Delayed Election Results, The Democrat Party And More – On Foundations Of Freedom: What happens if the mail-in ballots create a major delay in our upcoming elections? Does anybody really know? What can you do to encourage a fair election process?Is the Democrat party dead? Should we be teaching civic? Tune in to learn the answers to these questions and more on this Foundations of Freedom program!

Air Date: 09/10/2020

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Thomas Jefferson said, “The Constitution of most of our States and of the United States assert that all power is inherent in the people that they may exercise it by themselves. That is their right and duty to be at all times armed, that they are entitled to freedom of person; freedom of religion; freedom of property and freedom of press.”

Rick:

This is the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, where we look at the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I’m here with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders. Tim Barton is with us. He’s a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. You can find out more about all three of us at our website, so I’m going to give you several.

Wallbuilderslive.com, that’s the radio site, that’s the main site, you can get to all the other sites from there. But that’s the place where you can get a list of all the stations we’re on across the country and that is the place you can make a contribution. Be sure and consider that donation button.

We are a listener supported program, so every contribution you make, that is an investment in freedom, it allows us to spread the truth more across the country, reach more stations, reach more citizens, and get more citizens equipped and inspired and educated on these founding principles so that they can restore our constitutional republic together. So check that out at wallbuilderslive.com.

Then the wallbuilders.com is our main website. That’s where you can also get all kinds of books and DVDs and programs, curriculum, I mean, you name it, Constitution classes, all there at wallbuilders.com. And the last one is constitutioncoach.com. That’s where you can find out more about me and you can get signed up as a Constitution coach and be hosting these classes in your home, in the living room, in church or wherever you might like to do so.

Send In Your Questions!

Today is Thursday, we call that Foundations of Freedom Thursday around here at WallBuilders Live, it’s your chance to send in questions. You can send those to [email protected], that’s [email protected] We’re looking at everything from that biblical, historical, constitutional perspective. So send your questions our way.

Okay, David, Tim, let’s dive into those questions right now. The first one comes from Scott in San Diego. He said, “There’s discussion of it taking months to count the votes from November. If there is not a confirmed election by Inauguration Day, then is Trump still president?

“Does the Speaker fill in? If he’s not, then if the house elections are up in the air, who is Speaker or Senate leader? Do we enter complete anarchy with no federal government?” Alright guys, so Scott’s question actually fits perfect with what we talked about in the mail-in ballot situation and how that could create a major delay in the election.

David:

Yeah, we gave examples of New York City where they went to the mail-in balloting and they had a vote that was in June, first part of June and two months later, first part of August, they still have not reported results on some of those votes. So New York City gives us a really good example of what might happen. If you take it out of the city and move it to the entire State and take it out of their State and move it to all 50 States, then oh my gosh, you could be looking at something that is not seen in our generation.

Now, I can’t say that it’s not been seen before, because the election of 1876, we actually went six months without a president. It took six months to determine who won the election and it went through all sorts of commissions and all sorts of special panels that were convened. So…

What Happened in 1876?

Tim:

Who was elected back then?

David:

Who was elected back then? Well, it was not Samuel Tilden., it was Rutherford B. Hayes. And it was interesting that you had charges of voter corruption in three States. I think it was Louisiana, South Carolina and what was the other one, but anyway, those three. The Democrats said, here’s the votes we counted and Republican said, well, we didn’t get that total, here’s what we got.

And those three States were the difference for the Electoral College of hitting that key majority level and so they went literally months trying to figure out who won the election in those three States. And so we went six months without a president at that point in time, so it’s not up unprecedented, but it certainly hasn’t happened in our lifetime. So that will be something new.

And again, as you said, Rick, we’re recovering some of that last week looking at what happened and not only New York City, but in Wisconsin and Washington, DC and Philadelphia and so many other places.

