Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election were a "dry run" for the upcoming 2024 contest, according to a retired conservative federal judge.
In a CNN opinion piece published Wednesday, J. Michael Luttig said that Donald Trump and the Republicans were trying to shift the election in their favor, regardless of the actual results.
If Trump or his anointed successor loses in the next election, the Republicans will attempt to overturn the election in 2024, the very same plan they failed to execute in 2020.
The 12th Amendment, which governs how the president and vice president are selected, was one of the things Republicans sought to change.
The former judge said that the Supreme Court could potentially accept an originalist interpretation of the Constitution that would allow state legislatures to control how presidential electors are chosen. State supreme courts and statewide elected officials couldn't change election rules or wade into the selection process for electors.
The Supreme Court has never weighed in on the issue, but some Republicans thought the conservative majority on the court would help them.
The Republicans began their efforts to contest the 2020 results by challenging various election laws that had been modified because of the coronaviruses, which included the expansion of mail-in voting and changes in early voting in key states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The Trump campaign and its allies failed to make a case to the Supreme Court after the election.
Republicans tried to create a second slate of electors in key states before Congress certified the election on January 6, 2021, but they were unsuccessful, so Trump pressed then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn Biden's victory.
Trump and the Republicans were defeated by the Supreme Court in the first stage and were unable to come up with alternative state electoral slates in the second stage.
On January 5, 2021, he published a thread where he advised Pence to count the electoral college votes as they have been cast.
The entire house of cards collapsed at noon on January 6 when the ill-conceived plan to delay the count or reject the votes of the duly certified electors was refused by the Vice President.
The judge pointed out that the GOP was trying to influence the elections of state court judges and pro-Trump secretaries of state.
He wrote that Trump and his allies and supporters in Congress and the states began readying their failed 2020 plan to overturn the presidential election later that day and they have been readying that plan ever since.
They are already a long way toward recapturing the White House in 2024 if Trump or another Republican wins the election.
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