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Saturday, December 30, 2023 12:09:20 AM
The ‘fake electors’ and their role in the 2020 election, explained
"Exclusive: Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake
elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election"
By Amber Phillips
Updated August 1, 2023 at 7:22 p.m. EDT|Published July 20, 2023 at 9:43 a.m. EDT
A sign on a shuttered building proclaims that Trump won the 2020 election in Bancroft, W.Va., on
Oct. 23, 2021. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Donald Trump has been charged for conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other crimes, in the federal investigation into his campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
A key part of the indictment is their scheme to set up pro-Trump electors in seven states that Joe Biden actually won. The electoral process, special counsel Jack Smith explains in the indictment .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/01/indictment-document-trump-jan-6-pdf/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 , “is foundational to the United States’ democratic process.”
When you vote for a candidate for president, you’re really casting a vote for a political party’s electors in your state. Those electors will cast votes in the electoral college. Almost all states have laws saying that if a candidate wins the popular vote, that candidate wins the state’s electors. States have different numbers of electors, numbers determined by the states’ totals of representatives in Congress. In the 2020 election, Vermont had three electors and California had 55. To become president, a candidate needs a majority of electoral votes in the electoral college — at least 270.
Electors usually gather in their states about a month after the presidential election to cast their votes for president. Those votes then are sent to Congress for the final certification. (Electors are usually party loyalists, and it is rare for an elector to cast a rogue vote for someone other than the candidate who won the popular vote in their state. In some states, “faithless” electors can be fined or prosecuted for rogue votes or for abstaining.)
This process makes up the electoral college .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/08/24/how-electoral-college-works/?itid=lk_inline_manual_11 .
[ Insert from inside that link - [Hate our electoral system? Here’s who could have been president under other setups
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/election-outcome-other-systems/?tid=a_inl_manual&tidloc=3 ]]
Fake electors tried to overturn those results
After the 2020 election, Republicans in seven states that Trump had lost created their own slates of pro-Trump electors to compete with the official state slates of pro-Biden electors.
They falsely declared that Trump had won and that they were the true electors. Some of them signed official-looking documents purporting to be the real electors. Many of them tried to show up to their state capitols on Dec. 14, 2020, the day the legitimate electors met to cast their votes.
In Michigan, Trump supporters were blocked from entering the Capitol in Lansing by a police officer who told them: “The electors are already here .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/20/trump-documents-fake-elector-plan/?itid=lk_inline_manual_17 — they’ve been checked in.” In Georgia, Trump supporters met quietly in a conference room at the Capitol in Atlanta and were told by a Trump campaign staffer in an email .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/06/fake-trump-electors-ga-told-shroud-plans-secrecy-email-shows/?itid=lk_inline_manual_17 : “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.” In Arizona, pro-Trump electors gathered at the state GOP headquarters and broadcast their meeting on social media, dubbing it “the signing .. https://twitter.com/AZGOP/status/1338600278459727872?s=20 .” Alternative electors also gathered in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
[There dtuy, fucked up, of course was seen to be duty to Trump. Not duty to democracy. Not
even duty to the voters in the seven states. How many dwarfs in the fairy tale, Yeah, seven.]
At the time, most election officials and strategists chalked up the fake electors initiative as a performative effort by Trump supporters to demonstrate their loyalty to his false claims that he had won in the states concerned, writes The Post’s Rosalind S. Helderman .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/20/trump-documents-fake-elector-plan/?itid=lk_inline_manual_18 .
And many of the pro-Trump electors came ready with a defense: They were simply creating a backup slate in case a court later ruled that Trump had in fact won the state instead of Biden, as happened in Hawaii in 1960.
The Trump electors who met in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, for example, signed a document stating that their votes were to count only if state officials changed the election results.
But by the time this was all happening, almost all of Trump’s court cases challenging the results had been thrown out by judges. And state officials (including Republicans) had certified Biden’s victory in their states.
