American Oversight has obtained copies of phony electoral vote certificates from seven states that were submitted to Congress as part of the failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The fake electoral certificates were assembled by groups of Trump supporters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin who sought to replace the valid presidential electors from their state — who had been chosen by voters in free and fair elections — with bogus slates of pro-Trump electors.
So … beyond baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud, at least a few Trump allies were actively conspiring to steal the election by creating and submitting falsified slates of electors.
ETA: I see that the American Oversight article is nearly a year old. I’m working out which bit of the story is new. And this is the new part (from CNN):
The documents were first posted online in March by the government watchdog group. But they received renewed attention this week, as the January 6 committee ramps up its investigation into Trump’s attempted coup, including how his allies tried to stop states from certifying Biden’s victory, in part, by installing friendly slates of electors who would overturn the will of the voters.
That’s interesting. There was (as you can imagine) a lot of talk on the board regarding the Electoral Count Act leading up to last January 6. One of the provisions of the Act is the VP (acting as President of the session to count the electoral votes) open and present all certificate of electors as well as any “papers purporting to be certificates” of electors. To my knowledge none of these fake certificates were opened during the session, so it would seem like the strict requirements of the act were not followed.
Was there any real chance the fake slates would be mistaken for the real ones? Or was the hope that Pence would go along with the plan and open the fake ones while slipping the real ones under his blotter or something?
IOW, was this an actual coup attempt, or another Big Lie stunt?
I think (and, Lord knows I could be wrong) the idea was that these would be opened; Pence would say that there is controversy over those states, so they could not be counted. Not sure if this was to lead to Trump directly declared as winner, or those states having the legislature vote on who they wanted to win, making Trump winner at a later date, or… reasons.
I’m not sure any fake slates were submitted to Congress. Maddow has been covering this story extensively over the past several months and particularly over the past several days. For example, the Pennsylvania one was completed but never sent anywhere.
These fake slates were not identified as wishful thinking in any way at all. They were submitted as the true slates of electors to the National Archives in at least 6 of the above-named states except Pennsylvania, where the phony document was completed but held back unless they were directed to submit them as the true slate of electors. But they did complete the document.
The CNN article previously cited by @DavidNRockies appears to have the most accurate information:
There was footage last night on Maddow that showed some of these fake slate electors being turned away from one of the state houses (Wisconsin or Michigan, I’m not sure which). So although these fake electors tried to submit their slates to Congress, I don’t believe any of them actually accomplished this.
Still, these are forgeries, they were purported to be actual, official documents, and whoever is behind this effort should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including all signers.
But the process is for states to submit their certificates of electors to the National Archives. The Archivist then submits them to the President of the Senate who opens them at the joint session.
I’d be curious at what point in these process these fake slates were stopped. Did the Archivist receive them, forward them to the VP, etc.
To be clear, there’s absolutely no way these fake slates could have been counted by the clear provisions of the Electoral Count Act. But a lot that day didn’t go as expected.
I think the more important point in all this is that there was a very orchestrated effort made to subvert and steal this election and it was far more widespread and focused than most realize. It appears to have been orchestrated by some person or entity that provided a template and instructions on how to complete the fake slates.
The “next step” would have been that without those votes counted, no candidate would have a clear majority of electors and so a contingent election would be held in the House. Since each state gets a single vote, the numerous red states would outvote the fewer but more populous blue states and Trump would get elected. So the theory goes.
And/but I – at least – had no idea that a forged paper trail was being created (however ham-fistedly) that could have – without relying on the usual RW “bullshit made from whole cloth” strategy – possibly forced that vote.
And it looks like the numbers would have been impossibly close:
In the current Congress, all 22 states with two Democratic senators went for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the November election, and all 22 states with two Republican senators went for GOP incumbent Donald Trump. Three of the states with split Senate delegations – Montana, Ohio and West Virginia – chose Trump, while the other two (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) opted for Biden. (Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allocate their electoral votes by congressional district. Maine, which has a split Senate delegation, gave three of its four electoral votes to Biden and one to Trump. Nebraska, which has two Republican senators, gave four of its five electoral votes to Trump and one to Biden.)
Plus or minus people who didn’t feel particularly treasonous, however many that represents. Fewer than I would have hoped, to be sure.
Assuming the joint session stuck to the requirements of the ECA, there was no way that the fake slates could have been counted or led to the real certificates not being counted. I had a post about the process when this was all going down, I’ll see if I can find it.
You are getting at the heart of the matter here. Of course all of these signers are guilty of fraud and more (possibly Pennsylvania was acting in a precautionary manner and did not intend to do evil as they sat on them rather than submit them). But Maddow also showed one of our Arizona signers try to wiggle out of responsibility for the fraud and he instructed the interviewer to check with the party leader (forgot the actual title). The fact of the matter is that while these partisan hacks do hold some sway in their party but they are small time operatives who do not want to be sentenced for sedition.
The DoJ needs to sweep them all up and hold them for a scary day or two while they face reality --and let them cough up bigger fish. Whoever told them to sign the things and sent them in to the authorities need to be swept up also. Then squeeze these pimples until, inevitably, orange starts to spit out of them. Once one of them admit that either Trump himself, or his lawyer or other representative told or “suggested” to take these steps the former administration is actually toast.
Ideally one of the state party chairs will fold and name Trump. Then they will show video of that person spilling and the entire cast of Sedition 2020 will jump on board and throw Trump under his own bus. The orange one is so very good at letting others pay for his mistakes but this crowd is big enough and has enough to lose to stand in a corner with all fingers pointed toward the true villain. This isn’t one contractor with cash flow problems he screwed over. This is a group of people who thought their actions would lead to a dear friend who could award presidential pardons. This sounds like the best place to squeeze and get results and it is because of the time constraints Trump had. He knew he would be toast (because he would have tortured his opponent if he had won and assumes everyone is as petty as he himself is), he had to risk bigger crimes in a winner take all and then he lost.
But like prisoners doing life, the Rs have no higher priority than to do post-mortems, figure out where they failed, and how they might succeed next time.
And we’re getting down to fairly administrative stuff where they really failed, far more than what happened on 1/6.
So, as we’ve all often discussed, a slightly more competent Home Office might achieve a different result.
And I don’t like counting on Pence, or the “Pences of this world” for such high-stakes stuff.
There was actually an attempt to dispense with the Electoral Count Act and make Pence the sole arbiter of which electors were certified, but even without that the point wasn’t necessarily to count those slates so much as to introduce enough uncertainty about the correct slates, two of which were contested and likely more would have been if not for the insurrection, and whether those slates should be counted at all, throwing the election to the House. If not for the invasion of the Capitol putting a major scare in some asses, it’s not so clear that there wouldn’t have been more shenanigans that day.
That’s an excellent summary of the law, but who decides whether the slate or purported slate of electors is in compliance with the safe harbor provision? What is to stop both houses from deciding that the one that we really know is the real one is not in compliance but your LaRouche scribbled on a napkin IS in compliance?