Tim:

So the question is then, if votes are not tallied in time, then when the new president supposed to be sworn in, the existing president resigned his position when the new president sworn in, but if there is no new president sworn in, does he actually resign his position? Because I don’t remember in the Constitution an expiration date on presidency, except for the amendment that says on this day is when the new president comes.

What if Nobody is Elected?

But if there is nobody elected and there is no swearing in, does that mean the existing president loses his presidency? Or then does it maybe go to the Speaker of the House as some might indicate, because if there’s no president and there’s no vice president and Speaker of the House.

But then, you have the interesting thought of Congress is also supposed to have a new Congress in the beginning of January, and if we don’t have the ballots to know who’s president, then we might not have the ballots to know who’s in Congress. So if there’s no Speaker of the House take over, this could be a really interesting, chaotic situation.

David:

I hope it’s nothing more than a theoretical paper debate that we’re having that actually come to this, right? But it is complicated. I mean, even back with Rutherford B. Hayes, we were without a president for six months, because Ulysses S. Grant, his term ended and so he left office, he didn’t stay over until the new president took office.

And so, you know, they’ve now changed the elections and we no longer have presidents taking office in March and now take office in January. So that was a constitutional amendment, but it really does create… And, Rick, you and I were even talking about this last night, emailing back and forth. I mean, what do you see when you look at this constitutionally?

Rick:

Well, I was trying to remember to like what was the date of the 20th amendment being adopted? Because was, I guess, Hayes would have been well before that, because the 20th, what was that a 1930s?

The 20th Amendment

David:

Yes, it’s in early 1900s, so Hayes was already there.

Rick:

Hayes would have been before that, and then the 20th very specifically, it makes the president and vice president in their term at that time, what is it noon on the 20th, I think of January, and then Congress definitely ends on the 3rd of January. So I do think there’s probably no way and everything I’ve just tried to look quickly and do some research on this and there’s no definitive like, nobody really knows, that’s what’s really crazy about this.

But we do know that it does say in the 20th Amendment, their term ends. So I don’t think they could carry over, but also, I’ve seen some other people write about how well but there wouldn’t be a Congress either if there was no, “federal election.” David, help me on this, because I don’t see it as a federal election versus a state election.

We do that on the same ballot. I could see where you would know who your congressman was, but maybe not know who the president was if they’re doing a recount in Florida, let’s say, of all the mail-in ballots for president but they’re not doing that for the house.

So I’m having a hard time comprehending how we would not have a House or Senate either but it would be crazy if we didn’t. Because if there’s no house, but you do have a Senate, well, then which members of the Senate do you have? Like if there were no elections at all, let’s say they didn’t have any federal offices that we would know who won in November, well, then there’s no house, because all 435 of those are up. But there is a Senate, they’re still like what, 66-67?

David:

67, it depends on what side [crosstalk 07:20] Senate.

Rick:

Won’t that be interesting if only those 66 or 67, they were the only members of Congress left in Washington, DC? I mean, I’m sorry to laugh about it. But it’s just so far beyond the pale of what anybody thought would happen, that the constitution really doesn’t have a mechanism for how to deal with this exactly.

It Will Be Very Interesting

David:

Well, if it were 67 senators or 66 that were running it, they would probably be Democrat, because this is the cycle in which a whole lot of the Republicans are up for election, so you’re going to have a whole lot more Democrats remaining incumbents than you will Republicans. If you throw out the 33 or 30 for this election that are going to be on the ballot and you say, well, we don’t know who the winner is, so you’re not really the incumbent, but yes, you are kind of the incumbent but because nobody had been sworn in to replace you. Well, but your term ends. I mean, it could be an interesting thing but…

Rick:

Oh wait. Think about between the 3rd and the 20th, right?

David:

That’s right.

Rick:

If on the third, let’s say, you’ve got 33 or 34 vacancies in the Senate, do those governors in those states get to fill that vacancy based on whatever their statutes say? And I mean, you could actually have some governors doing that, and some not, it could be total circus.

David:

Well, see, here’s the thing. The Constitution does say that the States handled the time, place and manner of federal elections. So I don’t think you’re going to be looking at all 50 States not reporting their results.

