The lack of an established process for reviewing elections points to a larger issue: The structures established by the Constitution assumed a world in which the presidency and the Electoral College were not fully absorbed into a contentious national party system. That vision has long since been replaced by one in which presidential elections are national contests over policy agendas and ideas. The text of our Constitution has never been changed to reflect this reality. Instead, the Electoral College remains the final word on who gets to be president. When it comes to the possibility that the winning side colluded with a foreign power to influence the election outcome, the Constitution doesn’t offer much in the way of a plan.
Much More: What Happens If The Election Was A Fraud? The Constitution Doesn’t Say.
I have only quoted the last paragraph. All the details are in the previous
eleven paragraphs. The bottom line appears to be that our Constitution is not equipped to deal with such an event. Hence, a constitutional crisis.
Initially it was felt that the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College to balance out the density of the cities versus the rural areas and this has played out as such on more than one occasion. However, on to what would happen if an election were deemed to be fraudulent. As the Constitution does not address such an issue, we can only assume that there would be an additional run-off that would be heavily monitored. Not that your addressing the current presidential run, but, to date, no investigation has shown that Trump had any collusion with Russia and Russia had absolutely no effect on the Electoral College. Those are hand written ballots and signed by the Electoral College, so he won by the current established method of presidential election. If the public wants the Electoral College eliminated in favor of an election by popular vote alone, a 60% majority would have to make that happen to change the Constitution.
Some food for thought:
Are there restrictions on who the Electors can vote for?
There is no
Constitutional provision or
Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties' nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called "faithless Electors" may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the
Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
Today, it is rare for Electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party's candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged.
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) has compiled a brief summary of state laws about the various procedures, which vary from state to state, for selecting slates of potential electors and for conducting the meeting of the electors. The document, Summary: State Laws Regarding Presidential Electors, can be downloaded from the resources/elections menu on the
NASS website.
Much More: U. S. Electoral College: Who Are the Electors? How Do They Vote?