Yes, the state legislatures are tasked with the initial "vetting" so to speak. They should resolve disputes before appointing their Electors. However, what happens when the legislatures are corrupt and/or negligent? They don't just get "the final say." 1876 was pivotal in exposing this flaw in the system. Disputes within the state as to their own laws for settling disputes. Is it governor or legislatute or secretary of state with final certification? Incoming or current official(s) who decide? What if the legislature illegally appointed Electors who shouldn't have been appointed? Etc etc etc. The 1876 commission was a novel attempt. Clearly, southern Democrats were guilty of foul play in LA and FL. That had to be stopped. So the solution was the commission. I contend that the commission wasn't necessarily "constitutional" then, nor was the ensuing ECA constitutional. It should have always been Judiciary. Funny thing is, courts ruling on countless election cases. Have for a long time. SCOTUS with dozens of impactful rulings.
The question is really quite simple: who settles disputes over claims of violations of the Constitution? According to Congress, since the ECA, they claim that power for themselves at least within the very specific issue of elections. They are wrong...
Article II Section 1, as altered by the 12th Amendment:
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted
The VP is explicitly tasked with opening Electoral certificates (signed and certified by the Electors, whom we assume were lawfully appointed in accordance with state and federal law, and the Constitution). But the phrasing only implies that the VP does the counting. And what does it mean to "count"? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Count. Tally. Record. If the Framers intended for the VP to have more authority, they would have chosen words like, "inspect", "validate", "reject" etc. Nothing of the sort is mentioned, neither for the VP nor for Congress. The plain text of the Constitution is silent. Hence, the issues in 1860 (all of the Electoral certificates from the 10 states that illegally kept Republican Electors off their ballots, should have been rejected), 1868 and 1876 (contested Electoral appointments).
Congress is indeed the body representing the people, but they are still bound by the law, the Constitution. I'm not saying that they aren't the best entity for settling election disputes, but rather that the Constitution, as currently written, doesn't authorize them with such power. Constitutional questions and disputes are left to the Judiciary to settle. That's explicitly written in the Constitution. If the people think that it should be Congress' duty to investigate, and vote on rejecting potentially unlawful Electoral certificates (basically what the ECA lays out) then the Congress should pass an amendment, and the states should ratify it. They should follow the Constitutional process, as opposed to giving themselves power out of "necessity."
Now, I would still argue that Judges are better suited to settle such disputes, specifically SCOTUS as far as federal elections are concerned. SCOTUS aren't elected. They serve for life. They are supposed to be impartial and apolitical. They are not tasked with creating policy or management of resources etc. They have one job: interpret and apply the law. If there are accusations that state officials violated the Constitution or federal election laws, or even their own state laws, which caused harm towards the citizens of their state, then it's a judicial matter. Congress is a law-MAKING body, not a law-APPLYING body.
The Framers seem to have believed the same as I do and set the system up that way. If the people feel otherwise, then they should encourage their representatives to follow the Constitutional process to makes changes. The ECA was a lazy attempt to bypass the amendment process, even if it was an improved design, much of it was and remains unconstitutional.
Voter manipulation is certainly an issue, a massive one. But here we are simply unable, at least in several states, to provide legitimate counts of purported legally distributed, filled out, returned, and recorded ballots. It shouldn't be hard to determine if a ballot is legitimate, and make a proper count... if we can't figure this basic shit out, how do we expect to seriously deal with media collusion?
On a related note, I once again got a ballot sent to my house for my sister, who has never lived at this address, and hasn't even lived in the state since 2014... we reported it in 2016 and 2020. Clearly, nobody cares that she's still on the voter rolls. These thousands of ineligible, nonexistent ghost voter sit on the rolls, allowing for easy manipulation of reported final ballot numbers...
Again, the issue with "count" is that it's a purely ministerial term and action. Like a cashier "counting" the money in a till after the day's business. But the cashier isn't marking every bill to ensure all are real cash, or confirming with banks that checks are legitimate, and said connected accounts have funds available. At least when they run a credit card, the machine will decline it if the system detects lack of funds. In this analogy, VP/Congress is and always have been a cashier. Investigative and judgement powers lie with the Judiciary. When it comes to federal elections that impact the entire nation, the people must not suffer at the hands of negligent or nefarious Congresses, state legislatures or officials. There must be a check. That check is SCOTUS.
It's harder to prove brainwashing and argue that a vote cast under the influence of manipulation and propaganda is "illegitimate." However, a literal fake ballot, manipulated computer tally, and election law violations (ballot harvesting, ignoring lack of required signatures, ballot theft, issuing all mail in ballots as absentee even though the people don't mean requirements fot absentee, accepting ballots after deadlines, setting up "voter centers" instead of required drop boxes within precincts etc) are all far more easier to identify and objectively prove illegal actions, which constitute fraud.
