EXPLAINING THINGS ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WONDERS ABOUT: How Donald Trump Could Steal the Election.

The Atlantic has been on a real fever-dream streak lately, and it continues with this piece by Jeffrey Davis, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland.

The danger begins with the fact that, regardless of what people believe, the Constitution does not give Americans the right to vote for their president. Rather, the Constitution says that a college of electors votes for the president, and Article II of the Constitution gives states nearly unlimited power to decide how these electors are chosen. In the early years of the American republic, many state legislatures decided which presidential candidate the state’s electors would support. South Carolina used this method until 1868. Today, all 50 states grant their residents the right to vote for president, and the people’s vote determines which electors from each state will select the next president. However, any state could change its law and instead allow its legislature to decide which electors will choose the next president.

In other words, states have a lot of power in deciding how the election will run. Today, Republicans control 30 state legislatures and Democrats only 19, with one state divided. (Nebraska technically has nonpartisan legislators, but it is a reliably red state, so I include it with the Republican states.) These red-state legislatures control 305 electoral votes, and only 270 are needed to secure the presidency. Presumably, most red states, if not all, would appoint electors who would elect Trump for another four years. Of those 30 states, 22 also have Republican governors, which means in those states there would be no Democratic governor to veto Republican legislation taking away the people’s opportunity to vote for president. Those 22 states represent 219 electoral-college votes—perilously close to the 270 required for Trump to be reelected.

I wonder if Davis would accept a small wager. If Trump wins, I pay him $10 for every electoral college vote for Trump delivered in this fashion, if he’ll agree to pay me $10 for each one that isn’t.