Alternate electors?

One of the excellent prophecy teachers I follow is a guy named Amir Tsarfati. He did a video last night encouraging Trump supporters by telling them we had nothing to worry about because of alternate electors sent to vote in the Electoral College by six states. The governor appoints the slate of electors, but these states also have Republican legislatures that he said appointed their own alternate slate of electors to vote for Donald Trump in states where allegations of voter fraud have continued to persist. This sets up a situation of dueling electors, which hasn’t happened since the election of 1876.

The political climate in 1876 had some similarities to our own. There was a lot of division in the country. There was also the disenfranchisement of voters, again much like our own time with many people feeling like their votes haven’t been counted. That is not to mention all of the mail-in ballots and voting machine problems that have called this election's legitimacy into question. In 1876, the Republicans had the White House and the Senate, while the Democrats had the House of Representatives. That is also the case today. When the election had concluded on November 7, 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was leading in the Electoral College while Democrat Samuel J Tiden was leading in the popular vote. There was disagreement on what happened with the votes in several states, just like in 2020. This led to the compromise of 1877, four days before the inauguration, where Democrats agreed to concede the election, but only if Republicans decided to end reconstruction in the south, which opened the door for the Jim Crow laws in the Democrat-dominated south.

It is possible for a divided state where Republicans control one branch of government and Democrats control the other for each one to nominate different sets of electors in a disputed election. That’s where the idea of dueling slates of electors comes from. Both slates of electors would then vote in the Electoral College. The Electoral College vote took place this past Monday. Then, theoretically, both of those results would be sent to Congress. Suppose the two houses of Congress would split, with the House of Representatives accepting the Democratic slate of electors and the Senate accepting the Republican slate of electors. In that case, Vice President Pence could throw out both slates of electors and allow the House of Representatives to pick the President because neither candidate would then have the required 270 electoral votes to be the President. In that scenario, each state’s delegation in the House of Representatives would get one vote. Republican state delegations currently outnumber Democrats in the House of Representatives, meaning that President Trump could be re-elected in this manner.

The problem is the electoral count Act of 1887 seems to favor a Governor’s slate of electors over the legislature’s. So such a standoff would be less likely to occur. That 1887 Act was designed to prevent the kind of stalemate that happened with the 1876 election. Vice-President Pence does not have the authority to pick which slate of electors he would prefer to count. So I don’t see a scenario where this House of Representatives option is going to happen. Each State’s governor in these contested states selected a slate of electors to choose the United States president. And those slates of electors chosen by the governors voted on December 14 to elect the President. The alternate electors chosen by Republican legislatures were not designated by any state official and had no legal status. Some Congressional Republicans plan to object to the results to try to make it to where Congress has to vote. But it’s not likely that the Democrats would vote to overturn Biden’s electors. And as far as the GOP Senate goes, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already congratulated Joe Biden as the President-Elect. Enough Senate Republicans are happy to see Trump lose and would be more delighted to play any part in putting the final nail in the coffin of any hopes Trump had of miraculously overturning the official results. A couple of weeks ago, I just posted on my Facebook a list of 21 Republican Senators that questioned President Trump’s fitness for office throughout his term. That list was as follows: Rob Portman (Ohio), Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), Ben Sasse (Nebraska), Roy Blunt (Missouri), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), John Cornyn (Texas), John Thune (South Dakota), Mitt Romney (Utah), Mike Braun and Todd Young (Indiana), Tim Scott (South Carolina), Rick Scott and Marco Rubio (Florida), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Richard Burr (North Carolina), Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania), Martha McSally (Arizona), Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts (Kansas) and Richard Shelby (Alabama). Does anybody really want to try to tell me that these same people are all going to suddenly have a change of heart because of some leftover Christmas goodwill and come down on Trump’s side of this? Plus, as I’ve already said, in any case where there is a split in Congress, the 1887 Act I mentioned above would seem to favor the governor’s slate of electors, which would give Biden the victory. So even if enough congressional Republicans wanted to go this route, it seems like it would all be for naught in the end.

I have been a Trump supporter since he followed through on his promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. He has made and kept many promises that I didn’t think he would, which is why I refused to vote for either candidate from the major parties in 2016. I voted for him with enthusiasm this year. It was a great disappointment to see the election happen the way that it did. I’m still of the belief that voter fraud did occur and that eventually, all of that will be revealed in such a massive, convincing fashion that no serious person will be able to deny it. “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17 New King James Version). It just probably won’t be in time to overturn the results of this election. And regardless of whether these voting fraud allegations are true or not, the fact remains that Joe Biden will most likely be sworn into the office of President of the United States on January 20, 2021, as much as I hate to say it. Even if any of this could technically somehow work out in our favor, the ignored legal challenges over the last month show me that the fix is in. Does that mean we give up? No. Does that mean we stop fighting? No. Does that mean we stop praying? Definitely not! I’m just giving you my honest assessment of where we are as a country right now. I hope I am wrong and that President Trump will be sworn in again on January 20. All glory goes to God if that happens. Right now, though, I just don’t see it.