate election. The Founders never dreamed anything like this could happen.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. Nothing

the result was certified by state election boards and confirmed by the Electoral College. There's no Constitutional provision for dealing with an illegitimate election.

[Tiggeroshii]

26. It will stand but if it becomes serious enough for the courts to take it up Gorsuch will need

To recuse himself

[Mike Nelson]

28. My prediction...

...nothing happens...the government is controlled by the likes of Trump, McConnell and Ryan. They are okay with altering elections to favor Republicans.

[trueblue2007]

31. VAMPIRES need to bite all 3 of them !!!! Bite'm hard!!!! (I'm reading vampire novels right now)

[Demsrule86]

41. The vampire solution works for me...or maybe some God or another could smite them.

[trueblue2007]

46. God or another could smite them. THAT WORKS FOR ME TOO. Thanks for your suggestion.

[democratisphere]

29. Constitutional Crisis Extraordinaire. SCOTUS repealed and replaced.

HRC installed to her rightful throne.

[Demsrule86]

40. It will never happen.

[BainsBane]

32. there seems to be greater concern about the perception of elections as legitimate

rather than their actually being legitimate.

No one has seriously examined the election systems for signs of altered vote counts, but they keep telling us they weren't altered anyway.

To answer your question, nothing will happen, and we may not ever know the extent of Russian manipulation, if it extended to actual vote tampering or determined the election. I don't believe that is Mueller's focus, and you know the GOP congress isn't going to tell us it was illegitimate.

[LeftInTX]

33. Nothing...yes SCOTUS stands

Although he was nominated by Trump, he was voted by the senate. They aren't going anywhere.

[Demsrule86]

39. There is no mechanism constitutionally speaking other than impeachment which keeps the same

party who cheated in power. The electoral college vote is the final vote and Trump is president no matter what.

[G_j]

43. Nothing

[CK_John]

44. 2016 is done and forgotten, time to worry about automation.

[LanternWaste]

56. Last summer, we were told that would be a cornerstone of both platforms in the debate.

Last summer, we were told that would be a cornerstone of both platforms in the debate. Prophecy is over-rated.

[m-lekktor]

45. Sadly,in politics, I have learned to expect the worst.

It's a defense mechanism.

[Generic Brad]

47. We start calling Trump "45*"

(45* = denotes illegitimate president)

[Xolodno]

48. That, will never come to light...for a least a few centuries.

The optics world wide and hear, plus the cost in confidence of our electoral system would be catastrophic. A lie will be promote at the end of the day.

[Eko]

51. What is illegit.

Is that a sick git?. That opens up the question as to what is a git. Is a git an animal that is scared of a few letters?

[lame54]

52. Trump will argue it gives him the right...

To a 3rd term

[procon]

53. Even if the majority of Trump's administration went down with him,

the government would remain in Republican hands.

Here’s the order of succession if Trump and his immediate successors were to somehow leave office:


1. Vice President Pence

2. House Speaker Paul Ryan

3. President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch

4. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

5. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin

6. Defense Secretary James Mattis

7. Attorney General Jeff Sessions

8. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke

9. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue

10. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

11. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta

12. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price

13. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson

14. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao

15. Energy Secretary Rick Perry

16. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

17. Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin

18. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/presidential-order-succession-case-article-1.2973129




Anyone ready for a President Rick Perry or Betsy DeVos, maybe Ben Carson?

[hamsterjill]

58. I think it would be handled in the back offices.

First of all, I believe the election was not legitimate, and I believe that fact is widely known and understood amongst some members of Congress who are not at liberty to divulge intelligence they have viewed that probably confirms that fact.

I think that if that fact were to become public and irrefutable, that Trump will mysteriously "resign". Pency would take office but would be "controlled" by Congress, and in essence, not get much done until the next election. The Republicans would try to maintain power, of course, but the Dems would have some leverage of letting the intelligence become public if their terms were not met.

I do not believe that we, as ordinary Americans, will ever hear the words "Hillary actually won the election" in any meaningful way. But I do believe in my heart that Hillary actually won the election.