Who are Michigan GOP leaders meeting with Trump as he contests election results?
President Donald Trump invited two Michigan Republican lawmakers to a Friday meeting at the White House as he and his allies continue their efforts to contest the election results.
Trump invited Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield, and they’ve agreed to attend the meeting, the Associated Press reported.
The meeting comes as Trump’s reelection campaign has filed lawsuits challenging the results that led to President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, with Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani alleging that fraud cost Trump the election.
Trump hasn’t conceded and could try to convince Michigan’s board of canvassers not to certify Biden’s victory. Instead, lawmakers would have to select Trump’s slate of electors to the Electoral College — a move that could result in challenges in court, according to the AP.
Both Shirkey and Chatfield have suggested they wouldn’t overturn Biden’s win in Michigan.
“That’s not going to happen,” Shirkey said about Republican lawmakers being swayed to decide the election for Trump, according to Bridge Michigan. Shirkey pointed out Michigan’s law decides electors according to the candidate who won the popular vote in the state — Biden beat Trump by more than 154,000 votes in the state.
“We are going to follow the law and follow the process,” he said. “I do believe there’s reason to go slow and deliberate as we evaluate the allegations that have been raised.”
Chatfield tweeted on Nov. 6: “Whoever gets the most votes will win Michigan! Period. End of story. Then we move on.”
The Trump campaign has been accused of trying to appoint electors who would defy the popular vote, which Biden is leading by millions, and instead appoint electors who would support Trump in some swing states, McClatchy News reported.
A legal adviser for the Trump campaign said it “would be framed in terms of protecting the people’s will,” The Atlantic reported in September.
“Once committed to the position that the overtime count has been rigged, the adviser said, state lawmakers will want to judge for themselves what the voters intended,” The Atlantic reported. The adviser said lawmakers could choose electors who “properly reflect” the voters in the states.
Michigan’s Board of Canvassers, which includes two Democrats, two Republicans and the spouse of a Republican board member, is scheduled to certify election results next week, CNN reported.
Trump’s reelection campaign dropped its Michigan lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block the certification of the election in the state, according to CBS News.
How the Electoral College works
Political parties in the states choose electors before the election and voters cast their ballots and decide which electors will represent their state in the Electoral College. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t require electors “to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States,” the National Archives said.
“Faithless electors” refer to those who break with the state’s popular vote, which doesn’t happen often.
“Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party,” the National Archives states. “Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99% of electors have voted as pledged.”
Some political experts point out that it’s unlikely that Trump can change the Electoral College.
Adav Noti, the Campaign Legal Center chief of staff and member of the National Task Force on Election Crises, said about overriding voters: “Just on the legal side, there’s pretty much impossible-to-overcome obstacles,” Politico reported.
State legislatures already have laws in place about how elections are carried out, giving authority to local and state officials on certifying the election results and handling voter registration, according to the publication.
States are also bound by laws they’ve already passed regarding elections and choosing electors, meaning that the election result can’t be taken back without changing those laws.
“What people are saying is, ‘Well, we can determine to appoint electors ourselves.’ Which is true, if that had been the determination they made for the 2020 election,” Noti said, according to Politico. “But every state in the nation, as they have for more than a century, has made a different determination, which is to appoint electors by popular vote. And that’s what the legislature decided, and that is what, in fact, happened on Election Day.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2020 at 9:36 AM with the headline "Who are Michigan GOP leaders meeting with Trump as he contests election results?."