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Michigan Speaker Lee Chatfield (above, campaigning for President Trump Nov. 2) and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey are scheduled to meet with Trump on Friday.

Trump set to woo top Michigan Republicans to help subvert the election

Michigan's top two Republican legislators are due at the White House on Friday afternoon. It's the most tangible intensification yet of President Trump's crusade to subvert democracy by soiling, but almost certainly not reversing, the election he lost.

The topic of the meeting is clear. The president wants to learn how far the lawmakers are willing to go to delay and discredit if not upend the clear result in the state: Voters preferred President-elect Joe Biden by more than 154,000 votes and he secured its 16 electoral votes by 3 percentage points.

Thirteen days after sufficient votes were tallied to make Biden's national victory clear, the top Republican leadership in Congress remains unified in indulging the president's effort, although a growing number of respected members of the rank-and-file are signaling it's time for Trump to permit the transition to begin.

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Events

Becoming A Democracy: How We Can Fix the Electoral College, Gerrymandering, and Our Elections with author Kristin Eberhard

Organizer: Fix Democracy First

Join us for a special book release event for "Becoming A Democracy: How We Can Fix the Electoral College, Gerrymandering, and Our Elections" with author Kristin Eberhard. This should be the last American election that works against the people. Kristin Eberhard, Director of the Democracy Program at Sightline Institute, has thoughtfully researched how the US election system is unjust, poorly designed, or broken, and walks you through 10 big but practical ideas for making our elections free, fair, and secure. Becoming a Democracy is a field guide to the most viable upgrades for our elections, so that America can truly be governed by and for the people.

Location: Webinar

Election Dissection
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Distorted U.S. democracy underscores urgency of Electoral College reform

On Dec. 14, the Electoral College will cast its votes. Barring any unforeseen outrage, a majority will vote for Joe Biden, the popular vote winner in the general election, to sighs of relief. Many may conclude the creaky Electoral College works most of the time, and that any fixes are just too hard to worry about.

That would be a mistake.

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Voting
Pixy.org

Navigating the Electoral College process this year could be like playing Chutes and Ladders.

The next steps in the electoral process could be simple – or not

So, if this were a normal presidential election year, the country would already be focusing its attention on the next big event in the life cycle of our democracy — Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, with Joe Biden being sworn in as the 46th American president.

But almost nothing about this election has been normal, of course. Witness, most recently, President Trump's refusal to concede defeat in the face of overwhelming evidence he's lost decisively. And his stubbornness, buttressed by the passions of millions of fervent supporters and the passiveness of the Republican Party's other leaders, makes it important to understand the presidential contest's complicated path over the coming weeks.

One way to think about it is like a game with really arcane rules but a usually predictable outcome: "Win the Electoral College." The players move their pieces along the right path, hoping to reach the finish without taking dangerous side trips that set them back along the way.

Usually it works that way, but not always — a bit like an analogous kids' game, "Chutes and Ladders." Here's what the board looks like:

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