Rick:

I agree.

David:

You’re going to have a bunch of results that are random. By the way, Red States have done a lot better job of not having corruption. And the examples we gave last week were primarily a Blue cities in Blue States that we’re going to all mail-in type of stuff. And so the Red States have been very prompt and very good at hand handling the stuff, handling voter security. They still have corruption from time to time, but it’s not the widespread levels we see.

Red States vs. Blue States

Tim:

Yeah, I would specify it’s much better in those Red States and partly because of the way they conduct the process, because there’s not the widespread mail-in ballots. There is better things for vote security, for accountability and it’s not that there’s not at times corruption happens, right, because there’re absolutely places we can point to cities in Texas where there’s been corruption and people have gone to jail for corruption.

And so it does still happen. It’s just not seemingly as routine levels of corruption as you see sometimes in some of these Democrat strongholds, where absolutely, there’s been a lot more cases of people doing the wrong thing, getting caught, etc, etc. That’s much more prevalent when you look at the New Jersey’s or the California or New York etc, you do see a lot more of that.

David:

Well, it’s like we were looking last week in New Jersey having to throw out 20% of the ballots for problems. That’s not what you see in these other States. And while we do have corruption in Texas, it’s 5, 10, 20, 50 votes, it’s not 20% of the State.

Tim:

Yeah, and sometimes even those mail-in ballots being thrown out. So often, what you see problems with those are, they send the last known addresses and so often the people that were with the last address are no longer there. Or right, whether even sometimes they move out of state, they’ve moved location.

Voter Fraud

And this is where it’s even susceptible to so much voter fraud, because who’s to say somebody at this house who’s not the person who actually used to live in the house? And so they got somebody else’s mail-in ballot, but they’re going to fill it out and send it back. It really is a disastrous thought.

But again, that’s why when you look at places like New Jersey, or various places that have had these huge percentages of ballots that were not even counted, many times is because they didn’t go to the right house or location, and so the proper people couldn’t vote on them, therefore, it can’t be counted, etc. So, it seems that this is a way that also has a lot of disenfranchisement, because the right people weren’t getting the right balance when weren’t allowing them to vote. It really is just not a good system.

David:

And so back to what it means for president, I don’t think you’ll have all 50 States unable to report results. But let’s say that this is an election like the Mondale-Reagan election where the Mondale only got 70 electoral votes. You know, it’s conceivable that even with several States not reporting, you could still reach the 270 threshold in the electoral college if it’s a landslide kind of election, whatever that maybe. So you still could reach that threshold and have seven or eight States that haven’t reported their results, but we’re over the 270 needed.

So this is a great paper exercise. I know, it’s taking a lot of bandwidth and a lot of folks and they’re writing about it. I can’t imagine that it actually happens, but boy, would that be an interesting time in history if we had to live through that?

A Practical Possibility

Rick:

You know, as you were saying that, David, and maybe think of, a practical possibility is that if some of those States are delayed and not others, and you got, Trump maybe at 250 and doesn’t get to that hump of 270. And then the new Congress meets January 30th, and whoever now has that Congress, maybe they do decide that okay, nobody reached 270, even if it’s because some people haven’t reported yet, they just say, nobody’s reached 270 and then the house tries to decide who the president is.

And we’ve done that three times, right, where the house has been the one to actually decide the presidency. Now, that might be a practical conflict, I guess, or constitutional crisis, whatever you call it if the house is controlled by Democrats, and they think Trump’s close, but he’s not quite there yet because there’s still some States out, and then they say, oh, well, we’re just going to say that he didn’t get the 270 by January 20th and boom, that I don’t know, that could be an interesting one.

David:

That would be one that could turn really ugly really fast if they were to do that. I think if they decide tried to do that, there would be a widespread outcry that no, you let the process run its course, you don’t circumvent the process. And I think that’s something they could try to do. But I think man, the backlash would be more severe than they imagined, or at least I hope it would have been.