Why the government argues these pro-Trump electors are illegal
The indictment alleges Trump turned to the fake elector scheme only after his attempts to pressure state officials to overturn the results failed, and that he developed a “corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors’ votes from being counted and certified."
The plan was to urge illegitimate electors to meet in the swing states Trump lost and “mimic as best as possible the actions of the legitimate Biden electors.” The ultimate goal was to make this fraudulent scheme look professional enough for Vice President Pence to overturn the results on Jan. 6.
In other words, it was all part of an attempt to defraud the United States, which is one of the charges Trump now faces.
The indictment also says that some of these participants were tricked into doing Trump’s bidding. Pro-Trump electors included state party chairs and prominent party leaders. Emails suggest that some of them were told to work in secret and that Trump-allied lawyers sometimes questioned the legality of it all but pursued the undertaking anyway. The indictment shares a conversation with a lawyer in Arizona, who says Trump lawyers acknowledged that the Trump electors’ votes “aren’t legal under federal law” and that the plan is “kind of wild/creative.”
After these illegitimate electors met, the indictment traces an attempt to get the fake elector certificates to Vice President Pence’s hands, including by an unnamed “agent” of Trump enlisting the help of a U.S. senator’s staff to do it. (Pence’s staffer rejected them.)
While the federal indictment does not charge these illegitimate electors themselves, more than a dozen Republicans in Michigan .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/18/trump-electors-michigan/?itid=lk_inline_manual_36 .. have been charged for falsely presenting themselves as the state’s electors representatives to the electoral college.
Prosecutors say it was an attempt to switch the election results in Michigan, where Biden won by more than 150,000 votes. The wannabe electors were charged with forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and election law forgery. Some of the counts carry sentences of up to 14 years in prison. Prosecutors say these pro-Trump electors submitted falsified paperwork to the Senate, the National Archives and Records Administration, and other entities. Prosecutors noted that the pro-Trump electors claimed to have signed the document at the Michigan Capitol when the signing actually occurred at the state GOP headquarters.
[Gawd. You can't be much more of a dishonest crook than that (Yeah, there are much more honest crooks). All in the service of a dishonest bastard. Make sure to tell as many voters as you can, It really was an attempted coup. And do not forget to remind them Trump's people are working hard in his service for election 2024 ,
Trump Supporters Explain Why They Believe the Big Lie
[...] Read: Trump’s next coup has already begun
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=167072165]
“Submitting false records and false statements to official bodies is pretty bread-and-butter crime,” said Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor now at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan advocacy group that focuses on authoritarian threats and building more resilient democratic institutions.
But many involved with the effort and some legal experts say the Trump electors were engaging in normal political behavior that is protected by the First Amendment.
“This is not political theater. It’s not protected speech,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), who charged the pro-Trump electors, told The Washington Post last year .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/electors-giuliani-trump-electoral-college/2022/01/20/687e3698-7587-11ec-8b0a-bcfab800c430_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_42 . “It’s an attack on the very fabric of our system of government. And so it deserves to have federal prosecutorial and investigative scrutiny.”
In the end, the plan did fail in all seven states. Republican state legislatures did not step in to overturn the popular vote, despite pressure from Trump and his allies. And despite enormous pressure directed at Pence, he refused to reject the legitimate electors. But as Pence and lawmakers prepared on Jan. 6 to certify the election results, Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, threatening Pence’s life.
What happened in Hawaii that Republicans keep using as their defense
In the 1960 presidential election, the results in Hawaii were too close to call. Richard M. Nixon was leading John F. Kennedy in the state by just 140 votes, and there was a recount of the whole state. The recount was ongoing as Republican electors met in the state to cast their votes for Nixon, and Democratic electors met and cast their votes for Kennedy, in case he was declared the winner. (He eventually was.)
Legal experts say there is a major difference between what happened then and in 2020: The results in Hawaii were legitimately in question, while Trump’s legal challenges had already been dismissed or soon would be.
This has been updated with the latest news.
