Monday, December 14, 2020 8:02 AM  John Pudner

1. TODAY, Noon ET. While electors in some states start convening in an hour to cast their votes for Joe Biden or Donald Trump, the electors in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia meet to vote in three hours (Noon ET in GA, PA and MI, 10 a.m. MT in AZ). In the past a given state might take more than an hour to actually cast their votes, but this year due to Covid-19 the State Capitols and other official places where legislators convene are skipping a lot of the ceremony and only allowing a few people to view, so it should go pretty quickly.

Charlie Gerow, a close friend in Pennsylvania who was with me in New York City when Covid-19 shut everything down in March, is the only person I know who has successfully changed a state certification. In 2016, Charlie successfully forced a change to the Pennsylvania certification – because they had misspelled the word “President.” No crisis, it was fixed and the vote count was the same 🙂

So far judges have ruled against Trump lawyers and allies in all 52 cases since the election – ranging from state to federal court including Trump appointees from the 3rd Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania to his three Supreme Court picks. President Trump tweeted that the Texas case last week was “the big one,” and when it was defeated 9-0 even some of the State Attorneys General supporting the case said there was no longer a path to stop Biden’s election – leading to the expectation that Biden wins these four states 63-0.

2. TODAY, 1 p.m. ET/Noon CT. Wisconsin meets to vote an hour after the other big four. Their Supreme Court did deliberate another case this weekend, after rejecting a previous challenge. Voting will continue in other states until the evening, when Hawaii meets to cast the last votes at 7 p.m. ET. Once their votes are reported we will know if Biden wins the Electoral College 306-232 or if there are any changes such as when Trump appeared to have the same win total in 2016, but two “faithless electors” left him two votes short at 304.

While the Constitution does put State Legislators in charge of how Electors are allocated, the Legislatures already did that over the years by passing laws specifying that the certified winners of the popular votes in their states get all their votes (except for divided votes in Maine and Nebraska), so Legislatures would have had to pass laws to change their own laws to undo the certified winner in each state.

3. January 6 is the day Congress must approve and count all the votes. Just as Democratic members of Congress challenged certain state votes every time a Republican won this century, Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama plans to challenge certain states that day. He needs at least one US Senator to join him in challenging a state to have an hour of debate on the topic (something Democrats failed to do in all the challenges of GOP electors). However, to actually throw out the votes of a state a majority of both the House and Senate would need to agree. A couple of dozen GOP House Members and a half dozen returning GOP US Senators already acknowledged a Biden win, so even if both GOP Senators win their Georgia runoffs the day before and have a 52-48 edge in the Senate they could not throw out any states without a bunch of Democratic Senators and Members of Congress voting to not let Biden become President – which obviously would never happen.

4. January 20 is the actual day Joe Biden would become President. There are still many, many stories circulating on how President Trump could hold power past January 20 through a Constitutional Theory or new evidence or legal wins.

Beginning two weeks ago I began emailing a number of people who believe the election was stolen that I did not believe any of the nine Supreme Court Justices would support flipping any states to Trump based on the math and the evidence presented. Last week (see email below and Western Journal) I wrote that I believed the country was pretty evenly split – one-third believing Trump won both elections, one-third believing Trump won 2016 and Biden won 2020, and one-third believing Clinton and Biden won. A poll released after that email indicated this is the fact (see graphic below). This poll was taken before the Supreme Court voted 9-0 to dismiss the Texas case Friday night, but whether or not that changes the minds of any of the 36 percent who believes the election was stolen remains to be seen.

Many in the 36 percent who believe the race was stolen have sent me stories circulating such as that US Special Forces were killed after seizing servers in Frankfurt that would have proven fraud, and that treason efforts enable President Trump to stay in office under oath, and for them the mathematical proofs that electronic vote switching did not occur (email if you want them) or a conservative Supreme Court voting 9-0 to reject the Texas case is not going to change their mind. Ironically, in 2017 the Hill ran a poll showing that 68% of Democrats did not believe that President Trump’s 306-232 Election Day win was legitimate. The poll below run last week shows that exactly the same number – 68% of Republicans – believe the exactly flipped results – a 306-232 Biden win – was not valid and the result of a stolen election. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

John Pudner 404.606.3163