A Call to Action: Former Governors Advocate for the Certification of Election Results

A group of previous governors from both parties has begun a campaign with the goal of persuading their successors to certify the votes cast in their respective states during the next election in November. This is in response to the possibility that former President Donald Trump will exert pressure on them to do so.

On Tuesday, which is National Constitution Day, nearly twenty former governors have signed on to participate in the initiative, and it is anticipated that additional governors will join in the weeks to come. The initiative, which is being coordinated by the pro-democracy organisation Keep Our Republic, is sending a letter to each of the fifty statehouses all throughout the country. The letter begs the governors who are now in office to certify the results of the election by the deadline that is set by federal law, which is December 11.

Two Republican chief executives in competitive states, Brian Kemp in Georgia and Doug Ducey in Arizona, were unable to override the decision of the voters in their respective states, despite Trump’s efforts to have them do so four years ago. Although federal legislation has been strengthened to emphasise that each governor’s responsibility is just to certify the winner of the popular vote, the previous executives are concerned that he may choose to do so once more this winter and be successful this time.

Jeb Bush of Florida, John Kasich of Ohio, George Allen of Virginia, and Scott McCallum of Wisconsin are among the past governors of the Republican Party who have signed the document. Additionally, former Democratic governors Ted Strickland of Ohio and Grey Davis of California are also on the list of signatories. However, Georgia and Nevada continue to be in the authority of the Republican Party, as do a few other target states where Trump is attempting to be competitive, such as Virginia and New Hampshire. Even though Democrats presently control the governorships of numerous battleground states, Georgia and Nevada continue to be under Republican control.

Former Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard, a Democrat who served in that capacity from 1983 until 1991, described the events that took place in 2020 as “crazy and awfuls.” We simply want to make sure that our colleagues governors are aware that there is no room for discretion in this matter, and yet we are going to be together in a bipartisan manner to ensure that we preserve the right to vote and the results.

Under federal law, it is the responsibility of governors to certify which candidate received the most votes from the general population in their respective states. For the purpose of clarifying that each state is required to submit a single, conclusive slate of electors, the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 was draughted in a bipartisan effort after Trump’s bid to reverse the election results in 2020. The job of the vice president, which in this instance would be Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, is merely ceremonial, as the document again emphasises once more.

Four years ago, Trump’s plan centred on the idea that certain battleground states would submit competing sets of electors, which would cause confusion during the certification process of the Electoral College on January 6 and result in both sets of electors being null and void. According to the plan, this would have made it possible for Mike Pence, who was serving as Vice President at the time, to dethrone them and hand the election over to Donald Trump.

Tom Corbett, a Republican who served as governor of Pennsylvania in the past, expressed his “disappointment” over the fact that the nominee of his party failed to acknowledge that he had been defeated in the 2020 election and seemed to be building the framework for saying that the election that will take place this year would be rigged.

When making allegations, it is imperative that you have some evidence to back them up, as Corbett stated. In addition, I have not come across any evidence.

In the hopes of providing political protection for those Republican leaders whom Trump may put pressure on, the group of former governors has banded together.

The governors who are being intimidated would “be less tempted to take the command or the request from someone to hold up certification when they know it’s clearly an administrative and clerical and lawful thing they must do,” according to Blanchard, who stated that if a significant amount of governors sign on to the initiative, the one who is being pressured would be less likely to do so.

Democrats continue to hold the governorships in the majority of battleground states, including Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Since the last presidential election, Arizona has also been added to the list of states in which they hold authority. However, there have been indications that Republicans may attempt to achieve the same results as they did in 2020. According to election experts and voting rights organisations, in the state of Georgia, for instance, three Republicans on the five-member state Election Board are pushing through new laws that might put the certification of the election in jeopardy, particularly in the event that Harris wins the state.

The work of Keep Our Republic have been expanded in the battleground states. The organisation is managed by a board that includes Dick Gephardt, a long-time former leader of the House of Representatives from Missouri, and Tim Wirth, a former senator from Colorado.