Amber Phillips explains and analyzes politics and authors The 5-Minute Fix
newsletter, a quick analysis of the day's biggest political news. Twitter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/20/fake-electors-charges-trump-2020-election/
"Exclusive: Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake
elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election"
By Amber Phillips
Updated August 1, 2023 at 7:22 p.m. EDT|Published July 20, 2023 at 9:43 a.m. EDT
A sign on a shuttered building proclaims that Trump won the 2020 election in Bancroft, W.Va., on
Oct. 23, 2021. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Donald Trump has been charged for conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other crimes, in the federal investigation into his campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
A key part of the indictment is their scheme to set up pro-Trump electors in seven states that Joe Biden actually won. The electoral process, special counsel Jack Smith explains in the indictment .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/01/indictment-document-trump-jan-6-pdf/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 , “is foundational to the United States’ democratic process.”
When you vote for a candidate for president, you’re really casting a vote for a political party’s electors in your state. Those electors will cast votes in the electoral college. Almost all states have laws saying that if a candidate wins the popular vote, that candidate wins the state’s electors. States have different numbers of electors, numbers determined by the states’ totals of representatives in Congress. In the 2020 election, Vermont had three electors and California had 55. To become president, a candidate needs a majority of electoral votes in the electoral college — at least 270.
Electors usually gather in their states about a month after the presidential election to cast their votes for president. Those votes then are sent to Congress for the final certification. (Electors are usually party loyalists, and it is rare for an elector to cast a rogue vote for someone other than the candidate who won the popular vote in their state. In some states, “faithless” electors can be fined or prosecuted for rogue votes or for abstaining.)
This process makes up the electoral college .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/08/24/how-electoral-college-works/?itid=lk_inline_manual_11 .
[ Insert from inside that link - [Hate our electoral system? Here’s who could have been president under other setups
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/election-outcome-other-systems/?tid=a_inl_manual&tidloc=3 ]]
Fake electors tried to overturn those results
After the 2020 election, Republicans in seven states that Trump had lost created their own slates of pro-Trump electors to compete with the official state slates of pro-Biden electors.
They falsely declared that Trump had won and that they were the true electors. Some of them signed official-looking documents purporting to be the real electors. Many of them tried to show up to their state capitols on Dec. 14, 2020, the day the legitimate electors met to cast their votes.
In Michigan, Trump supporters were blocked from entering the Capitol in Lansing by a police officer who told them: “The electors are already here .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/20/trump-documents-fake-elector-plan/?itid=lk_inline_manual_17 — they’ve been checked in.” In Georgia, Trump supporters met quietly in a conference room at the Capitol in Atlanta and were told by a Trump campaign staffer in an email .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/06/fake-trump-electors-ga-told-shroud-plans-secrecy-email-shows/?itid=lk_inline_manual_17 : “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.” In Arizona, pro-Trump electors gathered at the state GOP headquarters and broadcast their meeting on social media, dubbing it “the signing .. https://twitter.com/AZGOP/status/1338600278459727872?s=20 .” Alternative electors also gathered in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
[There dtuy, fucked up, of course was seen to be duty to Trump. Not duty to democracy. Not
even duty to the voters in the seven states. How many dwarfs in the fairy tale, Yeah, seven.]
At the time, most election officials and strategists chalked up the fake electors initiative as a performative effort by Trump supporters to demonstrate their loyalty to his false claims that he had won in the states concerned, writes The Post’s Rosalind S. Helderman .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/20/trump-documents-fake-elector-plan/?itid=lk_inline_manual_18 .
And many of the pro-Trump electors came ready with a defense: They were simply creating a backup slate in case a court later ruled that Trump had in fact won the state instead of Biden, as happened in Hawaii in 1960.
The Trump electors who met in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, for example, signed a document stating that their votes were to count only if state officials changed the election results.
But by the time this was all happening, almost all of Trump’s court cases challenging the results had been thrown out by judges. And state officials (including Republicans) had certified Biden’s victory in their states.
Why the government argues these pro-Trump electors are illegal
The indictment alleges Trump turned to the fake elector scheme only after his attempts to pressure state officials to overturn the results failed, and that he developed a “corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors’ votes from being counted and certified."
