House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that the House of Representatives is prepared to play a “prominent role” if no winner can be determined by the Electoral College.
In fact, an Electoral College tie is not impossible but would be the only scenario where the House would have any role to play at all. Any dispute involving ballots rightly belongs in the courts. Also, certification of the winner of a state is a state matter, as the Supreme Court decided in 2000.
I’m not sure what Pelosi and the Democrats have up their sleeves but it isn’t any good, I’m sure.
There have been reports prior to the interview that Pelosi has been contemplating what Politico referred to as a “once-in-a-century phenomenon.”
In the event of a tie in the Electoral College — which is unlikely but possible — the “newly seated House of Representatives” would hold a complicated vote, The New York Times reported.
The Politico report said the House vote could be “brutal,” and could come down to which party controls the most state delegations. (Republicans have 26 and Democrats 22.) The number could change after Tuesday’s results are known, the Times reported.
The vote would be complicated because each state’s House delegation will have only one vote. It will probably end up being one more thing the left will want to get rid of once they toss the Constitution into the dustbin.
Fortunately, the odds are extremely long that there will be an Electoral College tie. But suppose Pennsylvania counts and counts and counts the ballots and ends up finding Biden is the winner. And suppose Trump wins in court challenging how the votes were counted. Further, let’s say the election is so close that Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes decide it. Democrats recognize the vote count, Republicans recognize the court decision. In that longshot scenario, the House, which certifies the results of the Electoral College, might find itself embroiled in a fight to determine which result from Pennsylvania will be accepted.
“But let’s not worry about that right now,” Pelosi told NPR. “What we want to be ready for is a big vote tomorrow to dispel any thought other than that, on January 20, Joe Biden will be inaugurated president of the United States, that we will have a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate.”
Both Republicans and Democrats have suggested that the other side would contest most election outcomes and there have been reports that both parties are building formidable war chests to spend on possible lawsuits.
Neither side will politely step aside and let the other side have an uncontested victory. And for the next four years, we’ll have to put up with cries from the opposition of an “illegitimate” president. Monkeys in a sandbox flinging feces at each other would demonstrate more mature behavior.
It’s not the way a great big grown-up superpower industrialized republic is supposed to act—a republic that used to be a beacon of hope to the world and a shining example of self-governance. Once admired, now reviled, the republic has fallen and all that remains is sweeping up the refuse that’s left.
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