Would Congress nonetheless defy the ECRA and act illegally? To reject a state's electoral votes would require a majority in each house of the newly elected Congress. No matter which party controls the House and Senate, its margin is expected to be thin. Sen. Susan Collins was the leader oncr the Republican side in the bipartisan Senate group that drafted the ECRA. Other Republicans in that group who will still be in the Senate in January 2025 include Lisa Murkowski, Todd Young, and Shelley Moore Capito. Let's assume for the sake of analysis Republicans control the House and have 51 or 52 Senators. It would still take only one or maybe two Republicans to abide by the terms of the ECRA that they themselves drafted to defeat any plot in Congress to steal the election.

The second and only other basis on which the bipartisan Congress agreed it could lawfully object is also extremely limited. Congress can object if the document a governor sends in, identifying the electors, is defective in some way. Again, this provision does not give Congress the power to second guess the voting process in a state. Indeed, Sen. Ted Cruz voted against the Act precisely because it shut down Congress' power to do so.

The entire thrust of the ECRA is to emphasize that any disputes over the voting process are to be resolved in the courts, not in Congress.

First, Katyal worries that rogue governors might manipulate the certification process. Much of his essay rests on envisioning plots in which corrupt governors play the central role. But simply speaking politically, this is unlikely in any decisive state. In nearly all the swing states, the governors are Democrats, who are hardly going to be receptive to any entreaties by Trump. Georgia is an exception, but the key figures in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, have done as much under fire as any political officials to prove their commitment to certifying an accurate, lawful count.

Was Kemp cowed by Trump's attacks on his wife? If Trump does win, not even Republicans want to be on his enemies list:

Trump's attacks on Kemp, his wife reverberate across party

In fiery speech, former president assails state's top Republican for disloyalty'

It was a stunning display of venom aimed at Georgia's Republican governor by the party's presidential nominee.

On Saturday, at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Donald Trump referred to Brian Kemp at least twice as "little Brian." He described him as a "very average governor." He said, "Atlanta is like a killing field, and your governor ought to get off his ass and do something about it."

Most bitterly of all, Trump accused Kemp, state first lady Marty Kemp and Secretary of State Brian Raffensperger of "disloyalty"--in particular, the governor and secretary of state for failing to secure election victory in Georgia in 2020 and accusing them of "doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win."

One of the hazards of mucking around with the ministerial duty to certify election results. electionlawblog.org
#33 | Posted by et_al

Yes, if the state attorney general brings the charges. In the case you link to in Arizona, the state attorney general, Kris Mayes, is a Democrat.

FTA you linked to:

"The danger is real, but much of the speculation about mechanisms Trump or his allies might use to overturn election results risks unnecessarily raising the anxiety level of voters."

and:

"There is no way to make the system entirely failsafe against all risks. I'm particularly worried that Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will have long delays in getting to a definitive result, given that their laws still " unconscionably--refuse to permit their election officials to start processing absentee ballots until election day. If the results of the election cannot be known for several days, this will almost inevitably spawn suspicion and distrust, fueled by social-media conspiracy theories, and might lead to major efforts to disrupt the vote-counting process."