The plan was to urge illegitimate electors to meet in the swing states Trump lost and “mimic as best as possible the actions of the legitimate Biden electors.” The ultimate goal was to make this fraudulent scheme look professional enough for Vice President Pence to overturn the results on Jan. 6.
In other words, it was all part of an attempt to defraud the United States, which is one of the charges Trump now faces.
The indictment also says that some of these participants were tricked into doing Trump’s bidding. Pro-Trump electors included state party chairs and prominent party leaders. Emails suggest that some of them were told to work in secret and that Trump-allied lawyers sometimes questioned the legality of it all but pursued the undertaking anyway. The indictment shares a conversation with a lawyer in Arizona, who says Trump lawyers acknowledged that the Trump electors’ votes “aren’t legal under federal law” and that the plan is “kind of wild/creative.”
After these illegitimate electors met, the indictment traces an attempt to get the fake elector certificates to Vice President Pence’s hands, including by an unnamed “agent” of Trump enlisting the help of a U.S. senator’s staff to do it. (Pence’s staffer rejected them.)
While the federal indictment does not charge these illegitimate electors themselves, more than a dozen Republicans in Michigan .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/18/trump-electors-michigan/?itid=lk_inline_manual_36 .. have been charged for falsely presenting themselves as the state’s electors representatives to the electoral college.
Prosecutors say it was an attempt to switch the election results in Michigan, where Biden won by more than 150,000 votes. The wannabe electors were charged with forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and election law forgery. Some of the counts carry sentences of up to 14 years in prison. Prosecutors say these pro-Trump electors submitted falsified paperwork to the Senate, the National Archives and Records Administration, and other entities. Prosecutors noted that the pro-Trump electors claimed to have signed the document at the Michigan Capitol when the signing actually occurred at the state GOP headquarters.
[Gawd. You can't be much more of a dishonest crook than that (Yeah, there are much more honest crooks). All in the service of a dishonest bastard. Make sure to tell as many voters as you can, It really was an attempted coup. And do not forget to remind them Trump's people are working hard in his service for election 2024 ,
Trump Supporters Explain Why They Believe the Big Lie
[...] Read: Trump’s next coup has already begun
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=167072165]
“Submitting false records and false statements to official bodies is pretty bread-and-butter crime,” said Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor now at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan advocacy group that focuses on authoritarian threats and building more resilient democratic institutions.
But many involved with the effort and some legal experts say the Trump electors were engaging in normal political behavior that is protected by the First Amendment.
“This is not political theater. It’s not protected speech,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), who charged the pro-Trump electors, told The Washington Post last year .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/electors-giuliani-trump-electoral-college/2022/01/20/687e3698-7587-11ec-8b0a-bcfab800c430_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_42 . “It’s an attack on the very fabric of our system of government. And so it deserves to have federal prosecutorial and investigative scrutiny.”
In the end, the plan did fail in all seven states. Republican state legislatures did not step in to overturn the popular vote, despite pressure from Trump and his allies. And despite enormous pressure directed at Pence, he refused to reject the legitimate electors. But as Pence and lawmakers prepared on Jan. 6 to certify the election results, Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, threatening Pence’s life.
What happened in Hawaii that Republicans keep using as their defense
In the 1960 presidential election, the results in Hawaii were too close to call. Richard M. Nixon was leading John F. Kennedy in the state by just 140 votes, and there was a recount of the whole state. The recount was ongoing as Republican electors met in the state to cast their votes for Nixon, and Democratic electors met and cast their votes for Kennedy, in case he was declared the winner. (He eventually was.)
Legal experts say there is a major difference between what happened then and in 2020: The results in Hawaii were legitimately in question, while Trump’s legal challenges had already been dismissed or soon would be.
This has been updated with the latest news.
Amber Phillips explains and analyzes politics and authors The 5-Minute Fix
newsletter, a quick analysis of the day's biggest political news. Twitter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/20/fake-electors-charges-trump-2020-election/
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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