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by credit_guy 2051 days ago
> Why isn't there a deadline?

How could there be? Voting is a state business. Each state is responsible for how it chooses the electors, via what procedures, on what timetable, etc.

Here's what the Constitution has to say on this matter (Article 2, Section 1): "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress".
2 comments
dragonwriter 2051 days ago
> How could there be?

Well, Article II of the Constituion might have included language something like "The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States."

The first clause absolutely gives Congress the power to set a deadline by which electors must be chosen. And it has; the choice of electors, to be within the Electoral Count Act safe harbor, must be finalized six days before the Electoral College votes (so, Dec. 8, as the EC votes on Dec. 14.)

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mandelbrotwurst 2051 days ago
Yeah, but what that definitely doesnt say is "Congress shall make no law requiring that the electors be chosen on a specific timetable"
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credit_guy 2051 days ago
Actually the Constitution says exactly that in the 10th Amendment "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

A deadline obviously exists: the day the electors cast their votes, which the Constitution stipulates to be "the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December", and which this year is December 14th. Other than that, as long as a state properly sends its designated number of electors to vote, how it chooses those electors is nobody's business but the state's alone. If the state is not able to decide, or sends the wrong number of electors, then it creates a problem for the Federal Government, so the Congress can pass a law to clarify what to do in such a case, and since this was the case in 1873, it passed the Electoral Count Act, which essentially sets a deadline for such troublesome states 6 days ahead of the 14th December date [1].

[1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11641

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