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2020 election
2020 election

Foreign Affairs

Marco Rubio Looks to Extend Period for Casting Electoral College Votes

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Rubio is championing a bill “to extend the federal safe harbor period for states to determine electors from December 8, 2020 to January 1, 2021 for this year’s presidential election” insisting it “would give states the flexibility needed in a pandemic to help ensure each and every legal vote cast is counted.” Rubio’s proposal would also have electoral college members cast their votes on January 2, 2021 instead of December 14.

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Looking ahead to the general election, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is calling for extending the period for states to choose presidential electors.

Rubio is championing a bill “to extend the federal safe harbor period for states to determine electors from December 8, 2020 to January 1, 2021 for this year’s presidential election” insisting it “would give states the flexibility needed in a pandemic to help ensure each and every legal vote cast is counted.” Rubio’s proposal would also have electoral college members cast their votes on January 2, 2021 instead of December 14.

Pointing to hostile powers–namely China and Russia–Rubio warned about foreign interference in the upcoming election.

“We cannot escape the pandemic-induced reality of increased mail-in voting, and the logistical challenges associated with it will be difficult for some states to resolve in the next couple of months,” Rubio insisted. “We should give states the flexibility to provide local election officials additional time to count each and every vote by moving the federal safe harbor deadline for states from December 8 to January 1. … [I] urge my colleagues to join me in giving states more time to collect, verify, and count votes without fear of having the results challenged in Congress.

“We know with certainty that Russia, China, and other nations are actively exploiting our domestic political divisions and looking for opportunities to undermine confidence in our elections. Given our nation’s current challenges — a perfect storm of a global pandemic, public lockdowns, subsequent economic turmoil, and social unrest — these efforts could be like throwing a match on an oil slick,” Rubio added.

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“But it gets worse,” he continued. “Local election officials in critical swing states like Pennsylvania, which saw a 17-fold increase in mail-in ballots for its June primary, are warning that, absent changes, ‘there is no way anybody can responsibly call the presidential race in November.’ …Beijing and other hostile foreign actors would throw their full weight behind a misinformation campaign, complete with falsified evidence, asserting that the results are rife with fraud and the election is in the process of being ‘stolen.’ They would use unassuming, but fake social media accounts to spread and magnify allegations that some mail-in ballots are being removed from the post office and destroyed, while others are falsified.

“Congress should immediately pass and President Trump should sign my bipartisan Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines (DETER) Act,” Rubio insisted before calling for a  “news media dedicated to truth and country instead of ratings … To emphasize the point: a free, independent press is vital to our democracy, but a media that prioritizes sensationalism and inflammatory content in a race for ratings, clicks, and retweets would be an unwitting partner as foreign adversaries attempt to push disinformation and undermine Americans’ confidence in our electoral system. We’ve seen it before.”

The bill was sent to the U.S. Senate  Rules and Administration Committee. So far, there is no version over in the U.S. House.

 

Reach Kevin Derby at kevin.derby@floridadaily.com.

Author

  • Originally from Jacksonville, Kevin Derby is a contributing writer for Florida Daily and covers politics across Florida.

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. Rex L Reid

    August 10, 2020, 8:37 am at 8:37 am

    You are such a pandering fool. We had an CAT 5 Hurricane hit us in Bay county and we still GOT ALL OF OUR VOTE IN ON TIME. Just given them the damn election instead of making them cheat you idiot.

  2. Susan Anthony

    August 10, 2020, 11:53 am at 11:53 am

    Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .

    The current system makes it easier to determine the winner of the Electoral College by microtargeting in one of the dozen battleground states.

    The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, mischief, misinformation campaigns, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.

    NationalPopularVote

  3. Susan Anthony

    August 10, 2020, 2:15 pm at 2:15 pm

    Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .

    “Of 1,117 counties in 13 key states, which account for 201 of the 270 Electoral College votes that determine the winner of presidential contests, 83.3 percent didn’t have the .gov validation . . .
    When government websites operate using .com or other domain extensions, it becomes easy for foreign adversaries to put up fake sites that imitate government websites and to mount disinformation campaigns aimed at misleading voters.” McAfee

    There was specific targeting by Russians of “purple states,” or swing states, that are critical to the outcome in the Electoral College.

    With the current system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), a small number of people in a closely divided “battleground” state can potentially affect enough popular votes to swing all of that state’s electoral votes.

    “Swing States A Special Vulnerability In Achieving Election Security, DHS Says” – 3/21/18
    “The reality is: Given our Electoral College and our current politics, national elections are decided in this country in a few precincts, in a few key swing states,” former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson
    The former secretary of DHS, Kirstjen Nielsen, echoed those comments

    Princeton Election Consortium’s Sam Wang “Today’s Electoral College opens a giant security hole.”

    Reed Hundt, former FCC Chairman, said, “A huge percentage of Americans are right in identifying that the current method of selecting the President makes our democracy vulnerable to foreign interference. Too few voters play too big a role in selecting the President. If the entire national popular vote chose the President it would be nearly impossible for bad actors to twist the thinking of millions of people and thwart the true will of the people.”

  4. Susan Anthony

    August 10, 2020, 3:24 pm at 3:24 pm

    Now we need to support the “Yes On National Popular Vote” campaign in Colorado, and vote for and urge state legislators in states with the 74 more electoral votes needed, to enact the National Popular Vote bill for the 2024 election.

    The bill is 73% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.
    The bill changes state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

    It requires enacting states with 270 electoral votes to award their electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes.

    All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.

    NationalPopularVote

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  6. Anonymous

    September 8, 2020, 10:15 am at 10:15 am

    It says a lot that I can’t guess which side you’re on.😕

  7. Anonymous

    September 8, 2020, 10:20 am at 10:20 am

    Like in 2000?

  8. Pingback: Must Read from Larry Diamond and Ned Foley: “The Terrifying Inadequacy of American Election Law; The country has narrowly averted catastrophic deadlocks over the presidential-election outcome before. We may not be so fortunate in 2020.” | Elec

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