28 Comments

Biden may truly be unpopular but it’s a long time until we vote for President again & a lot can change. I’m not real optimistic, but I’m not ready to believe that Trump will be our next President.

I think that too many voters expected Biden to come into office & “fix” whatever their highest priority is within days. They don’t remember how obstructive Trump’s people were in not transitioning on a timely basis to Biden’s choices. And the Democrats do not truly have a majority since Manchin & Sinema are not in alignment with Biden’s agenda. People want COVID to go away, but Biden doesn’t have a magic wand, & until vaccines & masking are no longer political but are acceptable to the majority, it will be with us. There will be variants until the majority of the WORLD has been vaccinated.

Okay, I’ll get down off my soapbox, although I could go on for much longer.

We need better messaging so the voters elect candidates who care more about our country than how much power and money they can accrue for themselves.

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We finally elect Stacy Abrams & other Democrats as governors!!

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Seems like an argument for getting rid of the Electoral College. How about direct election of the president and vice president?

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Judd, thank you for your clear explanation of how 'fixing' the Electoral Count Act could actually enable a fraudulent election, and for your words of wisdom at the end fo the piece: "Ultimately, democracy will only survive if enough people in power are willing to set aside their short-term political interests for the greater good."

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You may describe Biden as "unpopular", but I'm not prepared to say that means another Trump-Biden election would be any closer. Biden is "unpopular" looking at him as one would look at any president other than Trump. He is "unpopular" because he was handed a disaster by the prior administration and hasn't worked miracles. He is "unpopular" because the media -- particularly starting with the right-wing media -- criticize him constantly without any perspective on how we got to where we are. I have to have faith that, if Trump runs again, the majority of voters in the swing states will once again reject him, perhaps even more so given what has come out about his assaults upon democracy. And so we will be left to combat the efforts to steal the election fraudulently, but with yet another substantial majority of voters rejecting Trump.

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Obviously, the way for the people to guarantee their right to vote is to actual vote. This can be thought of as harder for some though not not for others (which in fact true!) but with anything worthwhile having, like voting rights protections, which should include "ease of voting" processes, it most often takes doing the hard actions. I heard someone say, "Hope is not a strategy." So hoping someone does something to protect the rights of being a citizen of the United States of America for you is not the best one can nor should do. Be proactive, call someone you trust, ask for help, and pay it forward! Georgia defeated Trump by out voting him and his kind in 3 different elections. We can do this again and again until we create a real democracy for each and every citizen.

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Judd, what poll are you citing to assert Biden’s unpopularity? Morning Consult published results of their own poll and while overall people think the country is headed in the wrong direction, the D’s feel that the country is headed the right way. It seems to me that few people/outlets with huge platforms tout Democrats for anything and instead try to normalize MAGA and/or talk about Biden’s failure to do X or Y. I’m exhausted with it, yet don’t have any idea how to stop a snowball that’s rolling fast. Why aren’t we seeing coverage of Hutchinson and Hogan for denouncing Trump? It’s true that Hogan has said similar things for a while, but Hutchinson is new. They should be splashed everywhere and yet …. We are watching the Trumpist movement before our eyes and it couldn’t make for better television.

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Well, this is all thoroughly horrifying/terrifying because I can definitely see this type of situation playing out.

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Feb 1, 2022·edited Feb 1, 2022

Why don't concerned members of Congress pass a fix to the Electoral Count Act which states that in the case of a lack of confidence or irregularities in the "Electors" from a state, that Electors will be "counted" for that state's votes in the Electoral College according to the winner of the popular vote in that state?

I know that directly undoing the Electoral College itself would require a constitutional amendment, and there IS that maybe-someday National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which seems like a very clever fix to the system, BUT in the meantime, altering how the Congress "interprets" or "reads" the votes of Electors seems like a potential solution.

I'm no lawyer, but does this idea hold any water at all? Just thinking out loud here. This would allow Congress, without a constitutional amendment, and without the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, to ensure that fraudulent local officials can't do what you've described here. The question I have is, would such an alteration of the "interpreting" of Electoral Votes -- effectively tethering them to the actual popular vote of a "questionable" state -- be viable under the constitution? I don't know the specifics to answer that essential question.

(Edited to add the "tethering" line, since that phrase was escaping me earlier.)

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I really think it’s time to get rid of the electoral college! Most votes win. State voting will always smell like manure here in Wisconsin with the Gerrymandering.

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It's extremely upsetting that one man's narcissistic quest for maximum power and exposure has taken a system that has largely operated on good faith and honesty and turned it into a game of competing checks and balances, a naked rush for power that no one will have full faith in. And that's without going into voter suppression and intimidation!

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Great article- thanks!

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Name calling doesnt make friends. Collins is not wacky and I support peace and liberal views.

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I’m of (at least) two minds on this column.

On the one hand, yes it’s truly frightening to see how easily pending “improvements” to election law are, imo persuasively, argued down. (Not to mention, how many of us are watching the ball as closely as Judd et al; vs simply demanding reform and imagining that lawmakers are smarter than everyone else so of COURSE they’ll figure this stuff out before writing new, worse laws?)

But the logic of breezily dismissing the third branch of government as “antiquated” seems unkind at best, and fatally flawed at worst. Actually, “the idea that the judiciary — and ultimately the Supreme Court — will insulate the process from political gamesmanship” is integral to our Constitution (which by providing life appointments for certain federal judges, does indeed insulate those judges from campaigning to keep their jobs, and therefore from the sort of pandering/gamesmanship we Americans otherwise seem to consider to be a semi sacred right of “true” democracy).

Obviously, Article I judges have biases and limitations, and on the whole are probably more conservative than the population at large. But to dismiss them as unlikely to rule fairly when a Governor attempts outright fraud against a state electorate seems unduly pessimistic to me.

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