Swing state officials prepare for potential disruptions around December electors meetings

Source: NBC News

Nov. 2, 2024, 5:00 AM EDT


The final votes of the presidential election have yet to be cast, but concern is already swirling among state election officials that a close outcome could fuel chaos during the routine events that follow a campaign. In the weeks following Election Day, results will be certified by state officials, recounts may occur and electors will meet in each state to formally cast their Electoral College votes. Those votes later get sent to Washington, D.C., where lawmakers are scheduled to formally count those results during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2025.

These meetings in states, outlined by federal statute and specified by state laws, statutes or constitutions, will occur on Dec. 17. The violence of Jan. 6, 2021 — as well as the growing expectation that former President Donald Trump may not accept the election results if he loses to Vice President Kamala Harris — has prompted federal officials to beef up security in the nation’s capital for the same occasion this time around.

Specifically, concerns abound that the possible submission of alternate slates of electors could manifest as unrest ahead of and during these meetings. Officials in battleground states — whose Capitols will, in most cases, host the December meetings of electors — are beginning to plan for such contingencies as well, in preparation that these events could be disrupted.

“We are not going into this naively,” Elaine Marshall, the secretary of state in North Carolina and a Democrat, said in an interview. “I don’t think anybody needs to go through this election naively, having watched Jan. 6, having watched what happened, listening, now, to news reports of people who are attempting to disrupt the actual voting,” she added. “I don’t think anybody needs to be real naive about what the possibilities are — because sometimes desperate people do desperate things.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/state-officials-prepare-potential-disruptions-electors-meetings-rcna177865