This is a new draft article forthcoming in the Stanford Law and Policy Review. Important analysis of the certification process. Here’s part of the abstract:

The 2022 election cycle previewed one such attack with alarming frequency: rogue officials in several states refused to certify election results or attempted to otherwise interfere with certification—the statutory process by which election officials attest to the accuracy and completeness of election results.

While efforts to impede certification are not new, never before have they been deployed on such a large and coordinated scale. For this reason, little academic attention has been paid to the mechanics of state certification frameworks. This Article fills that gap to demonstrate why, and how, state certification frameworks can combat the ongoing threats against them. It begins by providing a detailed overview of how election certification works and how recent attacks on the process have targeted and disrupted certification using false claims of widespread election fraud. It then delves into the rich but often overlooked history of certification as a non-discretionary duty to demonstrate that those attacks flouted hundreds of years of well-established American legal history; recognizing that discretion created opportunities for crises and election fraud, early courts and legislatures purposefully shaped certification into a mandatory, non-discretionary duty. The Article concludes with a roadmap for election officials, candidates, and advocates to resolve future attacks on the certification process in eight key battleground states likely to play significant roles in the 2024 election cycle.