I think it would be. I think even from their own party, there’ll be democrats that would say, no, that’s not the right thing to do. Let it run its course. Let all the states decide. But there is no question that theoretically, that definitely could be done. If Trump was close, and they say, well, he’s not the winner, so the house is choosing and we’re choosing whoever it is, that’s clearly constitutionally permissible. But that will…

Civil War

Rick:

It will be almost, like I was trying to remember maybe it was even during the Civil War in 1864, when there were some states that their electoral votes weren’t recognized or they didn’t send them or they refused to send them in, I mean, they were just those kinds of things that happen. It would feel a little bit like we were right. And while many people say we’re at a civil war, so it would feel like we were back at the Civil War again.

David:

Well, we’ve talked about the fact that we’ve never been this polarized since 1856 and this what led up to the Civil War. So yeah, there’s a lot of things historically that are similar to what was going on back then, hopefully, we don’t get to that point. But nonetheless, there’s some constitutional questions.

Rick:

It is. it’s really interesting to study it too. And I would say that citizens out there that, you know, because they’re typically looking us for action items, one of the most important things you can do right now is encourage your state leaders not to do the whole mail-in balloting thing, to do their system well, get their votes counted, get them in, just use the process, work the process and not buy into all these scare tactics that are out there. So that’s an action item for the citizens at home. We’re going to take a quick break, guys, we got more questions coming up. This is Foundations of Freedom Thursday. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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President Thomas Jefferson said, “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves. And if we think they’re not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”

Constitution Alive!

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution but just felt like, man, the classes are boring or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago or I don’t know where to start? People want to know but it gets frustrating because they don’t know where to look for truth about the Constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. And it’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the Constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders library, where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it the Quickstart Guide to the Constitution, because in just a few hours through these videos, you will learn the citizens guide to America’s Constitution, you’ll learn what you need to do to help save our constitutional republic. It’s fun, it’s entertaining and it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now and wallbuilders.com.

The Rightful Masters

Abraham Lincoln said. “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts; not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday, taking your questions. And by the way, you can send those into us at [email protected], [email protected] Here we go, guys. This one says, “Hey, David, Rick, love everything you do. Wow, Tim, no love for you, man.” What happened?

Tim:

I’m getting used to it. It’s okay. Reminds me of my childhood, getting overlooked and you know, it’s fine, it’s fine.

Rick:

Larry, you’re in trouble. Larry, you left him out. We’re just skipping this question. We’re out of here. Alright, I wanted to ask a question, but for he’s probably old like us, like David and me. You know, he goes back to when we first started this program. I wanted to ask a question, but first, I would like…

David:

Wait a minute. Old like who?

Rick:

I’m sorry. Okay, if you’re old, then…

David:

I’m the only one with the really white hair in this group. So, I…

Rick:

Tim, I think I’m digging a bigger hole than I intended here…

Tim:

You’re welcome to borrow Larry shovel if you need it. I don’t think he’s using it anymore.

Rick:

Alright, back to Larry. He said, “I wanted to ask a question, but first, I’d like you to know that I believe the Democrat Party is dead. It is not compatible with our founding documents anymore. I would like to know what happened when the Whig Party went out of existence and how it happened. And where did the people go?

Is the Democrat Party Dead?

There’re the same people just start a new party. I was wondering if a Reagan Democrat could start a new party that stood for something. I feel the Republicans have an anchor, which is the Bible and religion and the Constitution, which keeps us in the same orbit, so to speak, but the Democrats have nothing to believe in. Therefore, the Democrats are going to go further and further out of orbit. Thanks for all you do, Larry.”

Okay, really interesting question, Larry. And by the way, we’re going to let him in on this even though I threw him under the bus when you left him out of the question. But I don’t know, guys, what do you think? I mean, could we be at a time? It’s been so long since we’ve had a new major party in America. So I guess, first, David was what was with the Whigs, when they went out of existence, where did everybody go? And then do you guys think that that could happen again in our lifetimes?

