Thread by @Elaijuh

Pennsylvania’s 20 electors are meeting now in Harrisburg, as Joe Biden officially defeats Donald Trump in the Electoral College.

With @JuliaTerruso: inquirer.com/politics/elect…

In PA and some other states Biden won, Republicans also gathered today to cast their own, separate Electoral College votes.

The @PAGOP put out this release on the GOP electors meeting “to cast a conditional vote” for Trump:

https://twitter.com/PAGOP/status/1338550681758740480

Confused? I was. Talked to a few experts, and here’s my basic takeaway:

This might change some of the road to get there, but the result is basically unchanged: Congress will meet Jan. 6, receive the Electoral College votes, and Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president Jan. 20.

Two logistical things to note up front:

1. Electors are named in advance, and in some states it seems like the “electors” today were not actually the earlier named electors. I don’t know whether the actual GOP electors were the ones participating today in PA.

2. Not every state that took one of these unofficial votes will necessarily send documents to D.C. I don’t know whether the PA GOP is sending over its own set of certificates.

(I’ve called the PA GOP spox, will let you know if I hear back.)

So what actually happens when a state sends competing electoral slates?

Well, it’s a lil messy. If you really want to see for yourself, check out 3 USC §15, which lays it out:
uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req…

If the Senate President (VP Mike Pence) receives dueling sets of papers “purporting to be” the certificates of a state’s electoral votes, he’s supposed to put both of them before Congress, and both chambers meet separately to vote on which to accept, @Nedfoley said.

“That’s the key language,” @Nedfoley said of the “purporting to be” part of the law: “They don’t have to be valid — the submission may be entirely invalid — but they still have to go through the process.”

“The two chambers will have to figure out which of the conflicting submissions is the real one and I think that will be a relatively quick, straightforward matter,” @Nedfoley said, bc Democrats control the House and enough Senate Republicans will support the Biden electors.

But what happens if the House and Senate and disagree?

In the extremely unlikely situation that there are two dueling slates of electoral votes from PA and the House votes to accept the Biden ones and the Senate votes to accept the Trump ones?

“Whichever submission is signed by the governor must be counted … that would be another basis on which Biden would prevail,” @Nedfoley said, since PA Gov. Tom Wolf is signing the Biden votes. “So I think the outcome is not in doubt, but the procedure has to be followed.”

There could be two other scenarios, @derektmuller said: What if Pence only presents the Biden votes or only the Trump votes for PA? (Similar to what Nixon did in 1960 with the votes from Hawaiʻi, which we will come back to in a sec.)

In that case, @derektmuller said: One member of the House and one of the Senate have to file a written a challenge to the votes, then the chambers vote.

Recall, this is the thing dozens of PA GOP lawmakers are urging Congress to do to the Biden votes:

https://twitter.com/Elaijuh/status/1334959599007502337

If Pence were to only put up the Biden votes, things basically move just like they would without the competing slate being sent.

If there’s a challenge, both chambers have to agree with it or the votes are counted. And the House isn’t about to challenge the Biden votes.

The very theoretical, super unlikely scenario is if Pence puts up only the Trump votes, and it’s challenged, but the Senate sustains the challenge and the Trump votes are accepted.

Really not something to worry about, @derektmuller and @Nedfoley said.

“There’s so many ways that this is gonna fail that it’s just delusional,” @derektmuller said.

No reason to even send the competing votes, he said: “There’s no plausible basis at this stage for them to do so, so it's totally unclear what this is doing other than to cast doubt.”

So the quick historical aside: What’s up with the 1960 electoral votes from Hawaiʻi, which the PA GOP said today’move was “fashioned after”?

Democratic electors from Hawaiʻi cast a competing slate of votes after Republican Richard Nixon appeared to win the state by 141 votes.

But in that election, a recount was underway that ultimately showed John F. Kennedy won the state by 115 votes.

Both sets of votes were sent to DC and Nixon (VP at the time) basically ignored the Republican slate, accepting the Democratic votes.

That distinguishes 1960 from this year, @derektmuller said: There are no outstanding recounts or legal challenges that stand a chance of giving Trump the win in PA.

Having a back-up set of Trump electoral votes doesn’t mean anything, since the results aren’t going to change.

Bottom line, @nedfoley says of any dueling slates of electors:

“It changes the process a little bit. I don’t think it’ll change the result at all. It won’t affect who gets inaugurated Jan. 20.”