“The plan to ‘Trump-proof’ 2024 gets a big boost — from Donald Trump”

Greg Sargent:

That’s why it’s a big deal that Manchin has now clarified that ECA reform will seek to safeguard against states sending sham electors. It’s not yet clear how the bipartisan reform would do this. But there are several options.

One way is with a judicial review process that gets triggered if a governor or state legislature departs from previously existing procedures in appointing fake electors in defiance of a state’s popular vote. Once the courts validate the real electors, Congress must count them. The bill championed by Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) would do this.

Another way, suggested by legal scholar Matthew Seligman, is that if there’s a dispute in Congress over which slate of electors to count — the real one or the fake one — a second judicial review backstop is triggered after Jan. 6, in which the Supreme Court weighs in.

The core point here is that the bipartisan group appears focused on the actual threats that loom. In 2024, a very real threat is that in an election that comes down to one state, a single GOP governor could send a fake slate of electors and a GOP-controlled Congress could count them.

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