David:

Well, before we get to the Whigs, let me say that I think I disagree with Larry on the statement he makes up top. He says, I believe the Democrat Party is dead. I don’t believe that. And the reason I don’t believe that is the philosophy they’re espousing is being held by millions and tens of millions of people. If the Democrat Party were dead, is because the philosophy they espouse is dead. And so whether you look at their socialistic viewpoint, whether you look at the way they do funding and giving money and social welfare, there’s just too many Americans still support that.

Tim:

Yeah. And then the Democratic Party from 40 years ago is dead. Right? It’s a different Democratic Party

David:

Yeah, the Reagan Democrat Party is dead.

Creating a New Political Party

Tim:

That’s right. It is a different Democrat Party than it was, but as a title, no, the Democrat Party is not going anywhere for, I don’t see, I don’t see them going anywhere for a while. The same thing with the Republican Party. I think there’s a lot more people that are becoming much more frustrated with the program or the process, and they’re feeling much more disenfranchised.

But one of the things we’ve talked about for years even on this program, it’s easier to do work inside of a political party that’s already existing than create a brand new structure, because people are already going to be inclined to vote for one of the major existing structures, as opposed to branching off to find or develop or build something new.

Our nation’s just not in the place, I don’t think that you’re really going to be able to grow a party. It’s going to be easier to go in and get involved in the grassroots. And if you take over your county party, and then from your county party, you work at the state party and your State convention, you change things in the State, then from there, you can work to begin to change things in the nation.

And I think it’s a lot easier than forming something new and I don’t think the Democrat Party is going anywhere, although I think they’re changing a lot of the basic values they used to hold, a lot of definitions, and now they’re in this fluidity of whatever’s politically expedient, right, whoever are the loudest, cancel critics, they seem to want to side with them.

And it’s going to turn a lot of the more moderate traditional democrats off and they might rise up and fight back for the party or they might just leave. And that’s where even last election, Presidential election we saw many Democrats vote for Trump, I think you’re going to see a lot more Democrats vote for Trump this year as well, because they’re frustrated with how far left their party is going.

The Democrat Party Has Changed

David:

Well, and we’ve seen even in four years ago, we were talking about how there were Democrats who are still pro-traditional marriage, who were prolife, etc. And just over the last several months, we’ve seen several state democrat parties throw state legislators out of their party for being prolife. So they have come to an enforcement place where they don’t want diversity, they’re not having diversity, but they’re not an insignificant party.

I mean, this is part of the polarization that has gone on we talked about last segment and Democrats will help fomenting that polarization with Republicans. You got pro-abortion Republicans and prolife Republicans and pro-LGBT and pro-traditional marriage Republicans, but not with the Democrats, you have a conformity there that’s very different.

So back to what happened with the Whigs. The Whigs, actually, the Republicans took the place of the Whigs but the republic Because took the place of several groups that are out there. The Democrats were definitely fragmented. The Democrats, you had what we call the freedom Democrats, mostly the Democrats at the time of the 1840s-1850s were very ardent pro-slavery, kind of like proabortion today.

They would fall on the sword, so to speak over the slavery issue. They were very loud outspoken about it. That’s part of their platform. They believe that slavery was a good thing for blacks and for whites, that it helped blacks and it was good for whites. So Democrats, very outspoken on slavery.

But there was a group of Democrats that call themselves the Freedom Democrats, they were anti-slavery Democrats, and they found themselves at odds with their party and their party were at odds with them definitely. Their party didn’t like their position, what they stood for.

A Common Philosophy

You also had a smaller third party group, probably a fourth or fifth party group called the Free Soilers, another was the Emancipationist. And the Free Soilers were, we think that the land should be free and you shouldn’t have slavery on the land. So that’s a type of an antislavery party. The Emancipationist is the same thing, we want slaves to be free. So those were all lesser parties and they might have one or two members of Congress.

