https://www.theepochtimes.com/amistad-project-says-state-legislators-not-executive-need-to-certify-presidential-electors_3629806.html
A group has brought a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to block the counting of electoral college votes from several contested states when Congress meets in a joint session on Jan. 6.
The Amistad Project filed the lawsuit arguing that the state legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona were prevented from exercising their power under the U.S. Constitution to certify the presidential electors’ votes cast on Dec. 14. The group claims that a number of federal and state laws had unconstitutionally delegated the authority of state legislatures to certify these votes to state executive branches.
Under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, presidential electors must be appointed by each state in the manner prescribed by the state’s legislature.
The group argues that the provision prevents state legislatures delegating their power to state executive branch officials as a ministerial duty.
“There are textual and structural arguments for these state statutes being unconstitutional,” the group wrote in their lawsuit. They argue that the state laws are an “unconstitutional delegation of the state legislative prerogatives of post-election certifications of Presidential votes and of Presidential electors.”
The lawsuit also argues that state legislatures, many of which are adjourned until January 2021, are also prevented to meet to perform their post-election certification duty. In order to conduct a special legislative session, a supermajority or a governor must agree that legislators should meet. However, the group said the governors from these states are preventing the state legislatures from doing so.
“The very body that is responsible for how these electors are selected, can’t even meet after the election, up through January. So that’s unconstitutional, in that it’s a delegation of authority to a governor of a legislative function. That is not allowed,” Phill Kline, Director of the Amistad Project, told The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders.