this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Out of the loop
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The document is called a Certificate of Ascertainment and once it's been signed by the electors (who are representatives designated to "vote" for the state's chosen candidate), several copies are made and sent several places, the most important place being to the vice president who, on January 6th, opens them and reads them aloud.
If you were to send in your own Certificate of Ascertainment as you described, you too would be participating in an elector scheme and may be charged like the folks in Michigan.
Thank you! This is "out of the loop" lemmy, I'm literally just asking questions because I am confused what is going on and what was supposed to happen.
On my primary election ballot for president in 2020 I remember it was organized such that I didn't vote for a candidate directly but voted for "Delegates to National Convention" for my Congressional district. There were 50 names on a list - 10 "pledged to support Biden", 10 "pledged to support Sanders", etc. - and I could vote for any of them, up to 10 in total. Could mix and match, whatever. Then the top 10 winners would travel to the party nomination convention and vote it out among themselves, including possibly voting for candidates other than who they pledged for.
Am I to understand that the way the general election and the electoral college function is different from that? Could someone clarify which of these scenarios is the real one?
Option 1
Democratic and Republican parties in Michigan each draft a list with 15 names for candidates to the Electoral College. The candidates sign their respective lists to acknowledge they are on it. The Michigan Board of Elections holds a general election. The Michigan governor sees which party won the popular vote, and puts the candidates from that party's list on a bus to DC. At the Electoral College building in DC, all electors from all states have a roll call and elect the President. This is just a formality since the result is known after general election day. The electors are expected to vote for the presidential candidate that their parties chose them for, but you could also have "faithless electors" who switch their vote. [this is what I thought happens]
Option 2
Like option 1, but too lazy to use the bus. The governor sees which party won the popular vote, takes that party's list, stamps it with the governor's stamp, and sends to to Vice President in Washington. On January 6, the VP reads the list out loud in Congress: "these 15 electors from Michigan vote to elect Biden". Somebody grabbed the other list and sent it to Washington too. When the VP holds two lists in his hands on January 6, he can claim he doesn't know which paper is the real one, and then do something undemocratic. There is literally no way to tell which piece of paper is the real one (other than already knowing the election results), but the guy who sent the second list committed felony interference with an official process.
Option 3
Like option 2, but with no lists prepared in advance. When the governor gets the election results report from the Board of Elections, she says "I drafted a piece of paper that says Michigan is electing Biden, but for bullshit electoral college reasons I need to put 15 names on it. Who wants to sign?" 15 random people, possibly from the governor's office, or Democratic party officials, come up and sign their names on it. The governor stamps the list and mails it to VP in Washington. Meanwhile some shady Trump lawyer writes a fake piece of paper that says "Michigan is electing Trump" and gets 15 random shady people, who have nothing to do with the governor or the board of elections, to sign it. The shady lawyer mails the list to VP as well. There is no way to tell which list is the real one, but all 15 people on the fake one + the lawyer are liable for felony interference.
I am asking this so specifically, because the defense that the fake electors are using is "we were just given a piece of paper to sign and we signed it". To me the electors would be liable only in Option 3, not in Option 2 where the lists are prepared legitimately in advance and used fraudulently only later. Whoever sent the fake list would be liable in either case, but it is unclear to me who that is exactly. And even in Option 3 it is unclear to me how the electors would know which paper is the real one to sign. "Sign this!" - "But it says Trump won, and I heard Biden won the popular vote..." - "No, Trump won. I heard it from the Board of Elections." - "And who are you?" - "I am a shady lawyer but I work for the governor, trust me. Now sign!" - "Oh ok...". If the only way to know that the paper you are signing is the legitimate one and to avoid possible future felony charges is to already know the election result, but the official election result is determined by that very paper, is that not a circular authentication loop?
Your option 2 is the closest. So electors in the electoral college are appointed ahead of time, and it's basically an honorary thing. "you've done a lot for the democratic party in our state, here's a little something for you." they are known ahead of time. After the election when results are known, those figureheads sign a document (certificate of Ascertainment). This isn't prepared/signed ahead of time, though they know who will sign based on who won the election in that state. The fake electors in Michigan decided to create a faux document to create confusion to stall, essentially.
Thank you!
Oh cool, you can see the actual Certificate of Ascertainment in the National Archives. It only has the governor's seal and signature though. Did the fake electors create a fake certificate, forging the governor's signature? Or did they simply send in their ballots? Apparently it is the 12th Amendment that specifies how electors will meet within their respective states, fill out their ballots, and send them to the President of the Senate (saving the bus fare). And then the Electoral Count Act of 1887 created the ascertainment process, because in 1876 the Senate did receive ballots from multiple contradictory electors from a bunch of states. A copy of the Certificate of Ascertainment is sent to the Senate in addition to the "Certificate of Votes" which bears the counts of the actual votes by the electors. The governor's signature on the Certificate of Ascertainment is what proves which electors are the real ones.
In that case, why are the fake ballots even a problem? The news presents this as some novel brilliant last-ditch scheme to stall the election or cast it in doubt. But the scheme is 144 years old and the loophole was closed for good 133 years ago!
I'm guessing the fake electors didn't forge the Certificate of Ascertainment, but signed an unauthorized Certificate of Vote. The certificate says:
Given this language, the Republican electors signing such a certificate would indeed be committing felony fraud in my opinion because they were NOT "elected in the General Election" (they lost) and they were NOT "duly convened". The "they just gave us some piece of paper to sign" is not a believable excuse, since if they could write they could read.