And the Whigs really kind of fell apart over the fact that they could not keep together on moral issues. You had Whigs that just didn’t care about slavery, I care about economic issues, you had Whigs that were very antislavery. And so the Whig party really split over moral issues.

And when they did, and the Whig party fell apart, the Republican stepped down, they picked up the former Whigs, the antislavery wigs, they picked up the Free Soilers, the Emancipationists, they picked up the Freedom Democrats, they picked up all these other groups, and those other groups formed the Republican Party. So they weren’t really having to start from scratch, they were picking up people who had a common philosophy. And that’s the thing to understand about a political party.

A political party is just a bunch of people getting together saying here’s the common philosophy we all hold. And Democrats right now that we think socialism is a good deal, we think Israel is a bad deal and we think you know, all the stuff they believe. Well, there’s going to be people across the nation that have that philosophy, whether the Democrats continue to call themselves democrats or not. That philosophy is out there to a higher degree, we know it from polling.

So that’s why I don’t think that the Democrat party is going anywhere. I do think that the Reagan Democrats are a thing of the past. They’re no longer welcome to the Democrat party.

But whether that means they’re going to become disenfranchised, and not be part of the process or sit it out, or whether they’re going to become Independents or Republicans or whatever else, you know, who knows? That’s still up in the air. But that’s what happened to the Whig Party back in the 1840s-1850s.

Are Civics Classes Important?

Rick:

Well, and we’ve told people the same thing with regard to Republicans. When the Republican party became more and more moderate and people wanted to go start third parties that were whether Constitution party or whatever, and we always said, look, the vehicles right here. Why don’t we get do exactly what Tim said earlier? Get in and take over the party and bring more conservative values to the party.

And that’s actually what we did. I mean, you lead that movement here in Texas, David back in the 90s and then we saw that happen in other states as well. So the vehicles there. And it just makes sense that same thing will happen to the Democrats, that they will figure out they would much rather take over the vehicle, rather than go try to start another party.

David:

Yeah. And that’s the thing that we have trouble with right now, is we no longer know enough about civics to know how to get involved to do parties. Civics courses used to be taught and you would learn about precincts, you’d learn about how parties worked, and it didn’t matter who the party was. They all work the same general way, just different beliefs.

Only 3% of colleges require a civics or government course. At high schools, they’ve largely stopped teaching because they no longer test on civics and teachers pretty much now teach to what’s going to be tested and so that’s why history is also going by the way. So, it’s just that people don’t know civics enough anymore to even know how to get involved in a party, to know how to take it over.

But I think it’d be easier for prolife people to take over the current Democrat party than it would be to start a new prolife party and be successful. I mean, that’s the nature of their organization. And if you understand civics, it really is not what kind of car you’ve got, it’s who’s behind the wheel of the car and where you drive in it. And so that’s what you want to do, is become the driver behind the wheel of the car, not invent a brand new car.

Delayed Election Results, The Democrat Party And More – On Foundations Of Freedom

Rick:

It has been really interesting, even in the last probably two, three years, the number of questions I’ve gotten at our book table after an event about how do I get involved in a party? What do I do to be more active as a Republican or Democrat or whatever? So there is definitely more interest on that level.

We are at a time for this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. But folks, you can get more at our website wallbuilderslive.com. Look in that archive section and you can listen to some of those previous Foundations of Freedom Thursdays. And you can send your questions in to us at [email protected] So send them to [email protected] We try to get to as many as we can on the Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs.

Don’t forget Good News Friday tomorrow, need a little bit up, listen to some of the good news we’re going to have right here on WallBuilders Live. And be sure to visit that website WallBuilders Live also, for the contribution. Make sure you do that one-time or monthly contribution as a listener supported program. We greatly appreciate you coming alongside us and being a part of the solution. Thanks again for listening to WallBuilders Live.

President Calvin Coolidge said, “The more I study the Constitution, the more I realized that no other document devised by the hand of man has brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.”