How to steal a presidential election
- ISBN: 9780300270792
- Editorial: Yale University Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2024
- Lugar de la edición: New Haven. Estados Unidos de Norteamérica
- Encuadernación: Cartoné
- Medidas: 22 cm
- Nº Pág.: 176
- Idiomas: Inglés
From two distinguished experts on election law, an alarming look at how the American presidency could be stolen-by entirely legal means
"Their new book asks whether a second Trump attempt to subvert democracy could succeed. Their answer makes for uncomfortable reading."-Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
Even in the fast and loose world of the Trump White House, the idea that a couple thousand disorganized protestors storming the U.S. Capitol might actually prevent a presidential succession was farfetched. Yet perfectly legal ways of overturning election results actually do exist, and they would allow a political party to install its own candidate in place of the true winner.
Lawrence Lessig and Matthew Seligman work through every option available for subverting a presumptively legitimate result-from vice-presidential intervention to election decertification and beyond. While many strategies would never pass constitutional muster, Lessig and Seligman explain how some might. They expose correctable weaknesses in the system, including one that could be corrected only by the Supreme Court.
Any strategy aimed at hacking a presidential election is a threat to democracy. This book is a clarion call to shore up the insecure system for electing the president before American democracy is forever compromised.
A coup in search of a legal theory
The scenario
VP superpowers
"Faithless" electors
Rogue governors
The "force majeure" game
Who's the judge?
The nuclear option: back to the founding
The most dangerous strategy
Fixing the flaws in presidential democracy
The soul of democracy