As Spartan posted earlier this evening, some radical Pennsylvania Republicans in the state legislature are calling on Pennsylvania’s Republican-led Congressional delegation to object to Pennsylvania’s Biden-committed slate of electors to the Electoral College.  Somehow, they believe, this will benefit lame duck president Trump.

Let’s game this out, shall we?

On December 14th, Pennsylvania’s electors for the Electoral College will cast their ballots for Biden in Harrisburg, or remotely if they’re smart.  (By state law, 100% of them are appointed from a list of electors submitted by the Party of the candidate that got the plurality of votes, but we’ll put that aside for sake of this discussion.)

By December 23rd, those votes must be sent to Congress. Let’s say the Congress refuses to accept Pennsylvania’s votes on that date, or anytime in the two weeks thereafter. Who do they return it to? Certainly not the Pennsylvania legislature, which ended its session this past Monday, November 30th.

On January 6, 2021, by law Congress tallies the Electoral College votes.  Congress’s job that day is simply to *count* the delegates as submitted by the states, not determine the legitimacy of those delegates.  (“The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.”–Article 1, Section 2)  The delegates actually never set foot in Washington, DC in an official capacity.

Sure, the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation could urge Congress to reject Pennsylvania’s delegation then.  Congress likely wouldn’t even consider such action given that the electors are also certified by the Pennsylvania Secretary of State, endorsed by the Commonwealth’s governor, and reflect the desire of Pennsylvania’s voters.

But let’s say they have a episode of mass hysteria or they accidentally ingest Magic Mushrooms and they do reject Pennsylvania’s delegation because if they don’t, they believe, the sculptures in Statuary Hall will come to life and squeeze their heads until they all pop like grapes.  Then who do they return the slate of electors to? Again, certainly not the Pennsylvania legislature, which begins its next session the following day,  January 7, 2021.

In no imaginable interpretation of the Constitution–either the Commonwealth’s Constitution or the US Constitution–is Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation empowered to reassign the delegates unilaterally assign them to Trump.  The Commonwealth’s delegates simply aren’t included in the count.  There is no advantage to Trump to withhold Pennsylvania’s electors’ votes.

So Pennsylvania’s delegates are voided.  There simply won’t be a slate of Pennsylvania delegates to the Electoral College. That’s 20 Electoral College votes tossed out the window; they don’t get reassigned to Trump. They get voided. And guess what? Biden still wins the Electoral College because he’ll have the majority of Electoral College votes: 286 to 232.

The Constitution only requires the winner be declared by the simple majority of those Electoral College delegates appointed, not the majority of all available Electoral College votes:  “The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed;…” (Article II, Section 1).  The voided delegates wouldn’t have been “appointed”–otherwise, their votes would have been accepted.

If many other states’ Congressional delegations–like, say, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona –potentially also ingested those same Magic Mushrooms or suffered mass hysteria–and try this idiotic ploy, Biden still wins the Electoral College because he’d still have 237 votes, more than 50% plus one vote.

So proposing the withholding of the votes of Electoral College only puts these Pennsylvania Republicans at odds with the will of their constituencies.  It’s as insane as thinking that 74 faithless electors will bolt from their state delegations to flip votes from Biden to Trump at the last minute.

Trump lost.  Republicans need to get over it.