Tuesday marks the federal “safe harbor” deadline, which requires states to lock in their slates of electors who will formally cast the ballots for President-elect Joe Biden next week.
Under federal law, the deadline ensures that Congress counts the electoral votes of states that have resolved all disputes and chosen their electors a full six days before the Electoral College meets to officially cast the ballots.
Related Story: Trump team continues legal fight as Electoral College ‘safe harbor’ deadline arrives
Electors will gather in their state capitals next Monday, which put the safe harbor deadline on Tuesday. After the electors cast their ballots, they will be sent to Washington, D.C., to be counted by Congress on Jan. 6.
The deadline, typically a little-noticed formality in the electoral process, has attracted attention this year due to President Donald Trump’s groundless efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in multiple battleground states.
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All but a couple of the Trump campaign’s legal challenges have been dismissed in state and federal courts as baseless and lacking evidence to support any claims of voter fraud. Federal judges in Michigan and Georgia threw out two suits on Monday.
The only state that may not meet the safe harbor deadline is Wisconsin, where a judge has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to hear a Trump campaign appeal that was rejected last week by the state supreme court.
Wisconsin’s electors will still meet on Monday to cast their votes for Biden, but it’s theoretically possible that Congress could reject them during counting next month if the state misses the safe harbor deadline — a possibility experts say is highly unlikely. For that to happen, lawmakers in both chambers would need to object in writing.
Analysts say Trump’s longshot legal effort takes another hit with Tuesday’s passing of the safe harbor deadline, as Biden’s victory becomes all but “locked in.”
“Without credible evidence to support the idea that there’s a problem, it just becomes less and less likely that anyone is going to disrupt the schedule as it unfolds in state statutes and federal law,” William and Mary School of Law election law program chief Rebecca Green told USA Today.
The campaign is appealing setbacks in Pennsylvania, but legal analysts doubt they have any potential to keep the state from meeting the safe harbor deadline or block its 20 electoral votes for Biden. Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan were three key states that allowed Biden to clinch the presidency.
“Assuming that the pending federal court litigation does not give the plaintiffs any of the remedies they are seeking, these federal cases should not affect safe harbor status, even if they go past Tuesday,” Ohio State University election law expert Edward Foley told NBC News.
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If Trump, Sidney and Rudy have a plan it better come soon.
The next 4 years will be a nightmare!
From the first appearance of Sydney and Rudy I haven’t been impressed. There is a reason why people retire and I think Rudy has missed his sell-by date. He was a great mayor and a really good guy but we all age out at some point.
Sydney never met a microphone she didn’t hog. For years I have listened and watched her on Hannity, radio and TV, promising some story was just about to break in the impeachment scandal but it didn’t. She was Flynn’s attorney predicting what the judge would do, over and over, but he didn’t. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong, Sheryl Atkisson was doing the same on Hannity’s show.
I’m sorry to feel this way but I think Trump deserved better attorneys and why he didn’t have them I do not know.
Agreed, Leonidas. His legal team seems farcical, if not tragic. And we will pay for it. Hope Kamala is prepared for impeachment.
Who then do you feel, would have done a better job?
CERTAINLY NOT that hack barr.
Frankly, almost anybody.
I have always been a Rudy fan but not as an attorney, as a politician. I have never been a Sidney fan. That woman sets my teeth on edge.
Trump needed law firms, multiple big professional law firms with multiple attorneys and big staffs, not individual TV lawyers. The average person would not know their names but they would be well known in the legal world for their legal accomplishments, not for their political rhetoric.
Barr would be involved in DOJ investigations if he was doing his job which he isn’t.
Historybuff, Democrats hold the House so there will be no impeachment, at least until after 2022, and even then we would have to win enough congressional elections to take over the House but remember, our elections are compromised going forward if Biden is president and Democrats are governors. Elections are organized and overseen by state governments, not the feds.
Leonidas – thanks. Color me sarcastic, although the concept of Harris as POTUS does bother me.
YEa, you can bet if he finally gets inaugurated, REPUBLICANS will never again, win any federal (hell even state) election, as they KNOW the fraud works.
What a sad state of affairs. Kamala will be President in no time, Biden has a radical cabinet and our Country will become communist very quickly.
You vill all bow down to your new master. DA!
UPI=PRAVDA West. Lying Commie tools.
The Swamp sure is deep. In order for SCOTUS to NOT be political, they MUST defend our Constitution and not allow the States in question to cast their Electoral College votes. Force Congress into deciding the next President.
Nancy Pelosi told us Congress would decide this election and we laughed at her.
Little did we know that SHE WAS SPOT ON..
If I’m not mistaken, Al Gore’s unrelenting challenges didn’t get stopped until the latter week of December 2000. Was all the the electors chosen by then? Had the “safe harbor” deadline applied to that election? We all know the answers.
I don’t remeber, if the safe harbor laws, had halted for gore.. BUT THEY NEED TO HALT for this.
President Donald Trump’s groundless efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in multiple battleground states.
And they wonder why we call them the Propaganda Wing of the Dem Party.