Yes, the state legislatures are tasked with the initial "vetting" so to speak. They should resolve disputes before appointing their Electors. However, what happens when the legislatures are corrupt and/or negligent? They don't just get "the final say." 1876 was pivotal in exposing this flaw in the system. Disputes within the state as to their own laws for settling disputes. Is it governor or legislatute or secretary of state with final certification? Incoming or current official(s) who decide? What if the legislature illegally appointed Electors who shouldn't have been appointed? Etc etc etc. The 1876 commission was a novel attempt. Clearly, southern Democrats were guilty of foul play in LA and FL. That had to be stopped. So the solution was the commission. I contend that the commission wasn't necessarily "constitutional" then, nor was the ensuing ECA constitutional. It should have always been Judiciary. Funny thing is, courts ruling on countless election cases. Have for a long time. SCOTUS with dozens of impactful rulings.
The question is really quite simple: who settles disputes over claims of violations of the Constitution? According to Congress, since the ECA, they claim that power for themselves at least within the very specific issue of elections. They are wrong...
Article II Section 1, as altered by the 12th Amendment:
The VP is explicitly tasked with opening Electoral certificates (signed and certified by the Electors, whom we assume were lawfully appointed in accordance with state and federal law, and the Constitution). But the phrasing only implies that the VP does the counting. And what does it mean to "count"? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Count. Tally. Record. If the Framers intended for the VP to have more authority, they would have chosen words like, "inspect", "validate", "reject" etc. Nothing of the sort is mentioned, neither for the VP nor for Congress. The plain text of the Constitution is silent. Hence, the issues in 1860 (all of the Electoral certificates from the 10 states that illegally kept Republican Electors off their ballots, should have been rejected), 1868 and 1876 (contested Electoral appointments).
Congress is indeed the body representing the people, but they are still bound by the law, the Constitution. I'm not saying that they aren't the best entity for settling election disputes, but rather that the Constitution, as currently written, doesn't authorize them with such power. Constitutional questions and disputes are left to the Judiciary to settle. That's explicitly written in the Constitution. If the people think that it should be Congress' duty to investigate, and vote on rejecting potentially unlawful Electoral certificates (basically what the ECA lays out) then the Congress should pass an amendment, and the states should ratify it. They should follow the Constitutional process, as opposed to giving themselves power out of "necessity."
Now, I would still argue that Judges are better suited to settle such disputes, specifically SCOTUS as far as federal elections are concerned. SCOTUS aren't elected. They serve for life. They are supposed to be impartial and apolitical. They are not tasked with creating policy or management of resources etc. They have one job: interpret and apply the law. If there are accusations that state officials violated the Constitution or federal election laws, or even their own state laws, which caused harm towards the citizens of their state, then it's a judicial matter. Congress is a law-MAKING body, not a law-APPLYING body.
The Framers seem to have believed the same as I do and set the system up that way. If the people feel otherwise, then they should encourage their representatives to follow the Constitutional process to makes changes. The ECA was a lazy attempt to bypass the amendment process, even if it was an improved design, much of it was and remains unconstitutional.
Voter manipulation is certainly an issue, a massive one. But here we are simply unable, at least in several states, to provide legitimate counts of purported legally distributed, filled out, returned, and recorded ballots. It shouldn't be hard to determine if a ballot is legitimate, and make a proper count... if we can't figure this basic shit out, how do we expect to seriously deal with media collusion?
On a related note, I once again got a ballot sent to my house for my sister, who has never lived at this address, and hasn't even lived in the state since 2014... we reported it in 2016 and 2020. Clearly, nobody cares that she's still on the voter rolls. These thousands of ineligible, nonexistent ghost voter sit on the rolls, allowing for easy manipulation of reported final ballot numbers...
Again, the issue with "count" is that it's a purely ministerial term and action. Like a cashier "counting" the money in a till after the day's business. But the cashier isn't marking every bill to ensure all are real cash, or confirming with banks that checks are legitimate, and said connected accounts have funds available. At least when they run a credit card, the machine will decline it if the system detects lack of funds. In this analogy, VP/Congress is and always have been a cashier. Investigative and judgement powers lie with the Judiciary. When it comes to federal elections that impact the entire nation, the people must not suffer at the hands of negligent or nefarious Congresses, state legislatures or officials. There must be a check. That check is SCOTUS.
It's harder to prove brainwashing and argue that a vote cast under the influence of manipulation and propaganda is "illegitimate." However, a literal fake ballot, manipulated computer tally, and election law violations (ballot harvesting, ignoring lack of required signatures, ballot theft, issuing all mail in ballots as absentee even though the people don't mean requirements fot absentee, accepting ballots after deadlines, setting up "voter centers" instead of required drop boxes within precincts etc) are all far more easier to identify and objectively prove illegal actions, which constitute fraud.